Elections and Public Policy

How should we interpret election results? Do elections create "mandates," instructions to representives to create certain policies? Do elections control representatives? Do they permit citizens to hold leaders accountable? Is it possible that elections really do not determine pulbic policy making? that elected officials make decisions and then "sell" them to the public, which in turn "ratifies" these previously decided matters?

• A simple, perhaps overly simple, view: elections "tell" decision makers what to do as this diagram suggests.. Click here for the simple model.
• Another interpretation is possible. Public preferences depend on decision makers' choices, not the other way around.

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