Advances in the Study of Democratic Responsiveness: An Introduction

Responsiveness Processes

Representatives have instrumental as well as noninstrumental motives to be responsive. Instrumental motives are primarily associated not only with elections (e.g., Arnold & Franklin, 2012) but also with the benefits of receiving citizen approval in policymaking processes. Noninstrumental motives derive from the utilities associated with compliance with democratic norms—the satisfaction of being a good representative (Dovi, 2006). However, our main interest here is not in explaining representatives’ behavior but in exploring responsiveness actions as an independent variable that potentially generates reactions among the represented.

For this purpose, we propose a three-variable model with a feedback mechanism, as depicted in Figure 1. In the model, (1) politicians act more or less responsively; (2) observing these actions, citizens develop beliefs about the responsiveness of politicians; and then (3) act upon these responsiveness beliefs when voting in elections and developing political support attitudes. Finally, (4) citizens’ reactions may feed back on politicians and their future responsiveness actions. In what follows, we discuss conceptual issues related to the components of the model. We focus primarily on the representation of citizens’ positional viewpoints (e.g., Erikson, MacKuen, & Stimson, 2002; Powell, 2004; Soroka & Wlezien, 2010) and pay less attention to their issue priorities (e.g., Bevan & Jennings, 2014; Jones & Baumgartner, 2005). ¹

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

The responsiveness process.

Responsiveness Actions

How do politicians act responsively? In line with the idea of rule by the people, democratic responsiveness typically is understood as a process in which politicians follow or even anticipate citizen opinion (e.g., Erikson et al., 2002). This involves politicians taking distinct actions, ones that citizens can observe—either directly or indirectly—and evaluate. For instance, it is obvious to most citizens when government, in the wake of strong citizen support (opposition), chooses to go ahead with (or withdraw) controversial policy proposals on, for example, health care, taxes, and lifestyle regulations (e.g., Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000; Lax & Phillips, 2009). ²

Responsiveness involves the continuous representation relationship after Election Day, when citizens have authorized their representatives to decide common matters on their behalf (e.g., Urbinati & Warren, 2008). Elections incentivize politicians to act responsively, but responsiveness actions are undertaken between elections in association with specific policy decisions (Esaiasson & Narud, 2013).

The type of responsiveness action that dominates the empirically oriented literature is policy adaption, where politicians fall in line with citizen sentiments in what is mostly a bottom–up process (e.g., Butler & Nickerson, 2011; Erikson et al., 2002; Hobolt & Klemmensen, 2008; Lax & Phillips, 2009; Page, 1994; Soroka & Wlezien, 2010). More formally, Powell (2004) defines responsiveness as “what occurs when the democratic process induces the government to form and implement policies that the citizens want” (p. 91). Correspondingly, Manin, Przeworski, and Stokes (1999) write that “a government is ‘responsive’ if it adopts policies that are signaled as preferred by citizens . . . the message comes first, and public officials are responsive to the extent to which their actions follow the preferences signaled by citizens” (pp. 9-10; see also Stimson, MacKuen, & Erikson, 1995). ³

Although adaptation to majority positions is an integral part of responsiveness processes, there are other ways for politicians to respond to citizen opinion between elections (Esaiasson, Gilljam, & Persson, 2013).

To begin with, politicians may listen to the public. Indeed, this is a requirement of effective adaptation, as politicians need to be informed about citizens’ wishes and views to knowingly represent those opinions (Soroka & Wlezien, 2010). Listening also may be important unto itself even if it does not serve actual policy responsiveness. For instance, it may serve to assure citizens that their voices are being heard by elected officials, which can affect evaluations of incumbent politicians and of the political system itself (Dobson, 2014). In line with this understanding of responsiveness actions, the conditions under which politicians are willing to listen and learn about citizen opinions are increasingly researched by scholars (e.g., Butler, 2014; Butler & Nickerson, 2011; Miller, 2010; Richardson & John, 2012; Öhberg & Naurin, 2015).

Responsive politicians also may explain their actions to citizens. This involves providing the public with credible justifications for their policy positions or actions (Disch, 2011; Pitkin, 1967). (Note that explaining allows representatives to shape opinion and not only to mirror citizens’ wishes and views; for example, Disch, 2011; Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000; Mansbridge, 2003; Pitkin, 1967; Urbinati, 2006.) Explaining is of special importance when politicians are not following majority opinion. It is important even when politicians do represent the majority, particularly for those citizens who receive unfavorable outcomes from political processes. Recent studies by Grose, Malhotra, and Van Houweling (2014) and Minozzi, Neblo, Esterling, and Lazer (2015) illustrate how politicians’ explanations to citizens fit within the general framework of democratic responsiveness.

Who Acts Responsively?

