IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v63y2019i1p197-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Territorial Representation and the Opinion–Policy Linkage: Evidence from the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Wratil

Abstract

A key feature of federal systems is the representation of subnational units by “territorial representatives” in policymaking at the federal level. How do such arrangements influence the linkage between public opinion and policy outputs? I argue that policymaking under territorial representation should be systematically skewed toward opinion in those states where citizens care about a policy issue and have a uniform view on it. This claim is tested using a novel data set of policy change in the European Union (EU), covering 211 policy issues and 6,506 observations of opinion–policy dyads. Results show that measures weighting opinion across member states by how much national citizens care about an issue are better predictors of policy change than EU‐wide mean opinion. Moreover, congruence between state‐level opinion and EU‐level policy becomes more likely, the more salient and clear‐cut opinion in a member state is. These findings refine our understanding of the opinion–policy linkage under territorial representation.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Wratil, 2019. "Territorial Representation and the Opinion–Policy Linkage: Evidence from the European Union," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(1), pages 197-211, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:63:y:2019:i:1:p:197-211
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12403
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajps.12403?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stratmann, Thomas, 1992. "The Effects of Logrolling on Congressional Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1162-1176, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thiemo Fetzer & Carlo Schwarz, 2021. "Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1717-1741.
    2. Austė Vaznonytė, 2020. "The rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU – Still an agenda-setter?," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(3), pages 497-518, September.
    3. Brian Burgoon & Theresa Kuhn & Francesco Nicoli & Frank Vandenbroucke, 2022. "Unemployment risk-sharing in the EU: How policy design influences citizen support for European unemployment policy," European Union Politics, , vol. 23(2), pages 282-308, June.
    4. Iskander De Bruycker & Anne Rasmussen, 2021. "Blessing or Curse for Congruence? How Interest Mobilization Affects Congruence between Citizens and Elected Representatives," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 909-928, July.
    5. Michele Scotto di Vettimo, 2022. "Measuring public support for European integration using a Bayesian item response theory model," European Union Politics, , vol. 23(2), pages 171-191, June.
    6. de Wilde, Pieter & Rauh, Christian, 2019. "Going full circle: the need for procedural perspectives on EU responsiveness," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26(11), pages 1737-1748.
    7. Frank Bohn & Xue Wang, 2022. "Rational erraticism," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(2), pages 219-235, April.
    8. Frederik Stevens & Iskander De Bruycker, 2020. "Influence, affluence and media salience: Economic resources and lobbying influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(4), pages 728-750, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2014. "Reciprocity and resistance to comprehensive reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 411-428, September.
    2. Shaun M. Tanger & Richard Alan Seals Jr. & David N. Laband, 2011. "Does Bill Co-sponsorship Affect Campaign Contributions?: Evidence from the U.S. House of Representatives, 2000-2008," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2011-09, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    3. George R. Crowley, 2019. "The Law of 1/n Revisited: Distributive Politics, Legislature Size, and the Costs of Collective Action," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 667-690, October.
    4. Derek Gatherer, 2006. "Comparison of Eurovision Song Contest Simulation with Actual Results Reveals Shifting Patterns of Collusive Voting Alliances," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 9(2), pages 1-1.
    5. Omar A. Guerrero & Ulrich Matter, 2016. "Revealing the Anatomy of Vote Trading," Papers 1611.01381, arXiv.org.
    6. A. Abigail Payne, 2003. "The Effects of Congressional Appropriation Committee Membership on the Distribution of Federal Research Funding to Universities," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(2), pages 325-345, April.
    7. Timini, Jacopo, 2020. "Staying dry on Spanish wine: The rejection of the 1905 Spanish-Italian trade agreement," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    8. Yogesh Uppal, 2010. "Estimating Incumbency Effects In U.S. State Legislatures: A Quasi‐Experimental Study," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 180-199, July.
    9. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1996. "Log-rolling and economic interests in the passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 173-200, December.
    10. David J. Hebert & Richard E. Wagner, 2015. "Political Parties as Interest Groups," Levine's Bibliography 786969000000001246, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1996. "Log-Rolling and Economic Interests in the Passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff," Working Papers 124, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    12. Mario Gilli & Yuan Li & Jiwei Qian, 2018. "Logrolling under fragmented authoritarianism: theory and evidence from China," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(1), pages 197-214, April.
    13. Reed, W Robert & Schansberg, D. Eric & Wilbanks, James & Zhu, Zhen, 1998. "The Relationship between Congressional Spending and Tenure with an Application to Term Limits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(1-2), pages 85-104, January.
    14. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2020. "Agenda Control And Reciprocity In Sequential Voting Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1813-1829, October.
    15. B. Chupp, 2014. "Political interaction in the senate: estimating a political “spatial” weights matrix and an application to lobbying behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 521-538, September.
    16. Christian Bredemeier, 2014. "Imperfect information and the Meltzer-Richard hypothesis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 561-576, June.
    17. Brian Knight, 2000. "The flypaper effect unstuck: evidence on endogenous grants from the Federal Highway Aid Program," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-49, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Crombez, Christophe, 2000. "Spatial models of logrolling in the European Union," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 707-737, November.
    19. Potters, Jan & Sloof, Randolph, 1996. "Interest groups: A survey of empirical models that try to assess their influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 403-442, November.
    20. Gawande, Kishore & Hoekman, Bernard, 2006. "Lobbying and Agricultural Trade Policy in the United States," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 527-561, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:63:y:2019:i:1:p:197-211. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.