Elites and public opinion: Analysing the interaction of public opinion, policy-making and party strategy

Bringing together both junior and senior scholars, we envision that this session will be a first step towards building an international network on political elites’ production, perception and mobilisation of public opinion. We therefore invite proposals linked to the following lines of inquiry: 1) The production of opinion research What research do individual policy makers, governments and parties commission? Are there patterns to when they are more likely to commission qualitative research, e.g. focus groups rather than surveys? Do they focus on the popularity of different positions, the salience of issues, or the popularity of rival frames for presenting the same policy choice? When do they use opinion research to test new ideas as opposed to evaluating existing policy measures and proposals? Which actors are involved in the process of commissioning and designing of research projects? How do elites make use of public opinion research commissioned by third party actors such as think tanks or interest groups? 2) Representational practises Are individual policy makers, governments and political parties more likely to respond to the electoral incentives identified in private polling than to the incentives identified by more publicly available information about public opinion? Is the information used to assist political elites in responding to voters’ preferences or as a tool for manipulating opinion? 3) Selective responsiveness Analysis of how political actors use privately commissioned public opinion research may also help us to understand the conditions which affect responsiveness. Are policymakers and parties more responsive to the preferences of the median voter or to the preferences of their own supporters? Are they more responsive in the run-up to an election (Canes-Wrone & Shotts 2004) or immediately after an election (Bonafont & Palau, 2011; Pardos-Prado & Sagarzazu 2019)? What other variables affect the likelihood of responsiveness? Studies have also shown that certain "target groups" can be "better represented" than others (Gilens 2009; Bartels 2008; Peters & Ensink 2015) leading to unequal representation (Elsässer & Schäfer 2016). We are interested in contributions that address the issue of representation around these "unequal voices." Proposals may freely evoke other research themes pertaining to the production of public opinion and its use by governments and parties, as well as methodological questions around strategies to access information around such research. Due to the emerging nature of this area of research interest, we anticipate that many proposals are likely to examine single-country or even single-government case studies but comparative research projects would be particularly welcomed. Thanks to the project “The construction of surveyed public opinion in France and Germany” financed by the French National Research Agency we are able to fund the attendance of one early career scholar at the workshop who would otherwise not be able to attend.