Taking the Leap: Voting, Rhetoric, and the Determinants of Electoral Reform
Research Question
How do public attitudes about government spending on disaster relief change depending on whether the aid is framed as targeted or universal?
Main Finding
People are more supportive of disaster aid when it is framed as universal and not targeted toward specific groups. This reflects a general preference for broad-based government programs over particularistic ones.
Research Design
Survey experiments that vary how disaster relief spending is described and identify how framing affects public support.
Data Employed
Original nationally representative survey experiments with randomized framing of disaster aid policy scenarios.
Substantive Importance
The findings offer insights into how public opinion can constrain or enable government responsiveness to crises, depending on perceptions of fairness and distributional equity.
Research Areas
Legislative Behavior, Electoral Behavior, Survey Experiments, Public Opinion, Quantitative Methods
Citation
@article{leap,
author = {Moser, Scott and Reeves, Andrew},
title = {Taking the Leap: Voting, Rhetoric, and the Determinants of Electoral Reform},
journal = {Legislative Studies Quarterly},
volume = {49},
number = {4},
pages = {467--502},
year = {2014},
}