Misrepresentation and migration

Abstract In a representative democracy, politicians should either implement policies that voters want or policies that politicians believe are in voters long‐term interest, even if voters currently oppose them. The exact balance between these goals is debatable and politicians' policy engagemen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inKyklos (Basel) Vol. 76; no. 4; pp. 503 - 525
Main Authors Karna, A., Öhberg, Patrik
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bern Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2023
Subjects
budget
Business & Economics
elites
Legislatures
Migration
Misrepresentation
opinion
Optimism
parties
Political Science
Politicians
public-sector
refugee immigration
Refugees
representation
Representative democracy
Statsvetenskap
support
Voters
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Summary:Abstract In a representative democracy, politicians should either implement policies that voters want or policies that politicians believe are in voters long‐term interest, even if voters currently oppose them. The exact balance between these goals is debatable and politicians' policy engagement can tempt them to dismiss voters' preferences and resist information counter to their own policy position. In this paper, we discuss Sweden's generous migration policy and how it can serve as an example where politicians' policy engagement led them to a overly optimistic view of the implications of welcoming a large influx of refugees. Using detailed, repeated, survey data on members of parliament, we show that Swedish politicians favored a much more generous policy toward accepting refugees than voters for a long period of time. Neither observable factors nor expert knowledge can explain this difference between voters and politicians. A more likely explanations is wishful thinking and policy engagement from politicians that continued until political competition increased.
ISSN:0023-5962
1467-6435
1467-6435
DOI:10.1111/kykl.12341