CJPS1

Article

Responsiveness, support, and responsibility: How democratic responsiveness facilitates responsible government

Jonas Linde University of Bergen, Norway; Uni Research Rokkan Center, Norway

Yvette Peters University of Bergen, Norway

Abstract Representative democracy entails governments that are both responsive and responsible. Mair argued that political parties find it increasingly difficult to balance these two tasks. With an increase in international commitments and interdependence, governments cannot always follow the wishes of their citizens but need to be responsible instead. Our study examines the responsiveness–responsibility link from the angle of citizen perceptions. We argue that when governments are seen as responsive they build a “buffer” of support, allowing them to make decisions that are not necessarily responsive but possibly responsible. By being responsive, governments build a reservoir of goodwill, which they can use to survive more difficult periods. Using data from the 2012 European Social Survey, we test whether perceived responsiveness feeds into this reservoir and whether this reservoir consequently increases perceived responsibility. We find support for this link, suggesting that responsiveness and responsibility do not need to be trade- offs but can complement each other.

Keywords legitimacy, political support, responsibility, responsiveness, satisfaction with democracy

Mair (2009) highlighted that representative democracy

entails governments that are both responsive and responsible.

He argued that political parties—and especially those who

generally form the government—find it increasingly difficult

to balance these two tasks. With an increase in international

commitments and economic interdependence, governments

often claim that they have to act responsibly and in their effort

to provide responsible governance they cannot always follow

the wishes of its voters. Responsive and responsible decisions

may of course overlap, but the moments where they do not

require governments to make a choice between what people

want and what is the responsible thing to do.

We contribute to the debate about the tension between

responsiveness and responsibility by empirically assessing

the relationship between responsiveness and the leeway

that governments have to take responsible, and sometimes

unpopular, decisions. Responsiveness and responsibility

are complex concepts and may be defined and operationa-

lized in different ways. Whereas responsiveness could be

taken to mean the short-term match between what people

want and what they receive from political parties and lead-

ers in terms of policies and policy output (see e.g. Kang and

Powell, 2010; Stimson et al., 1995), responsibility appears

to invoke a more comprehensive interpretation of long-

term interests. Sometimes, it is necessary for governing

political parties and leaders to take into account long-

Paper submitted 9 February 2018; accepted for publication 10 February

2018

Corresponding author:

Jonas Linde, Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen,

5007 Bergen, Norway.

Email: [email protected]

Party Politics 2020, Vol. 26(3) 291–304

ª The Author(s) 2018

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1354068818763986

journals.sagepub.com/home/ppq

term needs of the people and the country that have not

explicitly been articulated as specific demands from the

electorate. In addition, the room for action of contemporary

governments is often circumscribed by international and

supranational agreements as well as by decisions made

by former governments (Bardi et al., 2014: 237).

The theory we propose argues that when governments

are perceived by citizens to act responsive to their demands

and wishes, they grow a “buffer” of support. This buffer, or

“reservoir of goodwill,” may eventually increase the scope

for governments to make decisions that citizens perceive as

not being in accordance with their short-term interests, that

is, decisions that are non-responsive but rather responsible.

The rationale behind our theory is a development of

Easton’s (1965) notion of a reservoir of goodwill—

consisting of public support that is generated by good

performance and responsive policy-making—which gov-

ernments can utilize in order to act responsible. While

Easton theorized that the reservoir could be used in times

of crisis and/or poor performance, we argue that such a

buffer also constitutes an important asset to governments

when they need to act responsible rather than responsive,

which is frequently the case in this era of globalization and

international interdependence.

Using survey data from the sixth round of the European

Social Survey (wave 6 in 2012), we first test whether per-

ceptions of responsiveness are associated with higher levels

of political support, that is, contributing to a reservoir of

goodwill. In a second step, we assess to what extent this

reservoir of goodwill creates leeway for governments to act

responsible in terms of citizens recognizing responsible

government actions. We find that when people perceive the

government as more responsive, they also tend to express

higher levels of political support. In turn, those who con-

tribute to this reservoir of goodwill also perceive the gov-

ernment as more responsible. Our analyses thus suggest

that responsiveness and responsibility are not necessarily

conflicting democratic values and that political support acts

as an important mechanism in this relationship. This

implies that governments should not underestimate the

importance of acting responsive since responsive actions

are rewarded with support, which in turn increases citizens’

acceptance of political decisions that are not in accordance

with short-term demands of the electorate.

Theoretical framework: Perceptions of responsiveness and responsible government

Our main argument is that responsiveness is essential for

responsible government and that political support is an

important mechanism in this relationship. As recently

argued by Esaiasson and Wlezien (2017), the actions of

parties and political representatives may be more or less

responsive to the demands from citizens. These actions are

then judged by citizens who form their own perceptions

about the responsiveness of the political system. Citizens

react according to these beliefs in terms of voting in elec-

tions and expressing support/discontent and trust/distrust

toward the functioning of the political system. The reac-

tions of citizens are then supposed to feed back to the

political representatives and should preferably affect their

future actions. Thus, in this way, governments that act

responsive are rewarded with support and trust on behalf

of the public. In the following, we outline the process in

which responsive government generates a reservoir of

goodwill built up by support, and how this reservoir facil-

itates difficult and sometimes unresponsive decision-

making and policy implementation.

