One aspect of the studywas that nothing what they looked at strongly correlated with enacted policies. Spencer Greenberg used the paper as an example of importance hacking.
I think “there is no strong correlation between the beliefs of the voting public and the policies that are enacted, but that’s slightly less true for the rich” is a reasonably meaningful takeaway. I’ve seen people use the paper to claim that the rich run everything, but I don’t know that that’s the meaning the authors intended to imply.
It’s not a meaningful takeaway, that’s why Spencer Greenberg points it out as a bad paper.
The correlation is in the particular model, that’s bad at explaining what policies are enacted, that a particular set of scientists used for their study. Just assuming that this generalizes is not warranted.
One aspect is that policies that are actually passed by Congress are much more than a one sentence position that you can poll people on but often laws that span hundreds of pages with lots of details that matter.
One aspect is that policies that are actually passed by Congress are much more than a one sentence position that you can poll people on but often laws that span hundreds of pages with lots of details that matter.
I don’t think appeal to complexity works here. The fundamental purpose of democratic government is to handle the implementation of the policies that the population wants. If 70 percent of the population wants to, say, replace all the busses with trams, there will certainly be any number of unintended implementation details, but the end result should be a country in which the busses have been replaced with trams. If the population consistently prefers policy direction X, and the government consistently does the opposite, then that is a meaningful indication that something is wrong with the system.
This isn’t to say that the paper is flawless or even good, but “a policy being desired by the population doesn’t correlate with Congress enacting it” does seem like a meaningful finding. I do with I still had the NYT article that replicated this finding, IIRC their methodology was different and seemed quite strong.
The fundamental purpose of democratic government is to handle the implementation of the policies that the population wants.
This is one way to look at it, but it’s not what philosophers like Rousseau meant with the word democracy when they argued for democracy being desirable. His idea of democracy was more about policies that are in the interests of the general population. The key idea of representative democracy is that there are a lot of decisions that can be made that are in your interests but where you don’t understand what you want the decision to be.
As far as complexity goes, take Obama implementing Obama care. Before the election he made the promise of not making backroom deals and doing the reform in a way that doesn’t rise health care costs. He made backroom deals with Big Pharma and insurance companies to get their lobbyists to support Obama care. Those deals resulted in increased health care costs.
He couldn’t hold both the promise of not making backroom deals and getting insurance for people with preconditions. If you have a voter who both wanted no backroom deals and getting people with preconditions insured Obama did 50% of what the voter wants, so you can model it as Obama’s work on Obamacare being uncorrelated with the desires of the those Democratic voters.
But if you would ask those voters whether they think Obama did what they wanted, I think many of them would say that Obamacare was a good step forward even if not perfect.
I do with I still had the NYT article that replicated this finding
NYT articles don’t replicate findings. They might be about studies that replicate findings.
His idea of democracy was more about policies that are in the interests of the general population
I think representing it like that boils down to ‘good-ism’, where anything can be argued to be democracy so long as you believe or claim to believe that it’s good, and anyone you dislike is an “enemy of democracy” on the basis that they’re bad. Most people believe that democracy refers to a specific system of government, so, whether you believe words’ meanings come from what is most useful or what is most accepted, I think both point to “what the people want” being a more desirable definition of democracy, since it is at least broadly concrete and verifiable, as opposed to “what is best for the people”, which is nebulous and subject to manipulation.
Less practically, I would object to any definition of democracy in which North Korea can call itself one and not be trivially refuted.
As far as complexity goes, take Obama implementing Obama care. Before the election he made the promise of not making backroom deals and doing the reform in a way that doesn’t rise health care costs.
I think “mandate that insurance companies cover preconditions” is a concrete policy item, and “I won’t make backroom deals” isn’t really a concrete policy item. I get what you’re saying—sometimes multiple policies that are all popular contradict each other, but I don’t think this is sufficient to explain the gap between the public’s desires and the government’s actions.
NYT articles don’t replicate findings. They might be about studies that replicate findings.
