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Politicians' Beliefs about Voters*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John W. Kingdon
John W. Kingdon*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

The pattern of communications between representatives and constituents has become a matter of central concern to many students of legislative behavior. As Lewis A. Dexter points out, the statement that a Congressman “represents” his district is only shorthand for the fact that the Congressman “represents his image of the district or of his constituents.” This image is established, according to Dexter, by the communications between representative and constituents: “what he hears from the district as he interprets it.” Miller and Stokes explore directly Congressmen's images of their constituents' opinions. The representative's image of his district is significant because it may constitute part of the explanation for various important types of behavior, such as his roll call voting, the stands he takes on issues of public policy, and the formulation of his campaign strategies.

A portion of a representative's image of his district is composed of his beliefs about voters, his explicit or implicit theory of voting behavior. Because his position is contingent upon the approval of a majority of voters in an election, he is likely to consider at least to some degree the effect that various of his decisions might have on election outcomes. In making such judgments, the representative probably makes some assumptions, conscious or not, about the manner in which voters make their choices. If he believes, for example, that voters pay close attention to his actions, he probably feels more constrained by his district's likely opinions than if he does not hold that belief.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 137 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1967

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to many for helpful comments, among them Ralph Huitt, Austin Ranney, Leon Epstein, Philip Converse, Donald Stokes, Warren Miller, and Jack Walker.

References

1 Dexter, Lewis Anthony, “The Representative and his District,” Human Organization, 16 (1957), pp. 2–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Part of this research is reported in Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., “Constituency Influence in Congress,” this Review, 57 (1963), pp. 45–56.Google Scholar

3 Fortunately, data are available which can be easily adapted to indicate the importance of these beliefs about voters. In 1958, the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan collected data designed to explore the subject of the relations between Congressmen and their constituents. In each of 116 congressional districts, the incumbent Congressman, his general election opponent, and a sample of voters were interviewed. Some of the findings, methodological considerations, and procedures have already been reported in Miller and Stokes, op. cit.

A secondary analysis of these data suggests that Congressmen who believe that their constituents are interested in and informed about issues of governmental policy are more likely to reflect constituency attitudes in their voting in Congress than those who believe that their constituents are less politically aware. When one separates Congressmen into two groups, those who perceive a relatively high degree of voter interest in issues and those who perceive relatively low voter interest, according to their answers to the question, “How many people would you say there are in your district who are really interested and who keep up-to-date on issues like those we've talked about?”, the Pearsonian product-moment correlation between constituency attitudes on social welfare policies and the Congressmen's roll call votes on these policies is .32 for those with a low estimate of voter interest in issues and .60 for those with a high estimate of voter interest. If one considers only the majority element in the constituency rather than the whole constituency, the correlation between the majority element's attitude and roll call vote for those with a low estimate of voter interest is .57; for those with a high estimate of voter interest, .87.

The same picture emerges when Congressmen 0are again divided into two groups on the question, “How much do you think the people of your district know about your stands on issues like those we've talked about?” The correlation between the whole constituency's attitude and roll calls on social welfare measures for those with a low estimate of voter knowledge of incumbent's stands is .34; for those with a high estimate, .59. The correlations between the majority element in the constituency and roll call for those with a low estimate is .56; for those with a high estimate, .94. Even though the figures may somewhat overestimate the strength of the relationships, due to the effect of a correction introduced for the small samples of constituents, comparison of Congressmen with high estimates of voter awareness with those with low estimates still decidedly suggests that a politician's theory of voting behavior does influence his decisions on matters of public policy to an important degree.

I am indebted to Warren Miller and Donald Stokes, the directors of the project, for the use of these data.

4 Ranney, Austin and Kendall, Willmoore, Democracy and the American Party System (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956) pp. 340–344.Google Scholar

5 Converse, Philip E., Clausen, Aage R., and Miller, Warren E., “Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election,” this Review, 59 (1965), pp. 332 and 335.Google Scholar

6 In two districts with terms longer than two years, the 1962 candidates were chosen.

7 The exact phrasing of questions appears in footnotes to the tables.

8 For the survey studies on these points, see Campbell, Angus, Gurin, Gerald, and Miller, Warren E., The Voter Decides (Evanston: Row, Peterson, 1954)Google Scholar; Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1960)Google Scholar; and Campbell, Angus and Stokes, Donald E., “Partisan Attitudes and the Presidential Vote,” in Burdick, Eugene and Broadbeck, Arthur J., American Voting Behavior (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959).Google Scholar

9 The decisiveness of the win or loss has no substantial impact on these results, except where noted.

10 The proportion of state legislative winners saying that party label is all or very important is 56%; the same proportion of higher-level winners is 31%. The proportions of winners saying that issues are all or very important are: legislative—33%; higher level—50%.

11 Of the state legislative winners, 13% say that voters are very interested in their campaigns, while 50% of the higher-level winners say so. The proportion of state legislative winners saying that voters are very well informed is 13%; of higherlevel winners, 38%.

12 For the general theory upon which this statement is based, see Festinger, Leon, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Evanston: Row, Peterson, 1957).Google Scholar

13 Campbell, et. al., The American Voter, op. cit.

14 Miller and Stokes, op. cit.

15 See Jacob, Herbert and Vines, Kenneth N. (eds.), Politics in the American States (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965), p. 29.Google Scholar

16 Jacob and Vines, op. cit., p. 88.

17 Milbrath, Lester W., The Washington Lobbyists (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1963), pp. 301–304.Google Scholar

18 Huitt, Ralph K., “The Outsider in the Senate: An Alternative Role,” this Review, 55 (1961), p. 568.Google Scholar

19 Bauer, Raymond A., Pool, Ithiel de Sola, and Dexter, Lewis Anthony, American Business and Public Policy (New York: Atherton Press, 1964), p. 423.Google Scholar

20 Friedrich, Carl J., Constitutional Government and Democracy (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1950), p. 49.Google Scholar Other writers have also used essentially the same concept. These include Key, V. O. Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961) p. 263Google Scholar, “latency of public opinion”; Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), p. 34Google Scholar, “potential groups”; and Dahl, Robert A., Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 132.Google Scholar