I have a new article in the May issue of the Policy Studies Journal. The article is titled ‘Policy Feedback Effects on Mass Publics: A Quantitative Review‘. Here is the abstract:
There has been an impressive stride in the research on policy feedback effects on mass publics over recent years. However, we lack systematic evidence on how large such policy feedback effects are in the literature. This article provides a review of 65 published studies and quantifies the findings and key themes in the policy feedback literature. The results show a great degree of heterogeneity in the domains and outcomes being studied and in the effects of policies on the public. In line with the findings from narrative reviews, feedback effects are greater for outcomes related to political participation and engagement. Last, the review sheds light on important theoretical and methodological limitations to be addressed in future research.
The article is a substantially revised version of my review chapter in my PhD thesis on how public policies matter for public opinion. You can find the article here. Replication material is available at GitHub and the Harvard Dataverse.