Introduction
The concept of public policy is very critical and sensitive since it affects a majority of people who are ruled under the policies made. It entails the process taken by the government in addressing an issue that affects the public and the intentions of the government in taking the actions. It can also be said to be the result of the government’s actions towards deciding on who gets what and who does not after some considerations.
It comprises major components like regulations, laws, actions and decisions aimed at controlling a certain behavior or solving a problem that is either caused by or affects the public. Public opinion, on the other hand, is a set of people’s views and attitudes towards a specific topic or issue that affect them. It usually affects the process of public policy-making as it takes into consideration the public interests.
This piece of work gives a critique of the article; Information Effects in Collective Preferences by Althaus looking into how the author tackles the topic and his efforts in making us understand the relationship between public opinion and public policy.
Discussion
The author starts of by showing us how information is essential in decision making, especially in shaping public opinion which to a great extent affects the process of public policy since the public are a major element in the public policy-making process thorough their various opinions.
It is evident that uneven distribution of political information among the society members leads to different public opinions by the members as they have different levels of knowledge concerning the specific topic or problem and therefore the public policies that are made based on the collected opinions from the public are usually not complete as they do not comprehensively represent the public.
This shows that the process of public policy-making could only be effective if knowledge about particular issues of concern were evenly distributed among the citizens as this would make them make appropriate and informed decisions based on facts and the government would hence take effective actions and solve the public’s problems. Public opinion is therefore influenced by information effect, which is the information’s impact in shaping collective opinion as a result of low levels and uneven social distribution of knowledge regarding politics in the society.
Political knowledge enhance proper decision making in regard to political issues as the informed citizens are able to understand the major components involved in public policy-making, for instance, the policy itself, the participants or actors and the problems at stake.
Although we can argue that being politically informed enhance the individual’s and collective opinion, some studies for instance in cognitive psychology also show that even the people who are poorly informed an political matters can make opinions that are in line with their political inclinations by relying on some political figures and other sources for instance online processing and other information shortcuts without necessarily having the specific factual knowledge.
Aggregation of the opinions made by both the well informed and ill-informed citizens will also allow coming up with an appropriate conclusion. This disputes the fact that the correct and meaningful collective opinion could only be attained if all the citizens were well informed.
All in all information among the citizens influences their opinions by affecting the interaction between those collecting the data and those giving the responses, for instance, the poorly informed citizens who are usually the Blacks, the poor and women tend to give vague response as compared to the knowledgeable audience leading to poor presentation of the public’s preferences as opposed to those from the knowledgeable citizens who are mostly, the Whites, the rich and men whose views tend to be greatly considered.
The opinions of the well-informed people also tend to be of high quality in terms of being consistent with the political predisposition regarding the particular problem in question. Public opinion and public policy are directly dependent on each other since public policy formulation and implementation is based on the public’s opinion about the particular topic or problem and it is usually made in response to a specific problem or issue facing the public with an aim of solving it.
The citizens’ provision of information on the topic is usually useful in the policy formulation and implementation process as it brings forward their beliefs, attitudes which in the long run influence the cause and effects processes and what the government is likely to undertake and the expected outcomes of the actions taken. It is, however, difficult to determine how information or knowledge in the political field would affect an individual’s or group’s preference in regard to what is best for them.
The political interests of the informed people may either be subjective or objective and in some instances they may not reflect what the public may prefer in relation to a particular issue. The knowledgeable citizens tend to be in a good position to argue or respond to different situations based on the knowledge they have previously acquired. They also have a certain degree of confidence due to their prior experience and can hence easily understand complex political issues and happenings that surround them as compared to the ill-informed citizens.
The measure of how information affects preferences and opinions among citizens can be attained through taking of constant variables in the society in both the enlightened and the ill-informed citizens in the community for instance education, age, race, religious affiliation, marital status, gender, region, financial status, type of community, region, parental status, partisanship, and occupation among others and presenting the same questions to them and then evaluating the responses.
The author, however, recognizes that a political party affiliation is an essential element since it is also a relatively constant characteristic of the citizens and a major determinant of the citizen’s responses to political issues as it acts as a basis for the citizen’s responses and a shortcut as opposed to factual knowledge they would have concerning the topic of discussion.
Although the author tries to tackle this issues comprehensively through application of various theories, models and methods and also by taking into consideration what has been said by other authors in regard to the same topic, it is still difficult to completely determine the exact influence of information on political interests and preferences among the enlightened and the ill-informed citizens as the results from the conducted surveys are often almost the same since there are other determinants apart from information or knowledge exhibited by the respondents.
To understand the concept of the influence public opinion on public policy formulation and implementation, the author gives us an example on how information can affect people’s attitudes toward spousal notification law. The example tries to show how information can shape an individual’s or group’s collective preference. The question posed to the respondents is, “Would you favor or oppose a law in your state that would require a married woman to notify her husband before she can have an abortion?”
The responses were obtained and the logit coefficients evaluated and it is noted that the differences in the responses attained is relatively very low. The models used can however not perfectly represent individual opinions but can generally show the differences between those groups that are for the law and those that are against its enactment.
