Does Public Opinion Count? Tuition Fees, Student Support, and Public Opinion in Saskatchewan, 1991--2004

Democratic responsiveness posits that decision-makers should listen and respond to public opinion about policy issues when making public policy. While there is not always an apparent link between public opinion and public policy outcomes, this project proposes that public opinion does matter, and that we can gain a better understanding of the link between public opinion and public policy by looking at sixteen measures of public opinion, focusing on the provincial level, looking at the full policy process, and asking members of public policy communities what expressions of public opinion are important to them.;Their understanding of public opinion, the public policy process, and the role of opinion in policy-making relate to the value they place on public opinion in the formation of university tuition fee policies and government student loan programs during this time. Members of different policy community groups defined public opinion in different ways, including how they defined the public and how to measure public opinion. Government-commissioned polling was important, but other measures of opinion were also important. While most interviewees noted that there is a role for public opinion in policy-making, they emphasized its role at different points in the policy process. Convergence in public opinion and the salience of post-secondary education issues to the public were also important for policy actors. Finally, non-responsiveness was explained by a number of interviewees as a function of which public was most impacted by the policy decision, and as a product of a trade-off for limited resources.;By constructing a policy history and interviewing key people involved in university tuition fee and government student loan policy community in Saskatchewan between 1991 and 2004 (senior civil servants, ministerial assistants, deputy ministers, elected officials, journalists, public opinion researchers, university presidents, and student union representatives), I propose a clearer picture of their perceptions of the link between public opinion and public policy in this area, through the use of crosstabulation and significance testing.