AMERICAN POLITICS & PUBLIC POLICY WORKHSOP
Abstract: How well do state laws reflect state-level publics? Answering this question has been difficult due to small state-level sample sizes and mismatches in how policy and opinion are measured. As a result, I revisit this question in the post-Roe v. Wade abortion policy space using a dataset of 155,000 respondents and a new measure that directly aligns attitudes with the policy space. I measure both responsiveness and congruence—defined as the distance between policy and opinion in terms of the number of weeks abortion is legal for a given reason. Contrary to expectations from the literature, I find that policy and opinion are asymmetrically misaligned: Democratic-controlled states are further out of alignment with state-level opinion than Republican or divided-control states. I find instead that Democratic-controlled state policies are more closely aligned with the preferences of politically advantaged subgroups—like wealthy constituents, primary voters, and issue publics—and national-level activists. These findings highlight a normative tension in democratic theory between elite-driven policy that expands rights often considered essential for women’s full equality and a majority-driven policy that retrenches them.
Natalie Hernandez is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University, specializing in American Politics. Her research examines questions around representation, public opinion, persuasion, and gender, with a current focus on abortion policy in the post-Roe v. Wade era. Her dissertation and ongoing projects address two interrelated questions: First, to what extent does post-Roe abortion policy align with public preferences, and when and why does it diverge? Second, do Americans have meaningful preferences on abortion—an essential condition for democratic representation—and can life events or external forces change those preferences? Hernandez’s work has been published or accepted in the American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, and American Politics Research.
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