Democratic Justice

Abstract

How much influence do citizens have over government decisions? One way in which scholars have attempted to answer this question is by assessing the correspondence between public opinion and public policy. Past research has found that, sometimes, mass attitudes and government outputs have moved together, but these studies did not control for other factors which might cause policy change. This article tests a multivariate model describing the behavior of policy outputs in one substantive area over time. A simultaneous equation model of prison admissions, releases, and rated capacity is developed and its parameters estimated using time-series data from California for the period from 1946 through 1980. Two indicators of public preferences, the percentage of national poll respondents favoring capital punishment and the proportion of the vote for governor cast for the Republican party candidate, are found to exert significant effects on correctional policy outputs.