Elites’ Perceptions of Public Opinion

Abstract

Elites responding to public preferences is one of the mechanisms via which representation comes about—the other classic mechanism being electoral replacement through a correctly voting electorate (as Miller & Stokes, 1963 classically argued). If politicians, whether out of strategic concerns or out of an intrinsic feeling of duty, want to be responsive towards the preferences of citizens, they first and foremost need to have accurate ideas of what those preferences actually are. If the opposite is true and elites hold (in)accurate perceptions of voters’ concerns and act upon those, public preferences will not be properly represented. Given that elite perceptions of public opinion matter greatly for democratic representation, we propose to organize a panel on this topic at the ECPR general conference 2020, in which scholars are invited to submit papers on the broad topic of elite perceptions, whether of voters’ preferences for policy positions, voters’ priorities for actions, or of potential electoral reactions.

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