Responsiveness and the reservoir of goodwill

As one key principle of democracy, by its very nature, gov-

ernments should at least be minimally responsive to what a

majority of people want (Dahl, 1998; Powell, 2004; Stimson

et al., 1995). Democratic government is supposed to mean

government by and for the people, and when government

policies are seen to reflect people’s ideas and preferences,

those governments may indeed be evaluated positively.

Thus, people are more likely to express support for the polit-

ical system when responsiveness is high (Armingeon and

Guthmann, 2014; Torcal, 2014). In fact, different aspects

of political support, such as citizens’ satisfaction with

democracy, have actually been used as explicit indicators

of responsiveness (e.g. Morlino and Quaranta, 2014), assum-

ing that they are part of the same concept. However, we

argue that responsiveness and support are conceptually dif-

ferent, where the former constitutes an important determi-

nant of the latter. Citizens are simply more likely to evaluate

their political system positively when it produces policies

that match their preferences.1

A government that manages to act in accordance with

the preferences of a majority of the citizens should thus be

perceived as worthy of support and could therefore be per-

ceived as enjoying a high degree of legitimacy. This notion

of legitimacy draws on Easton’s (1965, 1975) idea of polit-

ical support. Easton argues that support is multidimen-

sional and directed toward different objects—from

support toward specific political actors and institutions

(specific support) to a more diffuse type of support for the

political community and the political regime as such (dif-

fuse support) (cf. Norris, 1999, 2011). Easton defines dif-

fuse support as an “attachment to a political object for its

own sake” that “taps deep political sentiments and is not

easily depleted through disappointment with outputs”

(1965: 274). Diffuse support refers to public evaluations

of what an object is or represents, not what it does. Specific

support, on the other hand, is mainly generated by citizens’

evaluations of the performance and outputs of the political

292 Party Politics 26(3)

system. It is thus based on public perceptions of policy

performance and responsiveness and may thus be sensitive

to short-time variations in system outputs (Linde and

Ekman, 2003; Norris, 1999; Weatherford, 1987).

In line with Easton, we argue that the two types of support

are closely connected and that specific support is a necessary

condition for diffuse support. Performance is a very impor-

tant factor in all types of political systems, regardless of the

type of regime. Good performance is recognized by citizens

in terms of support for the actions and policies of the gov-

ernment. Specific support is then translated into diffuse sup-

port for the underlying principles of the political system. The

latter type of support could be regarded as “a reservoir of

good will that helps members to accept or tolerate outputs to

which they are opposed” (Easton, 1965: 273).

Logically, this process may also proceed in the other

direction, that is, that long periods of poor performance—

in particular a low level of perceived responsiveness on

behalf of the citizens—result in political discontent. In the

end, this may negatively affect diffuse support for the polit-

ical system as a whole, and therefore in the end jeopardize

the legitimacy of the political regime.2 If such a reservoir of

goodwill facilitates the process of making decisions that are

perceived as unfavorable by citizens, as argued by Easton,

we argue that it should also be of importance with regard to

the tension between responsive and responsible decision-

making highlighted by Mair (2009).

An important question that arises from our line of think-

ing concerns the formation of the reservoir of goodwill in

more general terms. Could it be that the kind of support we

are interested in is generated by socialization rather than

personal experiences with the system, such as the perceived

level of responsiveness (or other experiential factors)?

Easton (1975) argues that specific support is generated

through two main processes connected to individual experi-

ences. The first is positive evaluations of the extent to which

the political system meets the demands of citizens. This

notion comes very close to our argument of responsiveness

being an essential determinant of support. Second, as we

have discussed, “positive or negative evaluations may also

be stimulated not by explicit actions on the part of the

authorities but by their perceived general performance”

(1975: 438). When it comes to diffuse support, Easton is

often credited as to regard it as mainly determined by child-

hood and continuing adult socialization. It is, however,

important to note that Easton explicitly views direct experi-

ence also as an important source of diffuse support, since

long-term negative perceptions of the performance of the

regime may negatively affect people’s views of the legiti-

macy of the regime and its institutions (1975: 445–446).

Taking stock of the results from the last decades of

empirical research, the evidence points toward a primacy

of experiential processes in generating political support and

trust, both specific and diffuse (Dahlberg and Linde, 2016;

Dinesen and Sønderskov, 2018; Linde, 2012; Magalhães,

2014; Mishler and Rose, 2001). Thus, in line with this recent

body of research, we expect perceptions of responsiveness—

which is admittedly an experiential factor—to be signifi-

cantly related to our measures of the reservoir of goodwill.

Government responsiveness and responsible government

All governments have to maintain a balance between citi-

zens’ demands for policy responsiveness and the need for

responsibility, or, in other words, between democracy and

effectiveness (Mair, 2009: 10). Our theory stipulates that—

in the first step—decision-making perceived as responsive

by citizens adds to the reservoir of diffuse support. In the

second step, governments may use this reservoir when they

need to make responsible decisions. Such a buffer of support

facilitates responsible decision-making since the decisions

are more likely to be accepted by the citizens, even though

these decisions may not be in accordance with the general

short-term policy preferences of the electorate or may even

be outright unpopular. This argument aligns to some extent

with that of Immergut and Abou-Chadi (2014), who argue

that electorally vulnerable politicians are less likely to sup-

port policies that seem unpopular but perhaps necessary.

