Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Impact of Expectations of Legislative Processes on Legitimacy Perceptions

政治学博士论文研究：立法过程的期望对合法性认知的影响

• 批准号: 9911620
• 负责人: John Sullivan
• 金额: $ 0.8万
• 依托单位: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-02-01 至 2001-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9911620&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Representation, for the most part, works. Public opinion drives policy output and change most of the time. Yet, many citizens believe that representatives cannot be trusted to respond to public needs and interests. This dissertation examines the sources and content of people's expectations of the legislative process to help reconcile this apparent contradiction. A theory of public opinion is developed; this theory is based on mounting evidence that people's overall evaluations of the legitimacy of decision-making authorities are influenced by their perceptions of procedural fairness. Most American today do not believe that the legislative process is impartial. Instead, many citizens believe that the process is susceptible to pressure from interest groups and business organizations, and, thus, it creates a discrepancy between how people want government towork and how they perceive that it does work. Although it is part of the story, this discordance by itself cannot explain fully why so many Americans are skeptical of the legitimacy of the legislative process. I content that underlying widespread condemnation of government is an increasing conflict of expectations of the market with those of poliitics. People, in this theory, increasingly expect from the legislative process the same degree of efficiency, accountability, and equality of opportunity that the perceive the market offers, even though pluralist mechanisms of government cannot match these economic ideals. Thus, the goal of this project is to demonstrate that underlying broad antipathy toward government is a fundamental inconsistency between citizens' expectations of legislative processes and what is possible within the institutional requirements of a pluralist democracy. This thesis is tested in two ways. First, I use a survey that includes questions from McClosky and Zaller's Opinions and Values of Americans Scale for Capitalist and Democratic Values. The survey also includes items from the standard cross-sections of the National Election Studies as well as questions of my own design. Finally, the postulated psychological mechanism derived from Tyler's work on procedural justice is isolated using an original experiment.

在大多数情况下，代表性是有效的。 民意驱动政策产出，大多数时候也会发生变化。 然而，许多公民认为，不能相信代表会对公众的需要和利益作出反应。 本文旨在探讨人民对立法过程的期待的来源和内容，以帮助调和这一明显的矛盾。 公众舆论理论的发展，这一理论的基础上越来越多的证据表明，人们的整体评价的合法性决策当局的影响，他们的看法程序的公平性。 今天，大多数美国人不相信立法程序是公正的。 相反，许多公民认为这一过程容易受到利益集团和商业组织的压力，因此，它在人们希望政府如何运作和他们认为政府如何运作之间产生了差异。 虽然这是故事的一部分，但这种不和谐本身并不能完全解释为什么这么多美国人对立法程序的合法性持怀疑态度。 我认为，对政府的广泛谴责背后，是市场预期与政治预期之间日益加剧的冲突。 在这一理论中，人们越来越期望立法过程能达到与市场所提供的效率、责任和机会平等相同的程度，尽管多元政府机制无法与这些经济理想相匹配。 因此，本项目的目标是表明，对政府的普遍反感是公民对立法程序的期望与多元化民主的制度要求之间的根本不一致。 本文从两个方面进行了检验。 首先，我使用了一项调查，其中包括McClosky和Zaller的美国人对资本主义和民主价值观的看法和价值观。 调查还包括来自国家选举研究的标准横截面的项目以及我自己设计的问题。 最后，假设的心理机制来自泰勒的工作程序正义是孤立的使用原始实验。