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Systematically Biased Beliefs about Political Influence: Evidence from the Perceptions of Political Influence on Policy Outcomes Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2013

Bryan Caplan ,
Eric Crampton ,
Wayne A. Grove  and
Ilya Somin
Bryan Caplan
Affiliation:
George Mason University
Eric Crampton
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury
Wayne A. Grove
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
Ilya Somin
Affiliation:
George Mason University
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Abstract

Many scholars argue that retrospective voting is a powerful information shortcut that offsets widespread voter ignorance. Even deeply ignorant voters, it is claimed, can effectively punish incumbents for bad performance and reward them if things go well. But if voters' understanding of which officials are responsible for which outcomes is systematically biased, retrospective voting becomes an independent source of political failure rather than a cure for it. We design and administer a new survey of the general public and political experts to test for such biases. Our analysis reveals frequent, large, robust biases in voter attributions of responsibility for a variety of political actors and outcomes with a tendency for the public to overestimate influence, although important examples of underestimation also exist.

Type
Features
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 760 - 767
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

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