Luzia Helfer
Biographic Data
| ID | 1106557 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luzia Helfer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luzia |
| FAMILY NAME | Helfer |
| SIGNATURE | HELFER L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Geneva |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9572-0320 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 248 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The role of politicians' perceptual accuracy of voter opinions in their reelection
Political representation can be described as a process brought about via an electoral and a perceptual path. Drawing on original survey data on the perceptual accuracy of elected representatives in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, this study explores whether and how the two paths are connected. It shows, first, that representatives who more accurately perceive voters' opinion are more likely to be re‐elected, suggesting that perceptual accuracy i…
Do Politicians Outside the United States Also Think Voters Are More Conservative Than They Really Are? - Corrigendum
Fairness of inequality and support for redistribution: Directly Comparing Citizens and Legislators
Economic inequality constitutes a defining challenge of our time and it remains puzzling why rising levels of inequality have not led to more redistribution. In this article a novel individual-level perspective is taken, with a focus on how much legislators and citizens agree on questions of redistribution and inequality, and what causes these mismatches. The study compares legislators’ views to a representative citizen sample in Switzerland. The…
Shared Class, Shared Opinion? Policy Preference Congruence Between Citizens and Legislators
Recent studies have shown that policymakers and policy outcomes in advanced democracies are biased against the preferences of less affluent and working‐class citizens. One reason for this inequality in substantive representation might be that most policymakers are well‐off themselves. In this paper, we explore the effect of shared class background on the congruence between legislators' and citizens' policy preferences. To do so, we rely on origin…
Do Politicians Outside the United States Also Think Voters Are More Conservative than They Really Are
In an influential recent study, Broockman and Skovron (2018) found that American politicians consistently overestimate the conservativeness of their constituents on a host of issues. Whether this conservative bias in politicians' perceptions of public opinion is a uniquely American phenomenon is an open question with broad implications for the quality and nature of democratic representation. We investigate it in four democracies: Belgium, Canada,…
Inaccurate Politicians: Elected Representatives’ Estimations of Public Opinion in Four Countries
Knowledge of what voters prefer is central to several theories of democratic representation and accountability. Despite this, we know little in a comparative sense of how well politicians know citizens’ policy preferences. We present results from a study of 866 politicians in four countries. Politicians were asked to estimate the percentage of public support for various policy proposals. Comparing more than 10,000 estimations with actual levels o…
Projection in Politicians' Perceptions of Public Opinion
Research has shown that politicians' perceptions of public opinion are subject to social projection. When estimating the opinions of voters on a broad range of issues, politicians tend to assume that their own preferences are shared by voters. This article revisits this finding and adds to the literature in three ways. First, it makes a conceptual contribution by bringing together different approaches to the analysis of projection and its consequ…
How Do Politicians Bargain? Evidence from Ultimatum Games with Legislators in Five Countries
Politicians regularly bargain with colleagues and other actors. Bargaining dynamics are central to theories of legislative politics and representative democracy, bearing directly on the substance and success of legislation, policy, and on politicians' careers. Yet, controlled evidence on how legislators bargain is scarce. Do they apply different strategies when engaging different actors? If so, what are they, and why? To study these questions, we…
Understanding MPs’ perceptions of party voters’ opinion in Western democracies
The ability of Members of Parliament (MPs) to know the policy preferences of their party voters is a precondition for substantive representation. This study investigates whether MPs’ perceptions of their party voters’ opinions are more accurate with policy statements on which they are competent—namely, those that are owned by their party and in which the MPs have specialised. It combines unique data from citizen surveys and face-to-face meetings …
Do interest groups bias MPs’ perception of party voters’ preferences
This study analyses how information provided by different types of interest groups influences the ability of members of parliament (MPs) to accurately perceive the preferences of those citizens who voted them into office. To study how information provision by interest groups affects MPs’ perceptions, we combine unique data from a citizen survey and face-to-face meetings with 151 federal MPs in Switzerland, thus enabling a comparison of actual vot…
Does Direct Democracy Enhance Politicians’ Perceptions of Constituents’ Opinions? Evidence from Switzerland