Responsibility is somewhat tricky to define in a straight-

forward manner. Our understanding of the concept draws

on the definition provided by Bardi et al. (2014) who define

responsibility as:

the necessity for / . . . / parties and leaders to take into account (a)

the long-term needs of their people and countries, which have not

necessarily been articulated as specific demands and which

underlie and go beyond the short-term demands of those same

people / . . . /; (b) the claims of audiences other than the national

electoral audience, including the international markets that

ensure their financial alimentation, the international commit-

ments and organisations that are the root of their international

credibility, and, in the European context in particular, the heavy

transnational conditions of constraint that are the result of a com-

mon currency and common market. (Bardi et al., 2014: 237)

Thus, there are several situations when governments may

need to circumvent the principle of democratic responsive-

ness in favor of acting responsibly. Contemporary democra-

cies—not least the member states of the European Union

that are subject to a certain amount of supranational deci-

sion-making—are increasingly engaged in international

commitments and subject to increasing economic interde-

pendence. And, the political leaders of today are often tied

by the promises, decisions, and agreements made by yester-

day’s leaders. Moreover, liberal democracy requires protec-

tion of the rights of minorities, which might be at odds with

the preferences of the majority. Therefore, democratic gov-

ernments sometimes also have to be responsive to minorities

rather than the electoral majority (cf. Hänni, 2017). In

Linde and Peters 293

addition, a government may sometimes use “responsibility”

as a reason for not following the wishes of its voters.

Empirical expectations

To sum up, our theoretical argument is the following. Gov-

ernments acting in ways that are perceived as responsive by

citizens are rewarded with support. This performance-based

support fills up a reservoir of goodwill, which may be used

in times when governments need to act responsibly rather

than responsive. The reservoir of goodwill then creates lee-

way for responsible decision-making because citizens who

are content with the performance of the political system are

more likely to accept that the government sometimes has to

make decisions based on long-term responsibility rather than

short-term responsiveness. In the empirical section, we test

this argument in a two-step analysis. First, we expect to find

a positive relationship between perceived responsiveness

and political support (the reservoir of goodwill). Second,

we expect a positive relationship between political support

and perceptions of responsible government.

These hypothesized relationships should not be interpreted

in a strictly causal manner. First, our analyses rely mostly on

cross-sectional data. Second, the central concepts—respon-

siveness, political support, and responsibility—are arguably

conceptually related and to some extent also overlapping.

Rather, we believe that responsiveness and responsibility are

mutually reinforcing phenomena. A responsive government,

which enjoys high levels of support, is more likely to be able

to make responsible decisions that in the end are beneficial to

the long-term interests of the country and its citizens. When

citizens recognize this, the government is rewarded with sup-

port, and the government is perceived by citizens as actually

being responsive since it produces policies that in the end

actually benefit the citizens. Thus, responsiveness and

responsibility are mutually reinforcing.

Data and methods

In order to find out whether government responsiveness

feeds into a reservoir of goodwill, and whether this reser-

voir consequently helps governments in being more

responsible, we mainly use data from the ESS 2012. This

wave of the ESS is specifically relevant for our purposes as

it includes a special battery of democracy related questions,

asking respondents about their ideas and experiences with

their national democracy. The wave includes questions

about what respondents find important aspects of democ-

racy (e.g. elections, a free media, courts, etc.), whether they

feel that aspects of democracy function well in their own

country (e.g. whether elections are free and fair or whether

minorities are treated equally), and what type of institu-

tional set-up would be best for democracy more generally

(e.g. whether governments should be formed by one or

more political parties).

The ESS includes individual-level data for several

European countries. We further supplement the database

with a number of country-level variables that—except for

two (ideological congruence and aggregate political sup-

port)—are used in additional models that are presented in

the Online Appendix. Ideological congruence and aggre-

gate political support are further discussed below. We

include all democracies for which data are available, result-

ing in a total of 25 countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus,

Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,

Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy,

Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portu-

gal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Our theoretical argument is sequential, including two

steps. This results in two dependent variables: one that mea-

sures the reservoir of goodwill in the first step and subse-

quently a measure of perceptions of responsibility in the

second step. To test our argument, we would ideally use

indicators of the three concepts (perceived responsiveness,

political support, and responsibility) measured at three dif-

ferent points in time (responsiveness at t�2, the reservoir of

goodwill t�1, and responsibility at t). However, data on

responsiveness and responsibility are rare, which leaves us

with no other choice than taking advantage of the available

survey items from the ESS 2012. While we are not able to

solve this problem, we still aim to address this issue. For one,

we include an aggregate measure of the reservoir constructed

from earlier waves of the ESS. Moreover, we also try to

confront the sequential problem using ideological congru-

ence at the country level. Although this variable does not

solve the problem, it may be used as an important robustness

check, since it is (a) disconnected from citizens’ perceived

responsiveness and (b) is measured before the 2012 wave of

the ESS. In the following, the particular measures we use are

described and discussed in more detail.

Dependent variables

The reservoir of goodwill. Since our argument stipulates that

specific support and political trust contributes to a buffer of

goodwill that facilitates decision-making that is at odds with

the general demands of citizens, we need empirical indicators

of political support. In accordance with a large body of survey

research on system support, political support is here measured

by the question asking whether or not the respondent is satis-

fied with the way democracy works. In addition, we use the

corresponding question about satisfaction with the national

government. In the ESS, the questions are formulated in the

following way: “On the whole, how satisfied are you with the

way democracy works in [in country]?” and “Now thinking

about the [country] government, how satisfied are you with the

way it is doing its job?” Respondents then choose an answer

between 0 (extremely dissatisfied) and 10 (extremely satisfied).

