scholarly journals All Keynesian Now? Public Support for Countercyclical Government Borrowing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Barnes ◽  
Timothy Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Macroeconomic Policy ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Fiscal Stimulus ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
The Uk

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, macroeconomic policy returned to the political agenda, and the influence of Keynesian ideas about fiscal stimulus rose (and then fell) in expert circles. Much less is known, however, about whether and when Keynesian prescriptions for countercyclical spending have any support among the general public. We use a survey experiment, fielded twice, to recover the extent to which UK respondents hold such countercyclical attitudes. Our results indicate that public opinion was countercyclical — Keynesian — in 2016. We then use Eurobarometer data to estimate the same basic parameter for the population for the period 2010-2017. The observational results validate our experimental findings for the later period, but also provide evidence that the UK population held procyclical views at the start of the period. Thus, there appear to be important dynamics in public opinion on a key macroeconomic policy issue.

scholarly journals All Keynesians now? Public support for countercyclical government borrowing

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Lucy Barnes ◽  
Timothy Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Macroeconomic Policy ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Fiscal Stimulus ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
The Uk

Abstract In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, macroeconomic policy returned to the political agenda, and the influence of Keynesian ideas about fiscal stimulus rose (and then fell) in expert circles. Much less is known, however, about whether and when Keynesian prescriptions for countercyclical spending have any support among the general public. We use a survey experiment, fielded twice, to recover the extent to which UK respondents hold such countercyclical attitudes. Our results indicate that public opinion was countercyclical—Keynesian—in 2016. We then use Eurobarometer data to estimate the same basic parameter for the population for the period 2010–2017. The observational results validate our experimental findings for the later period, but also provide evidence that the UK population held procyclical views at the start of the period. Thus, there appear to be important dynamics in public opinion on a key macroeconomic policy issue.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Peter Sloman
Keyword(s):  
Political Agenda ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Minimum Income ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Working Age ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Negative Income Tax

The 2008 financial crisis and the era of austerity that followed have pushed poverty and inequality to the top of the political agenda for the first time in a generation. One of the most striking responses has been the surge of interest in a Universal Basic Income—an idea which has circulated in British politics since at least the First World War, and has intersected with proposals for more selective and conditional forms of minimum income. This introduction examines the history of guaranteed income in modern Britain from two perspectives: an ideational story about the circulation and development of basic income, Negative Income Tax, and tax credit schemes, and a public policy story about the growth of cash transfers since the 1970s. It argues that the UK has become a ‘transfer state’ in which working-age benefits play a central role in legitimating a particular form of post-industrial liberal capitalism.

Public Opinion and Crisis Behavior in a Nuclearized South Asia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Clary ◽  
Sameer Lalwani ◽  
Niloufer Siddiqui
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Opportunity Costs ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Target States ◽  
Crisis Behavior

Abstract Research on public opinion and crisis behavior has focused largely on pressures felt by leaders who have initiated a crisis, not on leaders in target states responding to adversary provocation. Our survey experiment involving 1,823 respondents in Punjab, Pakistan, finds public support for escalating rather than de-escalating in response to such provocation. It shows how public pressures can encourage conflict even in instances where a leader has engaged in no prior effort to generate audience costs following crisis onset. Survey respondents were more likely to support escalatory decisions if they were made by a military, rather than civilian, leader, although we do not find that military leaders receive more support in de-escalatory decisions. Finally, while we demonstrate that leaders can mitigate the costs of de-escalating by highlighting the dangers of conflict, they still incur opportunity costs in foregone public support when they opt to de-escalate rather than escalate a crisis.

UNsatisfied? Public Support for Postconflict International Missions

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 983-1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pellumb Kelmendi ◽  
Andrew Radin
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Competing Hypotheses ◽  
Over Time

Public opinion in postconflict societies toward international missions is widely believed to be important. We offer a theory that local satisfaction critically depends on an individual’s perception of whether the mission is furthering the wartime political agenda of his or her social group. To test this theory and competing hypotheses, we examine Kosovo Albanian satisfaction with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). We use data from seventeen different representative surveys conducted in Kosovo from 2002 to 2007 as well as focus group and other primary and secondary sources. Consistent with our theory, we find that aggregate satisfaction over time reflected UNMIK’s growing acceptance of Kosovo’s independence and individuals with more radical views tended to be less satisfied with UNMIK. Our analysis implies that missions can achieve greater local satisfaction by doing what is possible to be responsive to, or at a minimum recognize, the wartime political agendas of the key social groups.

scholarly journals Party government and policy responsiveness. Evidence from three parliamentary democracies

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimiter Toshkov ◽  
Lars Mäder ◽  
Anne Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk

AbstractDoes party government moderate the responsiveness of public policy to public opinion? Analysing a new dataset, we examine whether the ability of governments to respond to the public on 306 specific policy issues in Denmark, Germany and the UK is affected by the extent of coalition conflict and by the fit of the considered policy changes with the government preferences. We find a systematic but relatively weak positive impact of public support on the likelihood and speed of policy change. Contrary to expectations, a higher number of coalition partners are not associated with fewer policy changes nor with weaker responsiveness to public opinion. We also find no evidence that responsiveness to public opinion is necessarily weaker for policy changes that go against the preferences of the government. Rather, it appears that public and government support for policy change are substitute resources.