As I recall, they had methodology and data collection methods outlined. I could be misremembering.
Most people believe that democracy refers to a specific system of government
Yes, to the specific system of government that are representative democracies like the United States. Most people consider systems that aren’t direct democracy but representative democracies as democracies.
You try to argue that a system like the United States that most people would consider to be a democracy isn’t.
Most people believe that democracy refers to a specific system of government, so, whether you believe words’ meanings come from what is most useful or what is most accepted, I think both point to “what the people want” being a more desirable definition of democracy
What the people want is cheaper goods and a better economy. Representative democracy allows delegating the task of finding the best policies to achieve that outcome to elected politicians. It’s not a system designed around asking people directly for the policies they want implemented.
When speaking about democracies we are talking about whether peoples interests are represented. I think it’s quite easy to argue that in North Korea people’s interests aren’t represented well quite independent from polling North Korea’s population about what policy preferences they have and comparing them to what policies get implemented.
If you ask the average North Korean whether different companies should be able to pay their employees different wages, I think there’s a good chance that the average North Korean would not say that it’s important for them to be able to do so and might say it’s fair for every worker to get the same wage. On the other, hand the fact that wages allow market dynamics to happen that make the economy work and thus is in the interest of the average North Korean is also clear.
I don’t think this is sufficient to explain the gap between the public’s desires and the government’s actions.
You are speaking about that in the abstract, not about the two as measured by the a given study. A given study can very well measure them in ways that come to strange conclusions. The fact that the study isn’t able to explain much of the government actions is an indication that it’s not good at it modeling the dynamic.
As I recall, they had methodology and data collection methods outlined. I could be misremembering.
In the age of LLMs, the effort to go to look for an article one has forgotten isn’t that high as it was a few years ago.
The fundamental purpose of democratic government is to handle the implementation of the policies that the population wants.
That’s probably a fairly common view, and I don’t quite disagree, but it seems somewhat naive or in the whole “governments and democratic institutions act in the public interest” camp of poli-sci.
While perhaps a bit difficult to fully separate from the suggested purpose, I do see democracy very much as a way of managing factional conflict view some more peaceful social mechanism that just brute force, winners get their way. Pure democracy might be similar but I think Constitutional type democracies do try to provide some base protection for the “loosing” side(s) while still promoting discussion and compromise over simple force.
Not sure how much that might shift the views and interpretations in this discussion but seems that if we start from a potentially partial or incorrect premise we’ll not find the conclusions that fruitful or insightful.
One aspect of the study was that nothing what they looked at strongly correlated with enacted policies. Spencer Greenberg used the paper as an example of importance hacking.
I think “there is no strong correlation between the beliefs of the voting public and the policies that are enacted, but that’s slightly less true for the rich” is a reasonably meaningful takeaway. I’ve seen people use the paper to claim that the rich run everything, but I don’t know that that’s the meaning the authors intended to imply.
It’s not a meaningful takeaway, that’s why Spencer Greenberg points it out as a bad paper.
The correlation is in the particular model, that’s bad at explaining what policies are enacted, that a particular set of scientists used for their study. Just assuming that this generalizes is not warranted.
One aspect is that policies that are actually passed by Congress are much more than a one sentence position that you can poll people on but often laws that span hundreds of pages with lots of details that matter.
I don’t think appeal to complexity works here. The fundamental purpose of democratic government is to handle the implementation of the policies that the population wants. If 70 percent of the population wants to, say, replace all the busses with trams, there will certainly be any number of unintended implementation details, but the end result should be a country in which the busses have been replaced with trams. If the population consistently prefers policy direction X, and the government consistently does the opposite, then that is a meaningful indication that something is wrong with the system.
This isn’t to say that the paper is flawless or even good, but “a policy being desired by the population doesn’t correlate with Congress enacting it” does seem like a meaningful finding. I do with I still had the NYT article that replicated this finding, IIRC their methodology was different and seemed quite strong.