Although its meaning and measure have been debated in

the literature (see Canache et al., 2001; Linde and Ekman,

294 Party Politics 26(3)

2003), we follow Linde and Ekman (2003) and Peffley and

Rohrschneider (2014) who argue that the satisfaction with

democracy question should be used as an indicator of pub-

lic evaluations of the actual performance of the democratic

political system. In their conceptualization of democratic

evaluations, Peffley and Rohrschneider (2014; 185) regard

both satisfaction with democracy and the evaluation of the

government as two types of support that are closely related

to what they call the “democratic reality,” as opposed to

“constitutional ideal,” which has more to do with the pub-

lic’s more abstract evaluations of democracy as a political

regime, that is, diffuse support in Easton’s sense.

The two indicators—satisfaction with the way democ-

racy works and satisfaction with the way the national gov-

ernment works—together form our first dependent

variable. They are combined into an index ranging from

0 to 10, with each indicator weighing equally (Cronbach’s

a ¼ 0.79). Figure 1 illustrates the variation between coun-

tries for the two indicators separately, as well as that for the

combined index of the reservoir of goodwill, which ranges

from 3.0 in Bulgaria to 7.0 in Switzerland. When looking at

the distribution, a clear pattern emerges, where we find

high levels of support in the Nordic and North European

countries and substantively lower levels in Southern Eur-

ope and in the post-communist East European democracies.

Countries that were hit hard by the financial crisis, such as

Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, and Slovenia, demonstrate funda-

mentally lower levels of support that countries that were not

that severely affected. This corresponds neatly with earlier

research on the impact of the crisis on public support for

democracy in the wake of the crisis (Armingeon and Guth-

mann, 2014; Torcal, 2014). Overall, Figure 1 demonstrates

substantial variation among European democracies when it

comes to the reservoir of goodwill and its individual indicators.

In addition to this indicator of support, which is based on

the same ESS 2012 wave as the other variables in the

model, we include an aggregate measure of the reservoir

of goodwill. This measure uses the same indicators—satis-

faction with democracy and satisfaction with the govern-

ment—but from earlier ESS waves. We include the

percentage of support for each country, averaged out over

time, to generate an indication of the size of the reservoir

before the 2012 measurement of the ESS. Including this

measure also aligns with our theoretical expectation that a

0 2 4 6 8

Mean of satisfaction with democracy

CHDKNOS E FINLDE ILBEGB IS IEEEFRP LCZL TSKCYHU ITPTES SIBG

0 2 4 6 8

Mean of satisfaction with government

CH FINOS ENLBEDEDK IL LT SKEEGBHUFR IS

CZPL IECY ITBG SIESPT

7.0 6.5

6.4 6.4

6.1 5.8

5.5 5.4

5.3 4.9

4.8 4.7

4.6 4.6

4.5 4.4 4.3

4.3 4.3

4.0 3.6

3.3 3.3

3.2 3.0

0 2 4 6 8

Mean of the reservoir of goodwill

CHNO FISEDKNLDEBE ILGBEEL TSK IS IE

FRHUCZPLCY ITESPT SIBG

Figure 1. Mean levels of the indicators and index of the reservoir of goodwill.

Linde and Peters 295

reservoir builds up over time and then feeds into a percep-

tion that the government is responsible.

Perceptions of responsibility. Our second dependent variable is

the perception of responsibility. As discussed earlier, the

concept of responsibility is somewhat complex. Using the

definition suggested by Bardi et al. (2014), responsibility

refers to (a) long-term interest of the people and county that

have not been articulated as specific demands and (b) claims

of non-electorate audiences, such as international agree-

ments and conventions, supranational institutions, and com-

mitments made by previous governments. These are of

course concepts that are intricate to operationalize using

survey data and ideally we would like to have an “objective”

measure on the country-level. So far, however, we have not

been able to find any such indicators that could be used as a

proxy for responsible decision-making. We are thus left with

the 2012 wave of the ESS, which in fact includes a few

indicators that come close to Bardi et al.’s two elements of

responsibility, in terms of citizens’ perceptions. Two ques-

tions, each ranging from 0 (does not apply at all) to 10

(applies completely), are particularly relevant here:

( . . . ) [P]lease tell me to what extent you think each of

these statements applies in [country].

� The rights of minority groups in [country] are

protected.

� Politicians in [country] take into account the views

of other European governments before making

decisions.

These two indicators are used to create an index of per-

ceived responsibility, ranging from 0 to 10, where both items

weigh equally (Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.41). Figure 2 shows the

mean levels of the perception of responsibility and its indica-

tors, by country. The index of responsibility ranges between

4.7 (Italy) and 7.0 (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland), suggest-

ing a relatively high mean score considering that the mid-

point of the index is 5. Especially for the indicator tapping

the assessment of the protection of the rights of minorities is

generally high: Only Portugal, Italy, and Spain have average

scores of below 5, while many countries have scores of over 6.

