How governments translate public opinion into public policy?

What is it about?

European democracies differ in the number of government coalition partners and in the preferences of political parties that compose the government. We study the question how different governments translate public opinion into public policy. To do that, we track more than 300 proposals for new policies for four years in three countries: Germany, Denmark and the UK. We find that public opinion for a new policy significantly increases the chance that the policy will be adopted. But single-party governments are no better or worse in responding to public opinion than coalition governments. And when the government strongly supports the policy change, public opinion does no matter much. Yet, when the government does not support the policy change, having strong public support for the policy change makes a difference, increasing the chance that the new policy will be adopted.

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Why is it important?

Responsiveness of public policy (what the government does) to public opinion (what the people want) is essential for democracies. It is important to know that single-party government as well as coalitions with multiple parties can be just as good in translating public opinion into new policies. It is also reassuring to know that when the public strongly favors a policy, a government cannot completely ignore it, even when the change goes against the preferences of the government parties themselves.

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