Project Details
Projekt
Policy Making in the Tension Between Scientific Evidence and Public Opinion: Experimental Studies with Politicians
Subject Area
Economic Policy, Applied Economics
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 531543399
Science-based policymaking is at the forefront of political discourse. Governments around the world are committed to basing their policy decisions on evidence established through rigorous analysis and consistent with principles of scientific integrity. However, there are numerous examples of implemented policies that are inconsistent with science-based recommendations for action. This raises the fundamental question of why policymakers deviate from science-based recommendations. Drawing on established political economy theories, our project experimentally tests the hypothesis that politicians' self-interest significantly hinders the adoption of science-based policies. In particular, we hypothesize that politicians choose policies based on self-interested re-election motives when public and scientific policy support contradict each other. Although the trade-off between public preferences and conflicting scientific facts that politicians face seems ubiquitous, there is to date no causal evidence demonstrating the extent to which, and under what circumstances, political self-interest undermines evidence-based decision-making among policymakers. The proposed project fills this research gap by conducting complementary survey and field experiments with samples of the German public and German politicians. It provides causal answers to three key questions from the political economy literature: Q1: "How do politicians weigh scientific evidence against public preferences in their policy decisions?" To answer this question, we will conduct randomized conjoint experiments integrated into a large survey of federal, state, and local politicians. Eliciting politicians' perceptions about the effects of implementing the different policy options on (i) their own career and (ii) overall welfare as driving factors, we will determine the extent to which political choices are driven by these motives. Q2: "How does information about scientific evidence and public preferences affect politicians’ real-life policy positions?" We will explore this question in a field experiment with federal and state politicians. We will first randomly provide them with information about policy-specific scientific facts and public preferences. We will then observe their public communication on social media and in speeches, and conduct a complementary outcome survey, to assess how the information affects politicians' policy positions. Q3: "How do politicians acquire information about scientific evidence and public opinion?" This project analyzes how politicians’ acquire information about policies’ public versus scientific support. In particular, we examine whether self-interested motives drive endogenous information-acqusition behavior, and consequently affect politicians’ policy positions. Taken together, the proposed project will provide new insights into how policymakers’ self-serving motives undermines the implementation of policies recommended by scientific evidence.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Canada, Switzerland
Cooperation Partners
Dr. Benjamin Arold; Professorin Eva Vivalt, Ph.D.
