Public Voices in the Heavenly Chorus? Group Type Bias and Opinion Representation
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Public Voices in the Heavenly Chorus? Group Type Bias and Opinion Representation. / Flöthe, Linda; Rasmussen, Anne.
In: Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 26, No. 19, 2019, p. 824-842.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Public Voices in the Heavenly Chorus?
T2 - Group Type Bias and Opinion Representation
AU - Flöthe, Linda
AU - Rasmussen, Anne
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - While strong voices in the academic literature and real-world politics regard interest groups as biased representatives of the public, we know little about the scope and consequences of such biases for democratic governance. We conduct the first cross-national comparison of group and public preferences analyzing a new dataset of 50 issues in five West European countries. Despite the negative image of interest groups in politics, we find that their positions are in line with public opinion more than half the time. Moreover, while firms and business associations enjoy weaker support for their positions among citizens than public interest groups, they still enjoy the backing of a sizable share of the public. Additionally, we find no general pattern that communities with low interest group diversity are less likely to represent public opinion. Our findings have implications for democratic governance and discussions of how to conceptualize and measure biases in interest representation.
AB - While strong voices in the academic literature and real-world politics regard interest groups as biased representatives of the public, we know little about the scope and consequences of such biases for democratic governance. We conduct the first cross-national comparison of group and public preferences analyzing a new dataset of 50 issues in five West European countries. Despite the negative image of interest groups in politics, we find that their positions are in line with public opinion more than half the time. Moreover, while firms and business associations enjoy weaker support for their positions among citizens than public interest groups, they still enjoy the backing of a sizable share of the public. Additionally, we find no general pattern that communities with low interest group diversity are less likely to represent public opinion. Our findings have implications for democratic governance and discussions of how to conceptualize and measure biases in interest representation.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Interest groups
KW - public opnion
KW - public policy
KW - representation
KW - congruence
U2 - 10.1080/13501763.2018.1489418
DO - 10.1080/13501763.2018.1489418
M3 - Journal article
VL - 26
SP - 824
EP - 842
JO - Journal of European Public Policy
JF - Journal of European Public Policy
SN - 1350-1763
IS - 19
ER -
ID: 196699804