Democratic Accountability: Representation and Inequality
from The Prelim Brief Hosted by Graham Diedrich
This episode will investigate the core of democratic health: does the government actually do what the people want, and does it listen to everyone equally? Key topics include: The Representative's Dilemma: A look at the classic Miller & Stokes (1963) study on whether legislators act as "delegates" or "trustees," and how this varies by issue area—showing that representation is often strongest on highly visible issues like civil rights but nearly non-existent in foreign policy. The Wealth Gap in Representation: A deep dive into Gilens (2005) and the finding that when the preferences of the poor and the wealthy diverge, policy outcomes almost exclusively track the desires of those with higher incomes. Dynamic Representation: Discussing Stimson et al. (1995) and the "Policy Mood" index, exploring how institutions respond over time to shifts in the public's general ideological temperature through both elections and "rational anticipation." Individual-Level Accountability: Examining Ansolabehere & Kuriwak (2021), who use an instrumental variable design to prove that constituents actually do hold their representatives accountable for specific votes, challenging earlier skepticism about voter knowledge
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