The politics of expertise in 21st century American policymaking
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- One of the consequences of political polarization in American today is that Democrats and Republicans not only disagree with each other on matters of values but also on matters of fact. With the growing concerns over fake news, social media echo chambers, and a decline in trust in experts, some have gone so far as to label our current discourse as "post-truth." However, most systematic evidence on these phenomena are drawn from studies of the mass public. We know very little about the extent to which this description extends to policymakers. One the one hand, elected officials tend to be committed partisans; consequently, we might expect policymakers to be especially prone to partisan biases in the processing of information. On the other hand, policymakers have the responsibility of making real decisions that affect the welfare of real people, potentially moderating these biases. In three studies, I adopt a range of empirical strategies to investigate these competing predictions. By (1) comparing the factual beliefs of policymakers and the public, (2) assessing policymaker responsiveness to expert evidence, and (3) analyzing who testifies on climate change in Congress, I present new evidence which challenges the dire predictions that follow from applying behavioral theories of partisan bias to policymaking
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Lee, Nathan |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Bonica, Adam |
| Thesis advisor | Bonica, Adam |
| Thesis advisor | Hainmueller, Jens |
| Thesis advisor | Jefferson, Hakeem |
| Thesis advisor | Rodden, Jonathan |
| Thesis advisor | Tomz, Michael |
| Degree committee member | Hainmueller, Jens |
| Degree committee member | Jefferson, Hakeem |
| Degree committee member | Rodden, Jonathan |
| Degree committee member | Tomz, Michael |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Nathan R. Lee |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Nathan Lee
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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