New Frontiers in Policy Feedback Research

Event Date: 

Friday, April 1, 2016 - 3:00pm

Event Location: 

  • The Lane Room (Ellison 3824)
  • Graduate Student Speaker Series
  • PS 595 Event

Studies of political learning have primarily focused on the effects of messaging by political elites and the media. However, a large body of research has made clear that individuals also learn about politics from their direct experiences with government agents and institutions, such as through personal encounters with police officers, can welfare offices, and public schools. This creates a pattern of “policy feedback” in which policies, once adopted, shape citizens’ political attitudes and patterns of political engagement. In this paper, we argue that the dynamics of policy feedback differ in important ways from traditional models of opinion formation and change. Using survey data and a natural experiment, we find that political learning through personal experience can lead to sizable opinion change among those whose partisanship would otherwise be expected to make them resistant to elite messaging; for instance, we find that receiving public benefits increases support for expanding government services most substantially among Republicans. In addition, we find that the effects of personal experience, unlike attempts at persuasion through elite messaging or political media, can reach low information voters who are otherwise not attuned to the political environment.

Professor Lerman is a political scientist who writes widely on issues related to political engagement, public opinion, and public policy. Her recent work examines the ways that growing economic inequality, persistent racial bias, and the rise of the carceral state influence citizens’ political beliefs, racial identities, and rates of political participation. She is particularly interested in the political attitudes and behavior of the low-income, youth, and racial minorities. Professor Lerman is the author of two books on criminal justice policy, The Modern Prison Paradox (Cambridge University Press) and Arresting Citizenship (The University of Chicago Press). She also writes on American bureaucracy, privatization, and public/private partnerships. Her current book project, The Public Competency Crisis, explores the micro-politics of privatization, assessing the ways that citizens understand and form preferences toward public versus private provision of goods and services.

Presented by the Department of Political Science Graduate Student Speaker Series with funding provided by the Graduate Student Association and Associated Students.

PS 595 Credit.