The Reciprocal Relationship between Public Opinion and Social Policy

• Applicant: Nate Breznau, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Sociological Theory
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 401013559

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

This project investigated the mechanisms that link public opinion and social policy causally. It had two streams. One focused macro-comparative statistical modeling of reciprocal causality given sparse survey data, difficulties quantifying social policy outcomes and issues with degrees of freedom at the country-time level. The other focused on the German case where we developed machine learning algorithms using natural language processing to understand how and why policymakers use public opinion. The case study will help future scholars to better understand and model the reciprocal linkages between public opinion and social policy.

Publications

• The underlying Public Attitude Toward Government Responsibility to Intervene in Socioeconomics, 30 Years of Evidence from the ISSP. International Journal of Sociology, 49(3), 182-203.
  Breznau, Nate
  
• The welfare state and risk perceptions: the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic and public concern in 70 countries. European Societies, 23(sup1), S33-S46.
  Breznau, Nate
  
• Locked down or locked in? Institutionalised public preferences and pandemic policy feedback in 32 countries. Social Policy Review 33, 5-28. Bristol University Press.
  Nguyen, Hung H.V.; Breznau, Nate & Heukamp, Lisa
  
• Institutional trajectories of the welfare state: returns from social policy inception to modern public opinion. A Research Agenda for Public Attitudes to Welfare, 185-205. Edward Elgar Publishing.
  Breznau, Nate
  
• Stuart N. Soroka and Christopher Wlezien. Information and Democracy: Public Policy in the News. Cambridge University Press. 2022. $99.99 (cloth). $34.99 (paper).. Public Opinion Quarterly, 87(1), 239-242.
  Breznau, Nate