http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... eir-views/
Now, a paper by political scientists at UC Berkeley and the Washington University in St. Louis reports on the results of a novel real-world experiment. The study finds that contrary to classic theories of democracy, voters did not view politicians more negatively when the politicians took positions voters opposed. Not only that, voters often adopted these positions themselves, even when politicians offered little or no justification for them.
These results "leave open the possibility that politicians think the constraints public opinion places on them are stronger than they are," the authors conclude, and they suggest that "politicians can enjoy broad latitude to shape public opinion."
Here's how the experiment worked: The researchers recruited 7 Democratic state lawmakers in an unnamed midwestern state. In the spring of 2014, the researchers surveyed registered voters in the lawmakers' districts to determine which issue positions had the least public support. The issues included everything from immigration to taxation to marijuana policy.
The legislators then sent official letters to registered voters of both political parties in their respective districts. The letters were targeted toward voters who had expressed opinions that were at odds with the lawmakers' own stances. The voters were randomly assigned to receive one of three letters. From the report:
(i) a “control” letter where the legislator introduced themselves, described the services their office could conduct for constituents, and described a few locally oriented achievements (e.g., designating a building downtown a historic place),
(ii) a “direct” policy letter that added language in which the legislators took a position the recipient had not agreed with previously and made only the briefest justification for their position, and
(iii) an “arguments” policy letter that added extensive arguments for this position designed to appeal to citizens’ values
Finally, they performed a follow-up survey of the constituents to see how their opinions of both the issues and the politicians had changed, if at all. As it turns out, the positions staked out by the legislators had a significant effect on their constituents views: "The constituents who were sent letters with the legislators’ positions were about 5 percentage points less likely to disagree with the legislator and about 5 percentage points more likely to agree with the legislator." ... "
Now all we have to do is find politicians whose opinions are based on good science who can lead.
yrs,
rubato
