Public policy and Public choice.

Volume VI. Sage yearbook in politics and public policy.

The articles in this volume analyze the choices of citizens. and politicians, the consumers and producers of public pol icy. Each of the articles bears in some way upon the relation ship between democratic political processes and public policy. decisions. Beyond this shared interest in policy choice in democratic institutions, the work reported here varies consid erably both in substance and methodology. In our view such diversity is a definite virtue, for the variety of issues address ed here should serve to illustrate the wide range of public policies in which a public choice perspective can be of both explanatory and evaluative usefulness.

Questions about how citizens form judgments on political matters have, of course, long been grist for the mill of political science. More recently, however, questions about citizens' policy judgments have gained a new prominence in the controversy over "issue voting". The volume leads off with Christopher Achen's assessment of this controversy. Achen starts by arguing convincingly that the statistical logic supporting most arguments about issue voting has been faulty and that as a result recent evidence about the rise of issue voting by the American electorate is weak. He then goes on to suggest alternative statistical methods which are better suited to the task of teasing out the effects of policy issues on voting decisions.
Jennifer Hochschild's work also deals with the demand side of the policy-making process. Hochschild begins with an intriguing question-Why is it that in the United States even those who stand to benefit the most from the redistribution of wealth and income apparently do not support such pol icies? To answer this question, Hochschild argues it is neces sary to go beyond simple assertions about objective self-in terest and instead look at the structure of belief systems in mass publics. Using both survey data and evidence from her own in-depths interviews, Hochschild develops a framework for explaining patterns of choice about economic justice and about the government's role in promoting it.

The next two articles are concerned with elections as referenda on the policy performance of government. As part of his more general effort to develop a model of the behavior of the American presidency, William Niskanen presents here an analysis of the effects of economic and fiscal policies on the popular vote for President between 1896 and 1972. Niskanen finds that, on average, American voters have re warded incumbent parties for presiding over a growing econ omy and for managing to hold the line on spending and taxing. On the other hand, voters have punished incumbent parties for presiding over a faltering economy and for in creasing the size of the federal budget. One important impli cation Niskanen draws from his analysis is that the federal government has been "overspending," producing budgets which are greater than the vote-maximizing level of taxing and spending.