| dc.description.abstract |
There is a significant amount of research in the public policy literature exploring the relationship between public preferences and policy-maker behavior. While we know that constituents expect elected policy-makers to carry out their wishes, the extent to which this is true in various policy domains remains debatable. The consensus in the public opinion literature is that policy-makers consistently act in-line with public preferences on domestic issues given that Americans tend to be better informed and more passionate about these subjects. However, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 foreign affairs are becoming an increasingly popular topic and most politicians now refer to foreign aid as a national security tool. Have policy-maker claims that foreign aid is an anti-terror tool caused a shift in public opinion about foreign aid spending and perhaps increased policy-maker responsiveness in this arena? I hypothesize that policy-makers do respond to public preferences for foreign aid spending. This work will use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to examine the relationship between public preferences for aid spending and policy-maker behavior, and attempt to draw some conclusions regarding what these data tell us about representation and the formulation of foreign aid policy in the United States. |
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