scholarly journals Perceived beneficiaries and support for the globalization of higher education: a survey experiment on attitudes toward international students

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Thomas Gift ◽  
Carlos X. Lastra-Anadón
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
International Students ◽  
Foreign Students ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Domestic Students ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Foreign students are one of the most significant immigrant categories in many North American and Western European countries. Yet, as their numbers have swelled, many governments have experienced increasing pressures to cap their entry. This is true despite the sizable benefits that foreign students bring to host countries, and despite standard political economy concerns about immigrants—that they take away jobs or abuse public entitlements—not applying to foreign students. We field a nationally-representative survey experiment in the UK, one of the top destinations for foreign students, to examine potential activators of public support for capping the number of foreign students. Results show that support for caps is most activated when citizens are primed to think about foreign students competing with domestic students for scarce admissions slots at universities.

scholarly journals State compensation as rape justice: are public attitudes a legitimate foundation for reform of the UK’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Smith ◽  
Ellen Daly ◽  
Charlotte Herriott ◽  
Dominic Willmott
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Compensation Scheme ◽  
Sexual Offences ◽  
Eligibility Criteria ◽  
The Public ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
State Compensation ◽  
The Uk

The British state’s mechanism for compensating victim-survivors of sexual offences has been critiqued as retraumatising. However, a recent review preliminarily rejected calls to loosen the eligibility rules, stating that the current criteria reflect public attitudes. This article outlines the first empirical study of public opinion on the UK Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS), drawing on data from over 2,000 survey participants. The findings show ambivalence among members of the public, but also reveal the current rules are not strongly supported and are in some cases highly unpopular. The article then examines some difficulties with relying on public opinion for criminal justice reform, and ultimately argues that there are stronger justifications for reforming the CICS than popularity with the public. Specifically, loosening the eligibility criteria would create more legitimate policy through the protection of core societal values such as fairness and dignity.<br /><br />Key Messages<br /><ul><li>Contrary to the British Ministry of Justice’s rhetoric, there is not strong public support for the current eligibility rules on the UK Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS) for sexual offence victim-survivors.</li><br /><li>Women and younger people are more critical of the current CICS eligibility rules, but social grade did not impact public opinions.</li><br /><li>Relying on public opinion for CICS reform is problematic, as widening the eligibility is justifiable regardless of lay popularity.</li></ul>

Can Deliberative Minipublics Influence Public Opinion? Theory and Experimental Evidence

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 654-667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Ingham ◽  
Ines Levin
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People

Deliberative minipublics are small groups of citizens who deliberate together about a policy issue and convey their conclusions to decision makers. Theorists have argued that deliberative minipublics can give observers evidence about counterfactual, “enlightened” public opinion—what the people would think about an issue if they had the opportunity to deliberate with their fellow citizens. If the conclusions of a deliberative minipublic are received in this spirit and members of the public revise their opinions upon learning them, then deliberative minipublics could be a means of bringing actual public opinion into closer conformity with counterfactual, enlightened public opinion. We formalize a model of this theory and report the results of a survey experiment designed to test its predictions. The experiment produced evidence that learning the conclusions of a deliberative minipublic influenced respondents’ policy opinions, bringing them into closer conformity with the opinions of the participants in the deliberative minipublic.

scholarly journals The effect of politician-constituent conflict on bureaucratic responsiveness under varying information frames

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabelle Sophie Wittels
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Bureaucratic Responsiveness ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Uk

Public participation in rulemaking has long been regarded as an integral part of a functioning democracy. It is however unclear how governments and administrations influence the throughput of public participa- tion, and on a micro-level the decisions of bureaucrats tasked with acting upon such input. In representative democracies the policy positions of elected politicians can divert from public opinion. In addition, public participation initiatives do not commonly attract a fully representative set of society. Thereby demands from the participating public and political principals can diverge. Bureaucrats are then faced with conflicting input. Given bureaucrats’ discretion to manage public participation processes and their outputs, how can we expect them to act? Will they act accord- ing to the wishes of their political principal, will they side with the public or choose to divert. I use a survey experiment with senior bureaucrats in the US and the UK to test this. Further, I assess whether information frames alter such behaviour and whether this varies with the presence of citizen-politician conflict. I find that conflict leads bureaucrats to adopt more of an adviser role, but that information frames have no significant effect.

Are Americans really okay with torture? The effects of message framing on public opinion

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan M Blauwkamp ◽  
Charles M Rowling ◽  
William Pettit
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Message Framing ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
News Headlines

In December 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on CIA detention and interrogation practices from 2002–2009. Several survey organizations then released polls that appeared to show a majority of Americans supportive of the CIA program, prompting such news headlines as ‘Polls Show a Majority of Americans Support Torture’ and ‘Let’s Not Kid Ourselves: Most Americans are Fine with Torture’. The authors of this article were skeptical of these conclusions. They therefore conducted a survey experiment in which they explored whether slight variations in how this issue is framed – e.g. referencing the 9/11 terrorist attacks, linking the policy to the George W Bush administration, identifying the specific tactics used on detainees or emphasizing the broader consequences for American interests abroad – impact public support for torture. They found that respondents can be primed to express slim support or substantial opposition to the policy based on which of these considerations are called to mind.

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