The Conditional Nature of Administrative Responsiveness to Public Opinion

1. Table 1. The Federal Communication Commission Responsiveness to Public Opinion X* X* X* X* X* X* X* The Conditional Nature of Administrative Responsiveness to Public Opinion Julia Rabinovich Northwestern University Comparative Static Abstract Statistical Model for “Representation as a Distance” Central to the study of democratic politics is the study of the relationship between public opinion and policy. Most public opinion-policy nexus studies have focused on the electoral connection between citizens and their elected representatives, while paying little attention to the relationship between public opinion and policy-making delegated to and implemented by executive agencies (e.g., Page and Shapiro 1983, 1992; Monroe 1979, 1998; Erikson, MacKuen and Stimson 2003). Alternatively, administrative politics scholars have focused almost exclusively on the role of political elites (elected politicians and interest groups), and have rarely included the preferences of the general public in their analyses e.g., McCubbins, Noll and Weingast 1987, Weingast and Moran 1983, McCubbins and Schwartz 1984, Shipan 2004) . To address the limitations of these two literatures, this study examines the direct link between the preferences and opinions of the general public and administrative policy-making in the United States over a period of more than 30 years. I develop a new theoretical approach to studying the general public’s role in the policymaking process, one that accounts not only for the electoral connection between the public and elected representatives, but also for the interactions between political institutions such as Congress, the President and executive agencies. I contend that congressional oversight – the primary mechanism connecting legislative and executive institutions – affects administrative policy-making and, consequently, plays a critical role in shaping policy responsiveness to public opinion. My theoretical model suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, congressional policy-making that closely reflects citizens’ preferences does not necessarily translate into administrative policy responsiveness to the general public’s wishes. In some cases, legislative responsiveness indeed induces administrative responsiveness; however, under certain political circumstances, such as a divided government, greater legislative responsiveness to public opinion can result in less responsiveness from executive agencies. • . Two views of representation: 1. Responsiveness as a movement of public opinion and policy in the same direction. This assumption is prevalent in the legislative responsiveness literature. The basic logic behind this assumption is that changes in public opinion (that precede changes in policy) should be followed by changes in policy in the same direction. To devise comparative static for this notion of responsiveness, I am solving for each one of the equilibrium regimes. Graphically: Responsiveness: Nonresponsiveness: Adverse responsiveness: Note: The location of public opinion has no effect on the extent or the direction of responsiveness. 2. Responsiveness as a change in the distance between public’s preferences and policy. Under this notion of responsiveness, I am analyzing the impact of legislative responsiveness, which is represented in the legislature’s utility function as α, on the absolute distance between public’s preferences and policy, i.e. I analyze Note: α is a weight that legislature assigns to public opinion in any given point in time (i.e. legislative responsiveness to public opinion) Graphically: Nonresponsiveness: Convergence: Divergence: |Yt-Public Opinion| = β0 + β1convergence*legislative responsiveness + β2divergence*legislative responsiveness + β3nonresponsiveness*legislative responsiveness + βiXi,t + εt where Yt is a measure of administrative policy output at time t. Convergence, divergence and nonresponsiveness are dummy variables set equal to one when the condition is present and zero otherwise. Xi,tis a vector of control variables, including committee preferences, agency preferences and appropriation data and εt is an error term. Data The estimation of the empirical model using theoretical predictions requires a measure of α= (X(P,NP) +NP)/P-NP. However, while X(P,NP) can be estimated using legislative voting behavior (ADA scores in this study), there are no available measures of legislative preferences independent of public opinion. In this study I estimate legislative responsiveness as a difference between the actual voting behavior of the legislature and the one predicted by public opinion. Legislative responsiveness=|ADA score-ADA score predicted by Policy Mood| Results – FCC Policymaking 1966-1996 Theoretical Model • The model includes four actors: a legislature (L), a committee with jurisdiction over the agency’s policy realm (C), an agency (A) and the general public (P). • - One dimensional, full information model • The payoff functions: • The decisive member of the agency: uA(x)= -(x – A)2 • The decisive member of the oversight committee: uC(x)= -(x – C)2 • The decisive member of the legislature: uL(x)= -α (x – P)2 – (1- α)(x – NP)2 • Notice that what sets this model apart from other models is that I divide legislature’s utility function into two separate components: the utility derived from serving the public and the utility from other sources such as legislator’s own preferences, interest groups pressure, etc. • The Sequence of Actions: • Stage 1: The agency makes a policy proposal (x). • Stage 2: In response to the agency’s proposal, the committee either introduces a bill (b) or refrains from introducing a bill (gatekeeping). If the committee decides not to propose a bill, the game ends and the outcome is the originally proposed policy (x). • Stage 3: If the committee decides to introduce a bill to the floor, the legislature can either accept, reject or amend the proposed legislation. If the legislature rejects the legislation, the outcome is the originally proposed policy (x). If the legislature accepts the legislation, the outcome is the committee’s proposal (c). If the legislature decides to amend the legislation, it will set it at its ideal policy (assuming open rule) and the final outcome would be an amended bill (b’). • Equilibrium strategies (SPE): • A, if A (min (X (P, NP), C(X (P,NP)), max (X (P, NP), C(X (P,NP))) – regime 1 • X*= max (X (P, NP), C(X (P,NP), if A max - regime 2 • min (X (P, NP), C(X (P,NP), if A min - regime 3 • where X (P, NP) = argmaxxЄRUL(x)=αP + (1-α)NP; and C (X (P,NP)) = 2C – X(P,NP) Conclusions • The theoretical results indicate that legislative responsiveness does not always translate into administrative responsiveness • especially when the executive and the legislature are far apart and public’s preferences are very close to either one of the institutions • The theory directs us to reconsider the specification of the policy responsiveness to the public opinion: • On the one hand, we might underestimate responsiveness if we do not account for the possibility of movement of policy and public opinion in the same direction • On the other hand, we might overestimate responsiveness if we do not account for the various conditions for responsiveness • A need for further empirical investigation The main difference between the two views of responsiveness is that the “responsiveness as a distance” view picks up the possibility that public opinion and policy move toward each other. The situation that would have been classified as adverse responsiveness by the “responsiveness as a movement in the same direction” view