Elected members of parliament (MPs) are supposed to represent their constituents and, thus, to have an accurate perception of citizens’ policy preferences. It is often assumed that direct democracy instruments, such as the popular initiative and the referendum, have a positive impact on MPs’ perceptual accuracy. This study assesses whether direct democracy has the expected positive effect in Switzerland. It measures how accurately MPs perceive th…
Why politicians react to media coverage: A comparative experiment of political agenda-setting
Why do politicians react to some stories in the news and ignore others? We attempt to answer this question by integrating the micro-level politician perspective with a macro-level country approach. Using a unique experimental approach, we test when politicians in the Netherlands and Switzerland ( N = 80) take political action based on a (fictional) news report. We find that all politicians react more to negative coverage, but not if the informati…
Media Effects on Politicians: An Individual-Level Political Agenda-Setting Experiment
Media attention is a crucial factor determining what issues make it onto the political agenda. However, studies have also shown that this political agenda-setting effect is not automatic. The present study conceptualizes the media’s influence on politics as a function of the media message and the background of politicians and focuses on the moment a member of parliament (MP) learns about an issue through a news report. What aspects of a news repo…
What Makes Party Messages Fit for Reporting? An Experimental Study of Journalistic News Selection
Studies on news values have provided many insights into what gets reported in the media. In this study we use the concept of news values to examine how journalists perceive the newsworthiness of party messages. Taking an innovative approach, fictional party press releases are used to test for the influence of five important news values in the context of political news in a factorial survey experiment. This allows us to study those news values in …
When politics becomes news: An analysis of parliamentary questions and press coverage in three West European countries
Inaccurate Politicians: Elected Representatives’ Estimations of Public Opinion in Four Countries
Knowledge of what voters prefer is central to several theories of democratic representation and accountability. Despite this, we know little in a comparative sense of how well politicians know citizens’ policy preferences. We present results from a study of 866 politicians in four countries. Politicians were asked to estimate the percentage of public support for various policy proposals. Comparing more than 10,000 estimations with actual levels o…
What Makes Party Messages Fit for Reporting? An Experimental Study of Journalistic News Selection
Studies on news values have provided many insights into what gets reported in the media. In this study we use the concept of news values to examine how journalists perceive the newsworthiness of party messages. Taking an innovative approach, fictional party press releases are used to test for the influence of five important news values in the context of political news in a factorial survey experiment. This allows us to study those news values in …
Do Politicians Outside the United States Also Think Voters Are More Conservative than They Really Are
In an influential recent study, Broockman and Skovron (2018) found that American politicians consistently overestimate the conservativeness of their constituents on a host of issues. Whether this conservative bias in politicians' perceptions of public opinion is a uniquely American phenomenon is an open question with broad implications for the quality and nature of democratic representation. We investigate it in four democracies: Belgium, Canada,…
Projection in Politicians' Perceptions of Public Opinion
Research has shown that politicians' perceptions of public opinion are subject to social projection. When estimating the opinions of voters on a broad range of issues, politicians tend to assume that their own preferences are shared by voters. This article revisits this finding and adds to the literature in three ways. First, it makes a conceptual contribution by bringing together different approaches to the analysis of projection and its consequ…
When politics becomes news: An analysis of parliamentary questions and press coverage in three West European countries
Understanding MPs’ perceptions of party voters’ opinion in Western democracies
The ability of Members of Parliament (MPs) to know the policy preferences of their party voters is a precondition for substantive representation. This study investigates whether MPs’ perceptions of their party voters’ opinions are more accurate with policy statements on which they are competent—namely, those that are owned by their party and in which the MPs have specialised. It combines unique data from citizen surveys and face-to-face meetings …
Do interest groups bias MPs’ perception of party voters’ preferences
This study analyses how information provided by different types of interest groups influences the ability of members of parliament (MPs) to accurately perceive the preferences of those citizens who voted them into office. To study how information provision by interest groups affects MPs’ perceptions, we combine unique data from a citizen survey and face-to-face meetings with 151 federal MPs in Switzerland, thus enabling a comparison of actual vot…
How Do Politicians Bargain? Evidence from Ultimatum Games with Legislators in Five Countries
