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This dissertation considers the relationship between the opinions voters have on issues and the positions politicians take on them. The first chapter makes a methodological intervention into existing literature, showing that to understand these relationships we must examine one issue at a time, not boil down the preferences of voters and politicians to summaries of their ideologies. It then considers some implications of this distinction. The second chapter elaborates one of these implications, the implications of polarization for representation. This chapter argues for a different set of implications than is typically drawn. The final chapter then adopts this approach to bring a new perspective to a neglected question: how do politicians see their constituents? By investigating this question in individual issues, the final chapter illustrates the utility of the approach and raises new questions for scholars to consider.

How do people living under authoritarian rule organize their beliefs about politics? Are their political preferences still organized along ideological lines? My research focuses on understanding the structure of mass attitudes under autocracy, using new data from China. I show that ideology in China is loosely organized around a left-right economic dimension and an authoritarian-democratic political dimension, and that the most politically sophisticated individuals are the least likely to constrain their ideological preferences to one dimension. Contrary to what we might expect, ideological polarization in China is largely absent at the mass level. In a second paper, I investigate the relationship between ideology and political participation. Using a spatial model of choice, I discover that for most Chinese, perceived government competence is a bigger factor than ideological distance in political participation. The implication of the model is that the diffuse nature of public preferences gives the Communist party a free hand to implement its policy initiatives without alienating key constituencies. The last paper explores the meaning of ideological labels in China, using three national surveys. I find that while many Chinese citizens are willing to locate themselves on a left-right scale, the labels left and right do not carry a consistent programmatic meaning. Further analysis reveals that the partisan and symbolic content of these ideological labels is also limited. I argue that the absence of a shared ideological understanding prevents Chinese citizens from exercising political agency.

I analyze the prerequisites for the existence of public opinion in society, reflecting on whether the absence of prejudices should be one of these. At the same time, I delve, among other questions, into the process of forming public opinion, to what degree public opinion acts as a control or brake on political power, and on the role of intellectuals in the context of a deliberative democracy. KEYWORDS: public opinion – democracy – deliberation – freedom of expression – equality – political pluralism – power – control - social change – prejudices – education – comunication media – intellectuals

I analyze the prerequisites for the existence of public opinion in society, reflecting on whether the absence of prejudices should be one of these. At the same time, I delve, among other questions, into the process of forming public opinion, to what degree public opinion acts as a control or brake on political power, and on the role of intellectuals in the context of a deliberative democracy. KEYWORDS: public opinion – democracy – deliberation – freedom of expression – equality – political pluralism – power – control - social change – prejudices – education – comunication media – intellectuals

Any study of public opinion must consider the ontological status of the public being represented. In this review, we outline several empirical problems in current public opinion research and illustrate them with a contemporary case: public opinion about same-sex marriage. We then briefly trace historical attempts to grapple with the public in public opinion and then present the most thoroughgoing critiques and defenses of polling. We detail four approaches to the ontology and epistemology of public opinion. We argue for a conceptualization of public opinion that relies upon polling techniques alongside other investigative modes but that understands public opinion as dynamic, reactive, and collective. Publics are shaped by techniques that represent them, including public opinion research.

According to the 'median-voter' hypothesis, greater inequality in the market distribution of earnings or income tends to produce greater generosity in redistributive policy. We outline the steps in the causal chain specified by the hypothesis and attempt to assess these steps empirically. Prior studies focusing on cross-country variation have found little support for the median-voter model. We examine over-time trends in eight nations during the 1980s and 1990s. Here too the median-voter hypothesis appears to have little utility. Adapted from the source document.

How can we best gauge the political opinions of the citizenry? Since their emergence in the 1930s, opinion polls—or surveys—have become the dominant way to assess the public will. But even given the long history of polling, there is no agreement among political scientists on how to best measure public opinion through polls. This article is a call for political scientists to be more self-conscious about the choices we make when we attempt to measure public opinion with surveys in two realms. I first take up the question of whom to interview, discussing the major challenges survey researchers face when sampling respondents from the population of interest. I then discuss the level of specificity with which we can properly collect information about the political preferences of individuals. I focus on the types of question wording and item aggregation strategies researchers can use to accurately measure public opinion.

Scholars traditionally frame presidential efforts to politicize the federal bureaucracy as the result of divergence between the president's preferences and an agency's output. The authors argue that presidential concern with agency output is dynamic and is in part conditioned by the president's relationship with the public. To assess the relationship between politicization and public opinion, the authors use a data set that combines information on presidential efforts to politicize the Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 2004 with that of public attitudes concerning the president's handling of the economy. Their results indicate that public opinion does indeed bear a marginal, yet statistically significant, influence on presidential efforts to manage the federal bureaucracy, thus, providing a new contribution to the debate concerning presidents and the politics of bureaucratic structure.

Abstract'Evidence‐based policy' often uses systematic reviews of existing research on the effectiveness of interventions to provide guidance for policymakers. When applied to gauging public support for interventions, there are two stumbling blocks – opinion data on contentious issues are volatile and prone to measurement error, and the barometer of public opinion should be set for the present rather than reflecting sentiments of other times. Despite these impediments, systematic reviews are a useful tool. Authoritative evidence to support policy is not a matter of taking contemporary, error‐free snapshots of public opinion but derives from building and testing explanation of how public attitudes arise. We make this case via a review of public support for legislation banning smoking in cars carrying children.