Michael M. Bechtel, Amalie Sofie Jensen, Jordan McAllister, Kenneth F. Scheve
2024Political Science Research and MethodsVol. 12No. 2pp. 426–434Journal Article
Key finding:
The theoretically preferred CTB patience measure predicts attitudes toward local investment problems but fails to predict support for complex, future-oriented policies.
Time preferences may explain public opinion about a wide range of long-term policy problems whose costs and benefits will be realized in the distant future. However, mass publics may discount these costs and benefits because they are later or because they are more uncertain. Standard methods to elicit individual-level time preferences tend to conflate attitudes toward risk and time and are susceptible to social desirability bias. A potential solution relies on a costly lab-experimental method, convex time budgets (CTB). We present and experimentally validate an affordable version of this approach for implementation in mass surveys. We find that the theoretically preferred CTB patience measure predicts attitudes toward a local, delayed investment problem but fails to predict support for more complex, future-oriented policies. These results have implications for studying the mass politics of dynamic policy problems.
Michael M. Bechtel, William O'Brochta, Margit Tavits
2023Journal of Experimental Political ScienceVol. 10No. 3pp. 343–353Journal Article
Key finding:
Fear and anxiety are strongly affected by the final policy outcome, relatively mildly by outbreak severity, and minimally by response type and rapidity.
To successfully address large-scale public health threats such as the novel coronavirus outbreak, policymakers need to limit feelings of fear and anxiety that threaten social order and political stability. We study how policy response to an infectious disease affects mass fear using data from a survey experiment conducted on a representative sample of the adult population in the United States (N=5,461). We find that fear and anxiety are strongly affected by the final policy outcome, relatively mildly by the severity of the initial outbreak, and minimally by policy response type and rapidity. This result holds across various subgroups of individuals regardless of their partisan identification, level of exposure to coronavirus, knowledge of the virus, and several other theoretically relevant characteristics.
Michael M. Bechtel, Massimo Mannino
2023Political BehaviorVol. 45pp. 1045–1070Journal Article
Key finding:
Opposition to preparing for collective threats depends more on informational deficiencies than on personal experience with realized risks.
Societies can address collective threats such as natural disasters or pandemics by investing in preparedness (ex ante) or by offering compensation after an adverse event has occurred (ex post). What explains which of these options voters prefer? We study how personal exposure and policy knowledge affect mass support for long-term disaster preparedness, a type of long-term investment meant to cope with an increasingly destructive and frequent class of events. We first assess whether support for preparedness reflects personal experience and find that neither subjective nor geo-coded measures of disaster exposure predict policy preferences. Second, we explore whether this finding can be explained by misperceptions about the features of the available policy options. We find that revealing the damage reductions associated with preparedness strongly reduces opposition to long-term investment. These results suggest that opposition to preparing for collective threats may depend more on informational deficiencies than on personal experience with realized risks.
Michael M. Bechtel, Kenneth F. Scheve, Elisabeth van Lieshout
2022Nature CommunicationsVol. 13Journal Article
Key finding:
Multilateralism significantly increases public approval of costly climate action by improving effectiveness beliefs and perceived fairness.
For decades, policymakers have been attempting to negotiate multilateral climate agreements. One of the motivations for securing cooperation among multiple states is the belief that the public will be more supportive of adopting costly climate policies if other countries do so, both because this makes it more likely that important sustainability goals will be reached and because those efforts resonate with widely held fairness norms. However, some recent research suggests that public approval of climate action is independent of the policy choices made by other countries. Here, we present two different experimental studies fielded in multiple countries showing that multilateralism significantly increases public approval of costly climate action. Multilateralism makes climate policy more appealing by improving effectiveness beliefs and the policy's perceived fairness. Pursuing climate action within a multilateral setting does not only promise improved policy impacts, but may also generate higher levels of public support.
Michael M. Bechtel, Lukas Schmid
2021Political Science Research and MethodsVol. 9No. 3pp. 485–499Journal Article
Key finding:
Postal voting mobilizes equally across groups but more strongly activates high earners and less politically interested individuals; effects on turnout composition remain limited.
Voters tend to be richer, more conservative, and more educated than non-voters. While many electoral reforms promise to increase political participation, these policy instruments may have multidimensional and differential effects that can increase or decrease the representativeness of turnout. We develop an approach that allows us to estimate these effects and assess the impact of postal voting on representational inequality in Swiss referendums using individual-level (N=79,000) and aggregate-level data from 1981 to 2009. We find that postal voting mobilizes equally across a wide range of political and sociodemographic groups but more strongly activates high earners, those with medium education levels, and less politically interested individuals. Yet, those who vote are not less politically knowledgeable and the effects on the composition of turnout remain limited. Our results inform research on the consequences of electoral reforms meant to increase political participation in large electorates.
Michael M. Bechtel, Kenneth F. Scheve, Elisabeth van Lieshout
2020Nature Climate ChangeVol. 10No. 11pp. 1004–1009Journal Article
Key finding:
Constant cost schedules are backed by majorities in all countries; increasing cost paths receive little support regardless of average cost levels.
The introduction of policies that increase the price of carbon is central to limiting the adverse effects of global warming. Conventional wisdom holds that, of the possible cost paths, gradually raising costs relating to climate action will receive the most public support. Here, we explore mass support for dynamic cost paths in four major economies (France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States). We find that, for a given level of average costs, increasing cost paths receive little support whereas constant cost schedules are backed by majorities in all countries irrespective of whether those average costs are low or high. Experimental evidence indicates that constant cost paths significantly reduce opposition to climate action relative to increasing cost paths. Preferences for climate cost paths are related to the time horizons of individuals and their desire to smooth consumption over time.