ATTITUDE-CHANGE AND POLICY DECISIONS - THE CASE OF NORWEGIAN ALCOHOL POLICY

In a democracy, political decisions ought to be based on public opinio n. In practice, however, the mechanisms connecting voter preferences a nd public policy are complex, and it appears that public opinion may b e partly policy-shaping and partly shaped by policy. In this article, some of these mechanisms are discussed. The article presents, first, t hree models of public reactions to policy decisions. These models are then applied in an analysis of the liberal trends in Norwegian alcohol policy as well as attitudes towards this policy. The results are cons istent with a ''consumer model'', where citizens evaluate public polic y according to their preferences, as well as a ''support model'', wher e they tend to follow and support decisions made by political leaders. A ''discontent model'', where implementation brings about less accept ance of a policy, is not supported by the data.