Politicians regularly bargain with colleagues and other actors. Bargaining dynamics are central to theories of legislative politics and representative democracy, bearing directly on the substance and success of legislation, policy, and on politicians' careers. Yet, controlled evidence on how legislators bargain is scarce. Do they apply different strategies when engaging different actors? If so, what are they, and why? To study these questions, we…
Does Direct Democracy Enhance Politicians’ Perceptions of Constituents’ Opinions? Evidence from Switzerland
Elected members of parliament (MPs) are supposed to represent their constituents and, thus, to have an accurate perception of citizens’ policy preferences. It is often assumed that direct democracy instruments, such as the popular initiative and the referendum, have a positive impact on MPs’ perceptual accuracy. This study assesses whether direct democracy has the expected positive effect in Switzerland. It measures how accurately MPs perceive th…
Why politicians react to media coverage: A comparative experiment of political agenda-setting
Why do politicians react to some stories in the news and ignore others? We attempt to answer this question by integrating the micro-level politician perspective with a macro-level country approach. Using a unique experimental approach, we test when politicians in the Netherlands and Switzerland ( N = 80) take political action based on a (fictional) news report. We find that all politicians react more to negative coverage, but not if the informati…
Media Effects on Politicians: An Individual-Level Political Agenda-Setting Experiment
Media attention is a crucial factor determining what issues make it onto the political agenda. However, studies have also shown that this political agenda-setting effect is not automatic. The present study conceptualizes the media’s influence on politics as a function of the media message and the background of politicians and focuses on the moment a member of parliament (MP) learns about an issue through a news report. What aspects of a news repo…
Fairness of inequality and support for redistribution: Directly Comparing Citizens and Legislators
Economic inequality constitutes a defining challenge of our time and it remains puzzling why rising levels of inequality have not led to more redistribution. In this article a novel individual-level perspective is taken, with a focus on how much legislators and citizens agree on questions of redistribution and inequality, and what causes these mismatches. The study compares legislators’ views to a representative citizen sample in Switzerland. The…
The role of politicians' perceptual accuracy of voter opinions in their reelection
Political representation can be described as a process brought about via an electoral and a perceptual path. Drawing on original survey data on the perceptual accuracy of elected representatives in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, this study explores whether and how the two paths are connected. It shows, first, that representatives who more accurately perceive voters' opinion are more likely to be re‐elected, suggesting that perceptual accuracy i…
Do Politicians Outside the United States Also Think Voters Are More Conservative Than They Really Are? - Corrigendum
Shared Class, Shared Opinion? Policy Preference Congruence Between Citizens and Legislators
Recent studies have shown that policymakers and policy outcomes in advanced democracies are biased against the preferences of less affluent and working‐class citizens. One reason for this inequality in substantive representation might be that most policymakers are well‐off themselves. In this paper, we explore the effect of shared class background on the congruence between legislators' and citizens' policy preferences. To do so, we rely on origin…
When politics becomes news: An analysis of parliamentary questions and press coverage in three West European countries
Media Effects on Politicians: An Individual-Level Political Agenda-Setting Experiment
Media attention is a crucial factor determining what issues make it onto the political agenda. However, studies have also shown that this political agenda-setting effect is not automatic. The present study conceptualizes the media’s influence on politics as a function of the media message and the background of politicians and focuses on the moment a member of parliament (MP) learns about an issue through a news report. What aspects of a news repo…
What Makes Party Messages Fit for Reporting? An Experimental Study of Journalistic News Selection
Studies on news values have provided many insights into what gets reported in the media. In this study we use the concept of news values to examine how journalists perceive the newsworthiness of party messages. Taking an innovative approach, fictional party press releases are used to test for the influence of five important news values in the context of political news in a factorial survey experiment. This allows us to study those news values in …
Why politicians react to media coverage: A comparative experiment of political agenda-setting
Why do politicians react to some stories in the news and ignore others? We attempt to answer this question by integrating the micro-level politician perspective with a macro-level country approach. Using a unique experimental approach, we test when politicians in the Netherlands and Switzerland ( N = 80) take political action based on a (fictional) news report. We find that all politicians react more to negative coverage, but not if the informati…
Does Direct Democracy Enhance Politicians’ Perceptions of Constituents’ Opinions? Evidence from Switzerland
