Are Politicians’ Perceptions of Public Opinion Biased Towards the Opinions of the Politically Active?

Recent research finds that politicians' perceptions of public opinion are often inaccurate and skewed towards the preferences of high-resource groups. Previous research has theorized that such biases may stem from the fact that high-resource groups more often message their opinions through political participation, but there is little research on whether politicians' understanding of public opinion actually skews towards the opinions of the politically active. In this paper, we examine whether politicians' beliefs about public opinion disproportionately reflect the opinions of citizens who participate in politics (either by contacting politicians or protesting). Our investigation, utilizing data on Swedish parliamentarians and voters over almost 40 years, confirms the hypothesized biases. This paper thereby provides the impetus for further research into the possible causal mechanisms behind this phenomenon.