Journal Articles

How to measure public demand for policies when there is no appropriate survey data?

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Explanatory models accounting for variation in policy choices by democratic governments usually include a demand (by the public) and a supply (by the government) component, whereas the latter component is usually better developed from a measurement viewpoint. The main reason is that public opinion surveys, the standard approach to measuring public demand, are expensive, difficult to implement simultaneously for different countries for purposes of crossnational comparison and impossible to implement ex post for purposes of longitudinal analysis if survey data for past time periods are lacking. We therefore propose a new approach to measuring public demand, focussing on political claims made by nongovernmental actors and expressed in the news. To demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of our measure of published opinion, we focus on climate policy in the time period between 1995 and 2010. When comparing the new measure of published opinion with the best available public opinion survey and internet search data, it turns out that our data can serve as a meaningful proxy for public demand.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Journal of Public Policy

Call Number

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Publisher

New York : Cambridge University Press., 2017

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0141814X

Classification

NONE

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 37, Issue 2, June 2017, p. 173-204

Subject(s)

Climate policy
political claims analysis
public opinion survey
public demand
google trends

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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