Elected members of parliament (MPs) are supposed to represent their constituents and, thus, to have an accurate perception of citizens’ policy preferences. It is often assumed that direct democracy instruments, such as the popular initiative and the referendum, have a positive impact on MPs’ perceptual accuracy. This study assesses whether direct democracy has the expected positive effect in Switzerland. It measures how accurately MPs perceive th…
Understanding MPs’ perceptions of party voters’ opinion in Western democracies
The ability of Members of Parliament (MPs) to know the policy preferences of their party voters is a precondition for substantive representation. This study investigates whether MPs’ perceptions of their party voters’ opinions are more accurate with policy statements on which they are competent—namely, those that are owned by their party and in which the MPs have specialised. It combines unique data from citizen surveys and face-to-face meetings …
Do interest groups bias MPs’ perception of party voters’ preferences
This study analyses how information provided by different types of interest groups influences the ability of members of parliament (MPs) to accurately perceive the preferences of those citizens who voted them into office. To study how information provision by interest groups affects MPs’ perceptions, we combine unique data from a citizen survey and face-to-face meetings with 151 federal MPs in Switzerland, thus enabling a comparison of actual vot…
Inaccurate Politicians: Elected Representatives’ Estimations of Public Opinion in Four Countries
Knowledge of what voters prefer is central to several theories of democratic representation and accountability. Despite this, we know little in a comparative sense of how well politicians know citizens’ policy preferences. We present results from a study of 866 politicians in four countries. Politicians were asked to estimate the percentage of public support for various policy proposals. Comparing more than 10,000 estimations with actual levels o…
Projection in Politicians' Perceptions of Public Opinion
Research has shown that politicians' perceptions of public opinion are subject to social projection. When estimating the opinions of voters on a broad range of issues, politicians tend to assume that their own preferences are shared by voters. This article revisits this finding and adds to the literature in three ways. First, it makes a conceptual contribution by bringing together different approaches to the analysis of projection and its consequ…
How Do Politicians Bargain? Evidence from Ultimatum Games with Legislators in Five Countries
Politicians regularly bargain with colleagues and other actors. Bargaining dynamics are central to theories of legislative politics and representative democracy, bearing directly on the substance and success of legislation, policy, and on politicians' careers. Yet, controlled evidence on how legislators bargain is scarce. Do they apply different strategies when engaging different actors? If so, what are they, and why? To study these questions, we…
Fairness of inequality and support for redistribution: Directly Comparing Citizens and Legislators
Economic inequality constitutes a defining challenge of our time and it remains puzzling why rising levels of inequality have not led to more redistribution. In this article a novel individual-level perspective is taken, with a focus on how much legislators and citizens agree on questions of redistribution and inequality, and what causes these mismatches. The study compares legislators’ views to a representative citizen sample in Switzerland. The…
Shared Class, Shared Opinion? Policy Preference Congruence Between Citizens and Legislators
Recent studies have shown that policymakers and policy outcomes in advanced democracies are biased against the preferences of less affluent and working‐class citizens. One reason for this inequality in substantive representation might be that most policymakers are well‐off themselves. In this paper, we explore the effect of shared class background on the congruence between legislators' and citizens' policy preferences. To do so, we rely on origin…
Do Politicians Outside the United States Also Think Voters Are More Conservative than They Really Are
In an influential recent study, Broockman and Skovron (2018) found that American politicians consistently overestimate the conservativeness of their constituents on a host of issues. Whether this conservative bias in politicians' perceptions of public opinion is a uniquely American phenomenon is an open question with broad implications for the quality and nature of democratic representation. We investigate it in four democracies: Belgium, Canada,…
The role of politicians' perceptual accuracy of voter opinions in their reelection
Political representation can be described as a process brought about via an electoral and a perceptual path. Drawing on original survey data on the perceptual accuracy of elected representatives in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, this study explores whether and how the two paths are connected. It shows, first, that representatives who more accurately perceive voters' opinion are more likely to be re‐elected, suggesting that perceptual accuracy i…
Do Politicians Outside the United States Also Think Voters Are More Conservative Than They Really Are? - Corrigendum
Political science (14 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Perception (7 works) · Democracy (6 works) · Economics (6 works)