Sources of Elected Representatives’ (Mis)Perceptions of Public Opinion: The Role of Self-Projection and Interest Groups

Scholars question the effectiveness of representation, suggesting politicians often misperceivepublic opinion. We explore the magnitude and potential drivers of misperceptions bycomparing actual public opinion on policy with approximately 10,000 estimations of publicopinion by representatives at all government levels in Denmark and the Netherlands. Ourresults show misperceptions are widespread and associated with a tendency for representativesto project their own opinion onto the public. In contrast, links to interest groups are of lowerimportance: connections to business groups show some association with inaccuracies but donot affect the direction of perceptual biases. Moreover, citizen groups have limited potential toaffect perceptions altogether. A mediation analysis suggests that, if interest groups matter forperceptual biases, their impact is likely indirect through their influence on representatives’ ownpositions. Our findings contribute to unravelling the interplay between self-projection andinterest groups in understanding (mis)perceptions, with important implications for politicalrepresentation.