Exogenous Policy

[Jason DeBacker]

If we look at empirical evidence, it seems that people do not vote in a self interested way, but rather vote based on group-interest.  Given this fact, is policy really endogenous?    It seems that the most important characteristics in the liberal/conservative divide are age, race, gender, ethnicity, religion- things not easily influenced by policy.  Income, education, and employment status matter little relative to these other personal characteristics.  So (ignoring any effects of the social choice mechanism), is policy determined only by these exogenous characteristics?  -- As opposed to policy being shaped by characteristics that are in turned shaped by policy outcomes.  I'd interested in hearing thoughts on how policy influences the ideological distribution.   Jason DeBacker