King's College London

Interviews with almost 1,000 politicians across multiple countries revealed a consistent belief that voters are focussed more on leaders than policies, care more about their own needs rather than the wider social good, are more concerned about the short-term than the long term and are unfair in their retrospective judgements.

Researchers say the stark differences in how the two groups view voting behaviour matters because there is compelling evidence it shapes how a politician behaves when in office and the issues they subsequently prioritise.

The findings were revealed in an innovative study of almost 1,000 politicians and 12,000 citizens across 11 democracies.

The team behind the study said: “We found that politicians’ beliefs differ dramatically from those of the citizens they represent: in nearly every country we study, politicians are more likely than citizens to see voters as leader oriented rather than policy oriented, retrospective rather than prospective, egocentric rather than sociotropic, focused on single issues rather than multiple issues, concerned about the short term rather than the long term, and ‘blind’ rather than ‘cleareyed’ in their retrospection.

Data for the study was drawn from politicians and citizens in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. The research team engaged in face-to-face interviews with politicians at national and regional level and followed up with detailed surveys.

Though the countries featured in the study were subject to different cultural and institutional realities, the researchers found “strikingly similar” responses to their questions from both groups.

They said: “Despite considerable institutional and political variation across our case countries, the distribution of theoretical beliefs among both politicians and citizens is strikingly similar.”

The study was co-authored by a team of academics including Anne Rasmussen, from the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London, along with Jack Lucas (University of Calgary), Lior Sheffer (Tel Aviv University), Peter John Loewen (Cornell University) Stephen Walgrave (University of Antwerp), Karlin Soontjens (University of Antwerp), Eran Amsalem (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Stefanie Bailer (University of Basel), Nathalie Brack (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Christian Breunig (University of Konstanz), Pirmin Bundi (University of Lausanne), Linda Coufal (Charles University), Patrick Dumont (Australian National University), Sarah Lachance (University of Calgary), Miguel Pereira (LSE), Mikael Persson (University of Gothenburg), Jean Benoit Pilet (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Maj Britt-Sterba (University of Konstanz), and Frederic Varone (University of Geneva).