Congruence can occur without any causal responsiveness from policymakers

Evidence

The two concepts are asymmetrically linked—if there is responsiveness (causal influence), we should also see congruence (alignment between opinion and policy), but congruence does not need to be indicative of responsiveness. Opinions might be congruent with policies even if policymakers have not been responsive to public opinion; for example, if citizens happen to support the status quo. Given the difficulty of establishing causal relationships with the observational data common in the literature, we will here focus on congruence between public opinion and policy. — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 20

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A clean formal statement of the asymmetry that undermines much of the empirical literature’s inference from congruence to democratic influence.
• XREF: connects to: Business success rates in Congress do not by themselves demonstrate influence. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 44