The model also shows the effects of information or knowledge on an issue on policy preferences among various groups. From the above-named question, two-thirds of the respondents seemed to support the spousal notification law while a third was against it.
The well-informed citizens seem to be divided on the issue as 48% of them supported it and 52% opposed it and hence the problem lies in the unequal distribution of political knowledge among citizens. Men were more informed as compared to women because even after full provision of political knowledge, their responses did change much as compared to that of women.
This shows that the difference in information available to both men and women affects the results obtained in opinion surveys and hence leads to inefficient public policy-making by the governments as they base they actions on the opinion polls gathered.
Different topics attract different public opinions according to how best the citizens are informed or interested in them for example issues of social, fiscal, and security wellbeing among others. A change in information or knowledge on an issue also leads to changes in collective preferences as the people are subject to change their opinions with change in information.
The deviation however varies depending on other elements, for instance, the Whites, the rich and men are less likely to change their opinions much as compared to the Blacks, the poor and women who are more susceptible to change of opinion due to prior lack of knowledge. This can be seen when taking varying responses of the citizens on different issues, for instance, foreign policy issues, fiscal issues, operative issues and social policy issues.
Generally, fully informed citizens tend to give divided opinions on policies like foreign policy, they are more concerned on social and fiscal concepts and policies and more conservative on operative issues that take place around them.
Correcting for information unevenness can, however lead to notable shifts in individual and collective opinions. The authors argues that the only way out in understanding collective preferences could be the balancing of political knowledge among the society members which will counter the low levels and uneven social distribution of information on politics and political issues. He also states that information level in an individual or group affects collective opinion greater that previous studies have shown.
It is also clear that different levels of information brings about change in responses and therefore collective preferences of various people could change either with a less or great magnitude if everyone was equally informed in various aspects of concern in the political field.
The author argues the topic in a very comprehensive manner by looking into various studies that have been done regarding the effects of information or knowledge among the citizens and its role in shaping their opinions which in the long run affects the public policy-making process and the actions taken by the government in regard to the problems faced by the citizens. He then gives lots of models and informative examples from which the reader can draw his or her own conclusions and there after gives his point of view with specific reasons for making the decisions.
From the information given by the author in his article, Information Effects in Collective Preferences, it is evident that the public is a very essential component or determinant in the process of public policy formulation and implementation. This is because the public opinions are used by the government and other bodies involved in the policy-making process for instance legislative bodies, leadership, bureaucracy, interest groups, political parties and the justice system in decision making. Public policies are made out of the public’s interest which is expressed through public opinion.
However, public opinion can sometimes be decisive and not representative of the reality for instance when the respondents that are contacted during the survey are not representative of the total community in terms of size and aggregate composition or characteristics.
Knowledge of the people on the particular issue also affects the opinions given as people tend to give vague information when they are not conversant with the political issue while those who are well enlightened tend to give meaningful responses that are in line with the government’s expectations.
In most cases the responses from the well-informed citizens are usually used as the basis in making public policies hence their needs end up being catered for at the expense of those that are not well informed. This shows that the policies formulated and implemented by the government are usually not representative of all citizen’s views as they are not based on everybody’s opinion as it should be the case.
Public opinion usually has limited influence on public policy since in most cases there are usually no clear public preferences for one policy over others as the citizens are not given the options of choosing among policies that are available. The policy-makers also do not necessarily follow the public preferences due to lack of adequate relevant information.
This is because most people have no distinct preferences on most issues, especially political related and in the few cases where preferences have been established, public opinion is usually much divided to a point where the bodies involved in public policy-making cannot base their actions on it. For instance, in the example on passage of the notification law of the spouse on abortion given earlier, the public seemed much divided and the government may be left with the final decision hence public opinion is overruled.
In some instances the government may make advantage of a situation and go per its preference as opposed to the public preference as it has powers over the general public. The government may come up with an idea regarding a policy and persuade the public to support it for example through campaigns. This is a way of molding the public opinion where different bodies and institutions involved in public policy-making process affect the public’s decisions on various aspects.
In cases where the public opinion is well known and the preferences seem to be well defined, the policy-makers may also not go in accordance to them for various reasons for example if the preferences are deemed to be based on ignorance on the issue, when it is not for the well being of the majority in the society or when the policy to be passed is susceptible to change completely in the event of enactment of an alternative policy in future. Although public policy is sometimes in line with public opinion, this is not an adequate justification that public opinion determines the actions taken in the public policy-making policy.
Conclusion
The public policy-makers mostly make a generalization since they can gauge what the public would prefer and at the end of it all, they end up coming up with policies that are in favor with the public preferences even without their consultation. It is however clear that public opinion and public policy are strongly related. Although public opinion is expected to be the basis of public policy in determining its formulation and implementation, it does not work out this way.
In few instances, the public opinion matches with the policy-makers preferences and hence it is adopted but in most case, it opposes the policy makers’ preferences and it is therefore ignored. This shows that despite the public being given a chance to voice their views and ideas the final decision lies in the public policy-makers, especially the government since the public has no power to force the government to act in a certain way.
Bibliography
Althaus, L. Scott. “Information Effects in Collective Preferences.” American Political Science Review. Vol. 92, No.3. 1998.