Anne Rasmussen

Politicians don’t just care how many people hold an opinion — they care how good that opinion is. In our new (open-access) article in West European Politics, based on survey data from 900+ politicians across 11 countries, we show: quality > quantity. Read more: doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Already congratulated you but many (!) congrats here too. Really happy this happened 👏 🕺well-deserved!

@fgenovese.bsky.social ...especially because we know that media salience is associated with improvements in policy representation more generally (judged based on opinion-policy congruence) and it's likely it could also affect perceptions of public opinion ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

@fgenovese.bsky.social We have issues that vary in perceived salience according to the representatives but do not have data on their media consumption patterns. This probably would not offset the effect of self-projection but media consumption would be very relevant to examine in future research

@kingsqpe.bsky.social @kcl-spe.bsky.social @polscileiden.bsky.social @ecprinterestgroups.bsky.social

Sources of Elected Representatives’ (Mis)Perceptions of Public Opinion: The Role of Self-Projection and Interest Groups | The Journal of Politics Scholars question the effectiveness of representation, suggesting politicians often misperceive public opinion. We explore the magnitude and potential drivers of misperceptions by comparing actual pub...

Bottom line:

Politicians’ perceptions of public opinion appear more closely linked to who they are than to who they talk to

Full paper here: 🔗 doi.org/10.1086/734528

10/10

For democracy, this is both worrying and reassuring:
⚠️Worrying, because many politicians soften simply see the public as a mirror of themselves.
✅Reassuring, because centrist politicians—often in government—should be more likely to get majority opinion right.

9/10

Taken together:
-Misperceptions are widespread
-They are most strongly associated with self-projection - Interest groups play a more modest, indirect role

This suggests that getting representation “right” depends more on curbing projection than on changing group contacts

8/10

A mediation analysis suggests why:

If interest groups matter, their influence is mostly indirect—by shaping politicians’ own views, which in turn are associated with their (biased) perceptions of citizens.

7/10

What about interest groups?

Links to business groups are associated with less accurate perceptions—but not with systematic bias

Interactions with citizen groups show little connection to either accuracy or bias of perceptions

So, interest groups likely matter less than often feared.

6/10

Self-projection matters a lot:

Politicians’ estimates move systematically toward their own views:
(1)Right-wing politicians think the public is more right-wing.
(2) Left-wing politicians think the public is more left-wing.

“False consensus” in action.

5/10

We consider a comprehensive set of indicators capturing
- information from
- contact with, and
- (various forms of) engagement in interest groups.

And we measure at both the accuracy of and ideological bias in perceptions of public opinion

4/10

We then test two main factors which could be linked to these misperceptions:

(1) Self-projection – politicians assume the public thinks like they do.
(2) Interest groups – ties to business or citizen groups correlate with perceptions.

3/10

We compare what citizens actually think on 5 salient policy issues (immigration, safety, healthcare, culture, environment) with politicians’ estimates

On average, politicians misestimate support by 22 percentage points (!).

BUT biases vary a lot (!) by issue & country.

2/10

🚨 New paper in @thejop.bsky.social

Why do politicians often misperceive what citizens' policy positions are?

@simonotjes.bsky.social and I study ~10,000 estimates of public opinion by politicians in Denmark & the Netherlands to uncover the sources of these (mis)perceptions

Thread 🧵1/10

Government polling in times of crises: when capacity meets incentives How do governments mobilise public opinion in times of crises? While recent research examines the factors that determine the intensity of government polling at different points in the electoral cyc...

How do governments mobilise public opinion in times of uncertainty? Do they gauche public opinion systematically across policy domains or unevenly depending on the issue ?🧵

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States Republican lawmakers consistently provided robust federal funding, often exceeding Democrats

Thrilled that my paper "Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States" with Nic Fishman, @leahrosenstiel.bsky.social, and @dashunwang.bsky.social was published in @science.org today!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Many congrats @alexanderfurnas.com et al. :-)

Many congrats to you & not least IE (!) Catherine

Many (!) congrats! Very happy to read this

Stort(!) tillykke Jacob! Glad på dine vegne 🕺🙌

Stort tillykke!!

Yesterday at #ecprgc25 👇

💡 Keynote speech by Margaritis Schinas, Vice President of the European Commission

📚 Publishing session @annerasmussen.bsky.social, @irobo.bsky.social, @mlorimer.bsky.social, @alessandronai.bsky.social, @steven-vanhauwaert.bsky.social

⭐ Thanks to everyone who participated!

Logo banner featuring "Cambridge and ECPR join forces" with logos for Cambridge University Press and European Consortium for Political Research. Below are names of publications: European Journal of Political Research (EJPR), European Political Science Review (EPSR), Political Science (PS), and Political Data Yearbook (PDY).

In January 2026, Cambridge University Press joins forces with ECPR to publish the European Journal of Political Research, European Political Science, the European Political Science Review and the Political Data Yearbook.

Find out more - cup.org/3UG4RIB

#ecprgc25

Headed to #ecprgc25? 🇬🇷☀️📝💻

Please join us for this roundtable on open science featuring editors from @prxjournal.bsky.social @mlorimer.bsky.social @stevenhauwert & from @ejprjournal.bsky.social @alessandronai.bsky.social @isabelleborucki

The roundtable doesn’t overlap with any research panels 👏

Did you ever wonder why governments don’t do more to counteract wealth inequality? In our new @worldpolitics.bsky.social article, we seek to answer this question, studying the electoral politics of inheritance taxation muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... 1/n

Headed to #ecprgc25? 🇬🇷☀️📝💻

Please join us for this roundtable on open science featuring editors from @prxjournal.bsky.social @mlorimer.bsky.social @stevenhauwert & from @ejprjournal.bsky.social @alessandronai.bsky.social @isabelleborucki

The roundtable doesn’t overlap with any research panels 👏

🧡 And don't forget you can meet this wonderful bunch at the Meet The Editors session

📆 Thursday 28 August
⏰ 15:45 - 16:45
🫶 Come and say hello!

👉 buff.ly/wUlT2Ys

London Experimental Seminar Series in Political Science We are inviting submissions for the London Experimental Seminar Series in Political Science (LESS), a new forum for discussing experimental political science research among researchers at London unive...

📢 Call for Papers – London Experimental Seminar Series (LESS) in Political Science @lsegovernment.bsky.social.
We are launching a new forum for experimental political science research: First seminar: 19/11/2025. Deadline: 31/08/2025. Submit here: forms.gle/ZUJcBbZoDoaY...

Wahlkampf in den sozialen Medien: Lokale Posts wirken nicht - @ohuwyler.bsky.social, @nathaliegiger.bsky.social, @stefaniebailer.bsky.social

Parlamentsmitglieder sprechen ihren Wahlkreis mittels lokalen Posts direkt an, obwohl diese Strategie nicht belohnt wird.

www.defacto.expert/2025/08/19/w...