What do politicians think of voter reactions in politics? And do the politicians’ perceptions match how voters actually react when they hear about new political proposals? Assistant professor of political science Martin Bisgaard has set out to investigate these questions.

He has received a Research Project 2 grant of DKK 4.9 million within the category of Society and Business from the Independent Research Fund Denmark for his project ’What Politicians Believe About Voter Behavior’.

Martin Bisgaard describes the project as follows:

“Politicians’ expectations for how voters will react to political proposals play an important role in understanding why some political initiatives are put into effect while others never see the light of day. However, we possess very little systematic knowledge as to what politicians really think about voter behaviour – and whether the politicians’ perceptions match how voters actually react.

This project will be one of the first to map politicians’ perceptions of voter reactions by combining experimental and quasi-experimental studies of voter reactions to political proposals with parallel studies of how politicians think voters will react to the same proposals. The studies will be conducted across different policy areas in order to get as close as possible to what politicians’ general intuitions tell them about voters.

The project will help answer one of the major questions of modern, democratic societies: Do politicians fear voter reactions and if so, are their fear unfounded?”

• Read more about Martin Bisgaard and his research on his PURE profile.