Responsiveness actions are performed by actors who stand in a representative relationship with citizens. Using this definition, a wide array of political actors can be distinguished. One distinction is between individual representatives and representative institutions, such as parliaments and governments, and their relations with citizens (Golder & Stramski, 2010; Holmberg, 1989; Thomassen, 1994; Weissberg, 1978). Another distinction is between actors at the national and local level (e.g., Gilljam, Persson, & Karlsson, 2012). Moreover, although less frequently studied from the perspective of democratic representation, political parties are relevant actors (consider the work by Adams, Haupt, & Stoll, 2009). A further type of relevant actor are administrative (bureaucratic) decision makers who have been delegated power by elected officials and who make decisions that affect citizens (e.g., Bevan, 2015; Stivers, 1994).

To Whom Do Representatives Respond?

In a representative system, all citizens stand in a representative relationship with elected officials, and hence, they are subject to responsiveness actions. Nevertheless, certain subgroups of citizens stand out as particularly relevant to representatives.

From the point of view of rational choice theory, the position of the median voter is of primary concern. Other theoretical representations emphasize the majority position. Illustrative of the latter is Robert Dahl (1989), who posits that a democratic government “does what a majority of its citizens want it to do, and avoid doing what they most want it not to do” (p. 95). It alternatively may be that responsive actions concentrate on certain subgroups, such as resourceful citizens (Brady, Verba, & Schlozman, 1995; also see Gilens, 2012).

Yet another group of theoretical and practical interest is the set of policy losers, those who do not support authoritative decisions (e.g., Anderson, Blais, Bowler, Donovan, & Listhaug, 2005). As discussed above, there is reason to think that politicians have an interest in making clear to these people that they are listening and also explaining why they adopted the policy decisions they did.

Does the Public Notice?

The next component in the model concerns citizens’ perceptions of responsiveness processes. This brings to the fore questions of survey measurement. Traditionally, studies that map citizens’ perceptions of the responsiveness of their political system are closely connected with studies of external efficacy (e.g., Chamberlain, 2012; Clarke, Kornberg, & Scotto, 2010). Indeed, the two concepts and their indicators often are used interchangeably (Esaiasson, Kölln, & Turper, 2015). Another measurement issue in the literature is how to maintain differences between reference objects; for example, scholars are struggling with identifying indicators that differentiate between perceptions of incumbent responsiveness and regime responsiveness (e.g., Craig, Niemi, & Silver, 1990).

A welcome effort to construct measures that specifically targets responsiveness perceptions in a comparative context is presented in the latest round of the European Social Survey (see Ferrin & Kriesi, 2014). These measures form the basis for the contributions to the special issue by Bowler and by Rosset, Giger, and Bernauer. An alternative measure that corresponds to the broader conceptualization of responsiveness actions discussed above is presented in Esaiasson et al. (2015).

Public Reactions to Responsiveness, Real and Perceived

A further question of interest to our model is whether responsiveness—both objective and subjective—is consequential for citizens’ political evaluations. Two types of evaluations are particularly relevant: one pertaining to support for specific actors, for example, approval or vote choice, and the other to the broader system, ranging from the acceptance of policy decisions to general trust and support. The former pertains to accountability mechanisms, the latter to beliefs about systemic properties.

Responsiveness may be relevant to these evaluations in two ways. First, people may reward or punish politicians (and systems) based on the degree to which their policy preferences win, that is, policymakers represent individuals’ positions in policy. Much work (e.g., Anderson et al., 2005) emphasizes the importance of political winning and losing—on Election Day—for evaluations of actors and institutions, and there is reason to suppose that this extends to policy outputs themselves. As will become evident, several contributions to this special issue find support for this type of instrumentality in citizens’ evaluations and reactions to responsiveness processes.

Second, responsiveness also may matter for what it implies about the process itself. Much other work (e.g., Tyler, 2006) ascribes importance to procedural fairness in various fields of research, and there is reason to suppose that responsive decision making matters for assessments of process fairness. Indeed, citizens may base their evaluations at least partly on the degree to which preferences are taken into account even if they are not always followed. Of course, this may matter more for assessments of the broader system.

Feedback Mechanisms

Finally, the consequences of responsiveness constitute the feedback loop from citizens to representatives in our model. That is, whether (and the extent to which) responsiveness affects political evaluations can affect representatives’ behavior itself, as the feedback provides incentives for responsiveness. (Of course, whether the incentives work depends on whether politicians care about what the public thinks of them.)

Also, consider that effective responsiveness often depends on a more fundamental form of feedback of policy on public policy preferences. This concerns whether the public notices what policymakers do and thermostatically adjusts its preferences in response—negative feedback (Soroka & Wlezien, 2010; Wlezien, 1995). It is important for two reasons. First, without such public responsiveness, representatives would have little incentive to respond. Second, they would have little basis for responding, as expressed public preferences would contain little or no information about what the public wants.