In general, the pattern found here is similar to the one

demonstrated in Figure 1, with higher levels in Northern

Europe and lower levels in Southern and Eastern Europe,

although the variation is less pronounced.

The indicators that we include aim to tap perceptions of

responsibility as we outline above. However, people’s per-

ceptions might also be closely related to what they think is

desirable. If this were the case, it would be difficult to disen-

tangle the relationships between support and responsibility as

they could both be seen as evaluations of good performance of

the government. To test whether the perceptions of responsi-

bility are connected to people’s ideas about how things should

be ideally, we correlate our perception-of-responsibility vari-

ables with the importance-of-responsibility variables that are

also included in the ESS 2012. These latter indicators refer to

the same phenomena (minority rights, other governments) but

ask how important these things are in a democracy. The cor-

relations are surprisingly low, ranging from 0.01 (minority

rights) to 0.13 (combined responsibility indices). Thus, the

issues included in our measurement of responsibility are not

necessarily seen as normatively good by those observing

them and vice versa.

Independent variable

Our main independent variable, which we use in the first

part of the analysis, is the perception of responsiveness.

The ESS includes a question that asks whether people think

it is best that the government changes its policies according

to what most people think or that the government should

stick to its planned policies. Depending on their answer,

people get one of the following questions, each ranging

from 0 (never) to 10 (always):

� [P]lease tell me how often you think the government

in [country] today changes its planned policies in

response to what most people think?

� [P]lease tell me how often you think the government

in [country] today sticks to its planned policies

regardless of what most people think?

The first of these questions indicates a person’s percep-

tion of responsiveness, while the second question indicates

the opposite. We thus combined these two questions by

reversing the scale of the second question, making an index

that ranges from 0 (no responsiveness) to 10 (mostly respon-

sive). This simple measure actually comes quite close to one

of the suggested measurements of responsiveness discussed

by Powell in his influential article on the chain of respon-

siveness (Powell, 2004: 102). Figure 3 shows the variation

between countries of the mean scores on the perception of

responsiveness. The overall average perception of respon-

siveness is relatively low, with most countries having an

average score of below the midpoint of 5. The main excep-

tion is Switzerland, which has a mean score of 6.20. Coun-

tries on the other end of the scale include Spain, Estonia, and

the Czech Republic, which all have score of just over 3.

It is important to notice that we are here gauging the way

citizens evaluate the responsiveness of the government and

thus not how important they view responsive government.

As shown by Bowler (2016), also using data from the ESS,

a strong majority (about 65%) of Europeans supports the

idea that the government should change its planned policies

in response to what most people think. There is consider-

ably less support for the “responsible,” or “trustee,” model

of government, which is favored by roughly 18% of the

respondents. Our theoretical argument is, however, based

296 Party Politics 26(3)

6.1 5.0

4.8 4.6

4.5 4.5

4.3 4.3 4.3 4.3

4.3 4.2

4.1 4.1

4.0 3.7

3.7 3.7

3.6 3.5

3.5 3.5

3.5 3.4

3.0

0 2 4 6

Mean of perception of responsiveness

CH DK NL GB SE NO IE

BE FR SK FI IL

PL IS

DE CY IT LT SI

BG PT CZ EE HU ES

Figure 3. Mean levels of perceptions of responsiveness.

0 2 4 6 8

Mean of government accounts for views of other European countries

FIIEDKNLSENOBGCHSKEEBEGBDEESPTFRL T SIPL IL IS ITHUCYCZ

0 2 4 6 8

Mean of minority rights are protected

CY SISEDKDENOSKCH FIBGGBNL IEHUCZBEP LFR IS ILEEL TES IT

PT

7.0 7.0 7.0

6.8 6.7 6.7 6.7 6.7 6.7

6.5 6.5

6.3 6.3

6.1 5.9

5.7 5.7 5.7

5.6 5.4 5.4

5.3 5.2

4.8 4.7

0 2 4 6 8

Mean of responsibility index

FIDKSENOBGCHSKNL IEDE SIGBCYBEEEFRP LHUCZ IS IL LT ESPT IT

Figure 2. Mean levels of the indicators and index of perceptions of responsibility.

Linde and Peters 297

on an evaluative notion of responsiveness, that is, how

responsive citizens view government to be rather than how

responsive government ought to be.

As an additional test, we include a measure of ideological

congruence instead of the individual perception of respon-

siveness. To be sure, congruence and responsiveness, or

perceptions of responsiveness, are different concepts as con-

gruence mostly captures the overlap in ideology between

representatives and citizens. However, ideological congru-

ence also captures one aspect of how representation works

and may be seen as a measure that is closely related to how

parliaments or governments respond to people. Since such a

measure is an aggregate one, and measured at previous

points in time, it will help us to assess whether support and

perceptions of responsiveness simply co-vary because they

both indicate an evaluation of performance or whether it

might be the actual performance of representation that

causes—in part—support.

We focus here on what Golder and Stramski (2010) call

“many-to-many congruence,” that is, the degree of overlap

between citizens’ and representatives ideological preferences.

This is a particularly relevant indicator when interested in

substantive representation of interests (Golder and Stramski,

2010). It is further relevant as it does not compare an

“averaged-out” position of the government (which are often

coalitions in Europe) but looks at how preferences are struc-

tured in society and consequently how this is related to the

structure of preferences in the parliament. We use the calcula-

tions and data from Golder and Stramski (2010), which is based

on the comparative study of electoral systems. They provide

data for 17 of our countries, measured between 1996 and 2005.

