POLICY RESPONSES TO CITIZEN ATTITUDES |
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| Authors: | J. Edwin Benton |
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| Affiliation: | J. EDWIN BENTON is assistant professor of political science at the University of South Florida. His research and publications have been in the areas of state-local relations and fiscal policy, metropolitan governmental reorganization, and urban service delivery. Presently, he is investigating the fiscal impacts of Reagan New Federalism and ways of measuring state and local fiscal capacity. |
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| Abstract: | Though many studies have provided only limited support for the idea of policymaker "responsiveness," the present study indicates that constituents do have some impact on public policy decisions, though not directly. With the aid of data on decisionmaking of country property appraisers in Florida, I was able to demonstrate that constituency preferences affect policy decisions indirectly through the effect of decisionmaker attitudes, thus suggesting an intervening model of decisionmaking.
Specifically, I found that constituency tax preferences impacted on property appraiser tax attitude and through it on the property assessment ratio. More importantly, I was able to isolate some of the potential factors which accentuate those relationships posited by an intervening model of decisionmaking. In particular, I found that the more policymakers (the property appraisers) were immersed into their social and political context or engaged in "social interaction" activities the more likely they and their own attitudes were to be influenced by prevailing constituency tax sentiment. |
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