system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does social policy in modern democratic societies reflect the will of the people?

Specifically, within the UK and the USA, what theory or research is there that discusses this issue in more detail?

I'm interested in finding out about why policy in the UK and USA (as modern democratic examples) is a reflection of "the will of the people". Is it at all?

Are people in general too misinformed and ignorant about politics to understand the necessity and/or consequences of certain policies? And are certain policy areas more reflective of the 'will of the people' than others?

If anyone has any further insight into this issue, or could point me in the direction of further research, I'd really appreciate it.
gpt
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita talks about this in his theory about the "selectorate" in *The Logic of Political Survival*. He basically says that all we can really expect from people in power is that they want to keep their jobs. To keep their jobs, they have to please a certain amount (the winning coalition) of the people who get any sort of say in the matter (the selectorate). In an authoritarian government, the winning coalition is very small. In a democracy, the winning coalition is large. 

The theory helps to explain why the quality of life in democracies is usually higher than in similar-sized authoritarian countries. An authoritarian leader can maintain the support of his small winning coalition by providing private goods (money, goods, political or economic positions, etc). 

A democratic leader, though, needs to maintain a much larger winning coalition--for example, the hypothetical winning coalition of the president of a direct democracy would be more than half of the voting population. Getting the support of that many people by providing them with private goods is next to impossible, so instead they provide public goods: roads, medical care, public services, etc. Basically, things everybody gets to enjoy. A politician who wants to keep his job will listen to the demands of his selectorate and try to pass social policy that will get enough support to form a winning coalition.

Of course, things are lots of "buts" when you look at how things play out in real life as opposed to in theory. For a US politician, for example, is the support of one millionaire more valuable than the support of one guy making minimum wage? How much more valuable? How many votes from minimum wage laborers are worth the number of votes that the influence of one millionaire can bring in? Do 100 millionaires contribute more to a politician's winning coalition than 100 factory workers? How about 1,000 factory workers? 10,000?

So, to answer your question, it's not so much that modern democracies elevate the will of the people and translate it into social policy, but more that modern democracies make politicians more beholden to their constituents. Politicians don't necessarily have to *listen* to the people, but they do have to make them happy.

Or at least that's what Bueno de Mesquita argues.