Control variables

In addition to the standard socio-demographic variables gen-

der, age, and education, we include a number of variables

that have been shown to be important in explaining political

support. Many studies have demonstrated that status as elec-

toral winner or loser is one of the most powerful determi-

nants of political support. People who voted for a party that

ended up in government tend to display higher levels of

satisfaction with the way democracy works and, not very

surprisingly, also more satisfied with the performance of the

government (Anderson et al., 2005; Esaiasson, 2011). Simi-

larly, people’s evaluation of the economic situation of their

household has been shown to be positively correlated with

political support (Clarke et al., 1993). Moreover, we control

for the respondent’s self-reported level of political interest.

Taking into account the results from earlier research, it is not

entirely clear what to expect. It has been argued that people

with an understanding of political processes are more likely

to have more optimistic views about democracy in general

(Anderson and Tverdova, 2003). However, others argue that

politically interested and well-informed citizens are likely to

be more critical to the functioning of the political system

(Norris, 1999, 2011). Earlier research has also demonstrated

conflicting results when it comes to the relationship between

generalized trust and political support but in line with the

majority of empirical studies of the determinants of political

support, we nevertheless include interpersonal trust as a con-

trol. The variable perceived closeness to a political party is

related to political representation, which in recent research

has been demonstrated to be an important determinant of

democratic discontent (Dahlberg et al., 2015). At last, fol-

lowing many other studies, we also include a variable mea-

suring the respondent’s self-placement on the ideological

left–right scale. Since we have not found earlier studies,

we are very uncertain about what to expect with regard to

potential determinants of perceived responsibility. Since our

main interest concerns the relationship between this variable

and the reservoir of goodwill (political support), we chose to

include the same control variables in these models. A more

detailed overview of the indicators used in the analyses can

be found in the Appendix.

Empirical strategy

Considering the structure of our data, we use a multilevel

approach. As standard errors are likely to be too small in a

regular ordinary least squares analysis, it is also more likely

to make type I errors (Steenbergen and Jones, 2002). A

multilevel model reduces this risk. Moreover, we use a

random-intercepts model to allow for variation in the over-

all levels of political support or perceived responsibility. As

a further robustness check, we ran the models also for each

country separately in order to make sure that no country

influences the results too much. These results are largely in

line with the ones that are reported here. All full models

including information about model fit and variance can be

found in the Online Appendix.

Results

In the first step of our analysis, we examine whether peo-

ple’s perceived responsiveness, as well as many-to-many

congruence, is related to their support for their political

system and thus whether it feeds into the overall reservoir

of goodwill. Figure 4 shows the results of the first analyses

and includes variables that have all been rescaled to a 0 –1

scale to allow for clearer comparisons of the size of the

effects. The full models, the null model, and a model

including only perceived responsiveness are reported in the

Online Appendix. The figure shows that responsiveness is

positively related to support for the political system and

that this result is statistically significant. When people see

their government as more responsive, they also tend to

express more satisfaction with the working of democracy

and the government. This provides strong support for our

expectation that responsiveness adds to the reservoir of

goodwill. Moreover, as the full models in the Online

298 Party Politics 26(3)

Appendix show, perceived responsiveness alone accounts

for more than 13% of the between-country variation in

support for the political system and almost 4% of the var-

iation within countries. All independent variables together

explain almost 54 and 20%, respectively. The right-hand

panel of Figure 4 further illustrates that many-to-many con-

gruence, where higher scores imply greater congruence,

has a significant and positive effect on levels of support

meaning that contexts with greater congruence tend to have

higher levels of support. This further supports our theore-

tical proposition—even though congruence is not identical

to responsiveness. Compared to the variables indicating

alternative explanations, both perceived responsiveness

and congruence appear to have a fairly big effect.

Furthermore, Figure 4 shows that the results of many of

the variables indicating alternative explanations align with

what we would expect from previous research. People hav-

ing voted for a party ending up in government are signifi-

cantly more supportive than political “losers.” Moreover,

people who evaluate their family income as negative are less

likely to support their political system. Men, people with

higher education, higher interpersonal trust, more political

interest, more ideologically to the right, and those who feel

close to a political party, tend to be overall more satisfied.

In the second step of the analysis, we move on to test

whether the reservoir of goodwill consequently helps gov-

ernments to be more responsible, at least in terms of how

they are perceived by their citizens. Figure 5 illustrates the

results of the two full models again including only rescaled

variables. It shows that having a reservoir of goodwill

indeed appears to boost the perception that governments

are responsible. The effect of the reservoir is statistically

significant and positive, suggesting that the more positively

someone evaluates the performance of the government and

political system in general, the more likely s/he is to see the

government as acting responsible. The effect size is quite

substantial, also in comparison with the other indicators. A

one-point increase in political support results in a 0.23-

point increase in perceived responsibility. Moreover, the

complete results (reported in the Online Appendix) high-

light that the reservoir alone explains about 32% of the

between country variance and almost 8% of within country

variation. In the full model including also the alternative

explanations, this explained variance increases merely to

about 34 and more than 9%, respectively. Moreover, the

right-hand panel of Figure 5 shows that the alternative

measure of the reservoir, measured as the percentage of

support before 2012, also has a positive and significant

effect on perceived responsibility.