The Contributions to the Special Issue

The articles in the special issue derive and empirically examine various consequences that might follow from responsiveness actions. In the first contribution, Christopher Wlezien asks whether misrepresentation accounts for the well-known “cost of ruling” effect, whereby governing parties lose vote share the longer they are in power. Wlezien posits that this effect, at least in part, reflects the growing gap between public opinion and the ideological tenor of policy. His empirical analysis focuses on U.S. presidential elections, and the results demonstrate that as the length of time a party holds the White House increases, public opinion shifts as the thermostatic model predicts; the longer Republican (Democratic) presidents are in power, the more the public thinks the government needs to do more (less). More importantly, there is direct evidence that policy extremity is an important causal mechanism: The policy liberalism of presidents from different parties increasingly diverges over time, and this matters for the vote. Policy extremity accounts for approximately just less than half of the cost of ruling effect we observe and further implies that elections are not simply games of “musical chairs.”

The next article, by Peter Esaiasson, Mikael Gilljam, and Mikael Persson, focuses on the mechanisms linking responsiveness actions with decision acceptance. Using the broader conceptualization of responsiveness actions discussed above, it asks whether citizens are rewarding politicians for acting responsively over and above providing favorable policies. Drawing on survey experiment and case study evidence, the authors show that responsiveness actions are rewarded, at least provided that citizens are convinced that politicians have paid attention to their wishes and views. Importantly, responsiveness actions that signal willingness to communicate (“to listen” and “to explain”) are much more effective than the action to follow majority opinion (“to adapt”). However, the responsiveness–acceptance connection is sensitive to perceptual bias; policy losers are hard-pressed to accept that politicians have indeed acted responsively. Moreover, in a direct comparison, policy favorability (preference satisfaction) is the dominating driver of decision acceptance.

Shaun Bowler’s contribution examines whether (and how) people’s support for responsiveness is indeed an important value in democracy. Using data from the European Social Survey, he finds that citizens of European democracies do value responsiveness in the way that democratic theorists assume they should and that several key assumptions of the aggregate-level literature are met at the individual level. But he also finds that attitudes toward responsiveness are colored, sometimes in quite surprising ways, by winner–loser effects. In addition, it finds that conservative citizens consistently prefer leadership that does not always consider public opinion.

The fourth article, by Jan Rosset, Nathalie Giger, and Julian Bernauer, looks further into the determinants of citizens’ support for responsiveness as a democratic value. The core argument is that attitudes toward responsiveness vary systematically depending on the policy gains an individual can expect from a government that is responsive to the majority position among citizens. Individuals whose ideological stances are well reflected by the incumbent government are less favorable to the idea that governments should be responsive to the preferences of the majority, while one’s proximity to the ideological location of the median citizen—a proxy for the policy position preferred by a majority of citizens—increases the odds of support for majoritarian responsiveness. Despite some cross-country variation, self-interested attitudes are evident across a variety of European democracies.

Quinton Mayne and Armen Hakhverdian’s contribution returns to questions about the consequences that follow from political representation. It targets the correspondence between the ideological positions of representatives and those of the general public, and asks whether an ideological match produces system support among citizens across a large number of advanced democracies. In line with some of the core findings from the three preceding articles, the research finds that quality representation generates democratic satisfaction, but only when citizens’ own personal ideological position matches that of elected representatives. That is, the authors demonstrate that people care about “egocentric” congruence, not broader “sociotropic” representation. They also show that this egocentric congruence matters the most for citizens with the highest levels of political sophistication.

The final article, by Sara Hagemann, Sara Hobolt, and Christopher Wratil, examines a feedback mechanism in democratic responsiveness and how, in turn, politicians’ responses find their way back to the public. It does so by targeting government behavior at the international level, specifically, in the European Union’s (EU) primary legislative body, the Council of the EU. The authors reveal that governments are more likely to oppose legislative proposals that extend the level and scope of EU authority when their domestic electorates are skeptical about the EU, and that governments are more responsive when the issue of European integration is salient in domestic party politics. Moreover, the article demonstrates that such responsiveness signals resonate in the domestic political debate through newspaper coverage.

The collection of articles demonstrates that political responsiveness matters. It influences election outcomes, the acceptance of political decisions, support for government responsiveness, systemic support, and media coverage itself. Much of the work highlights the primacy of individuals’ own preferences and the extent to which these are reflected in positions and policy. Although this is important, it comes as little surprise, given what we know about the underpinnings of public opinion and political behavior. That there are hints of more collective elements to people’s judgments may be more surprising. Indeed, it represents a basis for future research on the mechanisms underlying people’s evaluations of the representation relationship itself.