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Do Policy Makers Listen to Experts? Evidence from a National Survey of Local and State Policy Makers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2021

NATHAN LEE Open the ORCID record for NATHAN LEE [Opens in a new window]
NATHAN LEE*
Affiliation:
Rochester Institute of Technology, United States
*
Nathan R. Lee, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology, United States, and Managing Director, CivicPulse, United States, nrlcla@rit.edu.
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Abstract

Do elected officials update their policy positions in response to expert evidence? A large literature in political behavior demonstrates a range of biases that individuals may manifest in evaluating information. However, elected officials may be motivated to accurately incorporate information when it could affect the welfare of their constituents. I investigate these competing predictions through a national survey of local and state policy makers in which I present respondents with established expert findings concerning three subnational policy debates, debates that vary as to whether Republicans or Democrats are more likely to see the findings as confirmatory or challenging. Using both cross-subject and within-subject designs, I find policy makers update their beliefs and preferences in the direction of the evidence irrespective of the valence of the information. These findings have implications for the application of mass political behavior theories to politicians as well as the prospects for evidence-based policy making.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 116 , Issue 2 , May 2022 , pp. 677 - 688
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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