Furthermore, the results suggest that men, those who are

more trusting, more politically interested, more right-wing in

political ideology, and identify with a party also tend to

perceive the government as more responsible. On the other

hand, income, education, and age do not seem to have an

effect on the perception of responsibility. Interestingly, sta-

tus as political “winner” or “loser” does not matter for per-

ception of responsible government, at least in the left-hand

panel. This might seem quite surprising. However, a govern-

ment that acts responsibly rather than responsive actually

chooses to divert from the short-term demands of their voters

in favor of more long-term national interests. Responsible

actions might therefore breach the “responsiveness ties” to

their voters, making neither winners nor losers more suppor-

tive of those actions. The results presented in the right-hand

panel, however, show that being a political “winner” does

increase the likelihood of perceiving the government as

Perceived responsiveness

Winner

Evaluation income (negative)

Education

Female

Interpersonal trust

Political interest

Left-right scale placing

Age

Feel close to a political party

Many-to-many congruence

-.1 0 .1 .2 .3 -.1 0 .1 .2 .3

Reservoir and perceived responsiveness Reservoir and many-to-many congruence

Figure 4. Effects of perceived responsiveness and congruence on the reservoir of goodwill. Note: Results are based on a multilevel analysis with random intercepts. The coefficients are graphically illustrated including 95% confidence intervals.

Linde and Peters 299

more responsible. It seems that the individual-level measure-

ment of support absorbs this effect, suggesting a more com-

plex relationship between perceived responsiveness, being a

“winner,” and political support.

Robustness of the results

In order to check the robustness of the results, we have con-

ducted several robustness checks. In addition to the main mod-

els presented here, we test whether several country-level

controls affected the main results. The results also remain sim-

ilar when including only the individual indicators for political

support (satisfaction with democracy and satisfaction with the

government) and perceptions of responsibility. In addition, we

use a multilevel random coefficient approach to test whether

the slopes for the different countries are very different from

each other. We find that 95% the coefficients for the relation

between perceived responsiveness and support are in the range

between 0.024 and 0.240 and those for the relation between

support and perceived responsibility between 0.068 and 0.394.

Overall, slopes tend to vary between countries but are generally

in the same direction. The results of all these models can be

found in the Online Appendix.

Moreover, in order to test that the results are not

affected by country-outliers, we also replicate the model

for each country separately. The main results are highly

similar (in size, direction, and significance) for most coun-

tries.3 The inclusion of the electoral winner/loser variable

results in a smaller sample, as it excludes all non-voters

from the analysis. We therefore also replicate our models

without this variable, substituting it with a measure indi-

cating whether the respondent voted or not. The main

results remain robust. Moreover, as there are many missing

values in the data, we have used a multiple imputation by

chained equations method (with 10 imputations, 100 itera-

tions, and a burn-in of 10) to impute the relevant missing

values. Based on a now total of 47,515 observations, the

results remain highly similar to the ones presented here—

the coefficients of the main variables of interest are

slightly larger when using the imputed data.

The results in the light of the financial crisis

Our analyses show that citizens in those countries that were

hit particularly hard by the crisis also express less satisfac-

tion generally, but there seems to be no effect on percep-

tions of responsibility. While this simple country-level

control cannot account for the effects of the crisis in full,

it does show that the representational link has been in part

affected by this event. It needs to be noted that the survey

data that we use here stem from 2012. As the crisis started

in 2007, it is possible that our data from 2012 are still

influenced by this event and therefore do not reflect a

“typical” year. We should, however, also consider that

we might have expected a different result if the crisis had

a specific effect. Considering that governments sometimes

had to make difficult—and often very unpopular—deci-

sions, we might not have expected the positive link

between responsiveness and responsibility in light of an

effect of the crisis. People perceiving the government as

unresponsive might still express a lack of support, but they

would consider their governments responsible as it is mea-

sured here and vice versa. Although 2012 may still prove to

be “exceptional,” also in terms of the responsiveness–

responsibility link, our findings seem to hold despite the

occurrence of the crisis.

Reservoir of goodwill (ind.)

Winner

Evaluation income (negative)

Education

Female

Interpersonal trust

Political interest

Left-right scale placing

Age

Feel close to a political party

Reservoir of goodwill (<2012, in %)

-.1 0 .1 .2 .3 -.1 0 .1 .2 .3

Responsibility and the reservoir (individ.) Responsibility and the reservoir (country)

Figure 5. Effects of the reservoir of goodwill on perceived responsibility. Note: Results are based on a multilevel analysis with random intercepts. The coefficients are graphically illustrated including 95% confidence intervals.

300 Party Politics 26(3)

Concluding remarks

It has often been argued that responsiveness and responsibility

are conflicting phenomena, since, as highlighted by Mair

(2009), governments find it increasingly difficult to combine

responsive policy-making with responsible—and sometimes

unpopular—decisions. Contemporary democratic govern-

ments do indeed have to be responsible not only to the long-

term interests of their own citizens, but they also face

constraints from binding commitments to governments in

other countries and/or by decisions and agreements made by

former governments. However, in this study, we have argued

that responsiveness and responsibility actually are mutually

reinforcing and, consequently, mutually diminishing.

