Public Opinion and Political Representation

This dissertation considers the relationship between the opinions voters have on issues and the positions politicians take on them. The first chapter makes a methodological intervention into existing literature, showing that to understand these relationships we must examine one issue at a time, not boil down the preferences of voters and politicians to summaries of their ideologies. It then considers some implications of this distinction. The second chapter elaborates one of these implications, the implications of polarization for representation. This chapter argues for a different set of implications than is typically drawn. The final chapter then adopts this approach to bring a new perspective to a neglected question: how do politicians see their constituents? By investigating this question in individual issues, the final chapter illustrates the utility of the approach and raises new questions for scholars to consider