KODEM Webinar: How do politicians read and interpret what people want?
With Stefaan Walgrave, University of Antwerp.
Main content
Every possible definition of democracy implies a link between popular will and political policy. Exactly how this political responsiveness works is not clear. It is evident that the way elected politicians read public opinion and citizens' policy preferences has got something to do with it. This lecture reports on research on how politicians read public opinion. The basic finding is that politicians often cannot assess public opinion very well, and that there are systematic biases. It is also the case that politicians' own opinion plays a determining role in how they read public opinion, and what value they attach to it in their policy actions.
Stefaan Walgrave is a professor of political science at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His research interests are social movements & protest, media & politics, and public opinion. His recent work focuses mostly on representation and leverages interviews, surveys and experiments with elected politicians in a dozen countries. The main question is: how does democratic representation work?
Zoom link for digital attendance
Passcode: 71826987