This is one way to look at it, but it’s not what philosophers like Rousseau meant with the word democracy when they argued for democracy being desirable. His idea of democracy was more about policies that are in the interests of the general population. The key idea of representative democracy is that there are a lot of decisions that can be made that are in your interests but where you don’t understand what you want the decision to be.
As far as complexity goes, take Obama implementing Obama care. Before the election he made the promise of not making backroom deals and doing the reform in a way that doesn’t rise health care costs. He made backroom deals with Big Pharma and insurance companies to get their lobbyists to support Obama care. Those deals resulted in increased health care costs.
He couldn’t hold both the promise of not making backroom deals and getting insurance for people with preconditions. If you have a voter who both wanted no backroom deals and getting people with preconditions insured Obama did 50% of what the voter wants, so you can model it as Obama’s work on Obamacare being uncorrelated with the desires of the those Democratic voters.
But if you would ask those voters whether they think Obama did what they wanted, I think many of them would say that Obamacare was a good step forward even if not perfect.
NYT articles don’t replicate findings. They might be about studies that replicate findings.
I think representing it like that boils down to ‘good-ism’, where anything can be argued to be democracy so long as you believe or claim to believe that it’s good, and anyone you dislike is an “enemy of democracy” on the basis that they’re bad. Most people believe that democracy refers to a specific system of government, so, whether you believe words’ meanings come from what is most useful or what is most accepted, I think both point to “what the people want” being a more desirable definition of democracy, since it is at least broadly concrete and verifiable, as opposed to “what is best for the people”, which is nebulous and subject to manipulation.
Less practically, I would object to any definition of democracy in which North Korea can call itself one and not be trivially refuted.
I think “mandate that insurance companies cover preconditions” is a concrete policy item, and “I won’t make backroom deals” isn’t really a concrete policy item. I get what you’re saying—sometimes multiple policies that are all popular contradict each other, but I don’t think this is sufficient to explain the gap between the public’s desires and the government’s actions.
As I recall, they had methodology and data collection methods outlined. I could be misremembering.
Yes, to the specific system of government that are representative democracies like the United States. Most people consider systems that aren’t direct democracy but representative democracies as democracies.
You try to argue that a system like the United States that most people would consider to be a democracy isn’t.
What the people want is cheaper goods and a better economy. Representative democracy allows delegating the task of finding the best policies to achieve that outcome to elected politicians. It’s not a system designed around asking people directly for the policies they want implemented.
When speaking about democracies we are talking about whether peoples interests are represented. I think it’s quite easy to argue that in North Korea people’s interests aren’t represented well quite independent from polling North Korea’s population about what policy preferences they have and comparing them to what policies get implemented.
If you ask the average North Korean whether different companies should be able to pay their employees different wages, I think there’s a good chance that the average North Korean would not say that it’s important for them to be able to do so and might say it’s fair for every worker to get the same wage. On the other, hand the fact that wages allow market dynamics to happen that make the economy work and thus is in the interest of the average North Korean is also clear.
You are speaking about that in the abstract, not about the two as measured by the a given study. A given study can very well measure them in ways that come to strange conclusions. The fact that the study isn’t able to explain much of the government actions is an indication that it’s not good at it modeling the dynamic.
In the age of LLMs, the effort to go to look for an article one has forgotten isn’t that high as it was a few years ago.
That’s probably a fairly common view, and I don’t quite disagree, but it seems somewhat naive or in the whole “governments and democratic institutions act in the public interest” camp of poli-sci.
While perhaps a bit difficult to fully separate from the suggested purpose, I do see democracy very much as a way of managing factional conflict view some more peaceful social mechanism that just brute force, winners get their way. Pure democracy might be similar but I think Constitutional type democracies do try to provide some base protection for the “loosing” side(s) while still promoting discussion and compromise over simple force.
Not sure how much that might shift the views and interpretations in this discussion but seems that if we start from a potentially partial or incorrect premise we’ll not find the conclusions that fruitful or insightful.