Our argument draws on Easton, who hypothesized that,

over time, governments that act responsive and perform

well in the eyes of the citizens generate “a reservoir of good

will that helps members to accept or tolerate outputs to

which they are opposed” (Easton, 1965: 273). In terms of

responsiveness and responsibility, our theory implies that

governments that are being perceived as responsive to

short-term demands from citizens generate something like

a “responsiveness capital” that eventually allows govern-

ments to make important but non-responsive decisions and

that these decisions are more likely to be accepted by the

citizens. In this way, responsive government actions create

leeway for governments to act in a responsible way.

We test our theoretical argument empirically using

cross-national survey data from the ESS. Using multiple

indicators of responsiveness, political support, and percep-

tions of responsibility, the multilevel regression analyses

provide strong support for our theory. We show that high

levels of perceived responsiveness are accompanied by

higher levels of support, thus adding to a reservoir of good-

will. Subsequently, we show that the reservoir of goodwill

then helps to create room for government to act responsible

or at least being perceived as acting responsible. Thus,

responsive government seems to be a precondition for cit-

izens’ acceptance of responsible government.

This should have implications for how governments—

and political scientists—view the functioning of represen-

tative democracy in general and in particular the often

assumed trade-off between responsiveness and responsibil-

ity, as highlighted by Mair and others. Governments may

sometimes feel that their hands are tied by external com-

mitments. By continuously taking the public’s short-term

policy preferences seriously, they generate a capital, which

may be used in situations where they need to act more

responsible than responsive. This also means that govern-

ments that act unresponsive have much less freedom to

make non-responsive but necessary decisions. A generally

unresponsive government making such decisions will run

the risk of being punished by the voters and in terms of

eroding legitimacy. Logically, the mutually reinforcing

process we have investigated here should also translate into

something like a vicious circle in a context where a gov-

ernment is generally perceived as lacking in terms of being

responsive to the wishes and demands of the electorate.

Such a public perception could very likely run the risk of

resulting in increased dissatisfaction with the democratic

system and it could have an eroding effect on the reservoir

of goodwill (if not already empty). In such a situation,

citizens should consequently be even less inclined to accept

important, and seemingly unresponsive, decisions.

With this study, we have taken a first step to illustrate that

responsiveness and responsibility do not need to be traded

off per se. They can rather be related in a more positive way

in which responsiveness facilitates responsibility. Future

studies should aim to investigate this connection more

closely. More specifically, while we focused here on the

perceptions of responsiveness and responsibility, future stud-

ies should also examine in what way policy responsiveness

and responsible acts of the government are related. Research

should make efforts to operationalize these more “objective”

concepts so that the connection between actual policy

responsiveness and responsible government can be tested.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mark Bovens, Stefan Dahlberg,

Zoe Lefkofridi, Jan Karremans, Rubén Ruiz-Rufino, and the anon-

ymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions on earlier versions

of this article. The authors also acknowledge support from the

Norwegian Research Council and the Bergen Research Foundation.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect

to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for

the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This

research was supported by the Norwegian Research Council (grant

no 262986) and the Bergen Research Foundation (Grant No.

811309).

ORCID iD

Jonas Linde https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4310-3328

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

1. See also Mayne and Hakhverdian (2017) and Stecker and Tau-

sendpfund (2016) on how ideological and policy congruence

between government and voters affects satisfaction with

democracy.

2. An interesting question concerns the depth of the reservoir.

How much poor performance and unresponsive policies can

a democratic regime handle before the reservoir is drained and

the regime faces a breakdown? This issue has not been given

much attention in the literature, at least not in the empirical

Linde and Peters 301

research on system support. A thorough investigation of this

issue would require panel data and a country sample with

variation in the dependent variable (regime survival vs. regime

breakdown). This would be a fruitful avenue for future

research but is beyond the scope of this article.

3. There are two exceptions: in the first step of the analysis,

Norway shows no relationship between perceived responsive-

ness and support, and in the second step of the analysis, the

Czech Republic displays no relationship between support and

perceived responsibility.

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Author biographies

Jonas Linde is a professor in political science at the Department of

Comparative Politics, University of Bergen. His research on

political support, legitimacy, quality of government, and

e-government has been published in journals such as European

Journal of Political Research, Governance, Government and

Opposition, Government Information Quarterly, International

Political Science Review, and Political Studies.

Yvette Peters is a researcher at the Department of Comparative

Politics, University of Bergen. Her interests include representa-

tion, responsiveness, political inequality, and political participa-

tion. Her research appears in, for example, the Comparative

Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, the

Journal of European Public Policy, and West European Politics.

Appendix

Variable Source Measurement Categories/scale

Individual-level indicators Reservoir of goodwill ESS 2012 Index of the questions ‘( . . . ) how satisfied are you with

the way democracy works in [country]?’ and ‘( . . . ) thinking about the [country] government, how satisfied are you with the way it is doing its job?’. Indicators are added up and divided by two.

0 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied)

Responsibility ESS 2012 Index of ‘( . . . ) [P]lease tell me to what extent you think each of these statements applies in [country].The rights of minority groups in [country] are protected./Politicians in [country] take into account the views of other European governments before making decisions./The government in [country] explains its decisions to voters.’ Indicators are added up and divided by three

0 (does not apply at all) to 10 (applies completely)

Perceived responsiveness ESS 2012 Combination of ‘[P]lease tell me how often you think the government in [country] today changes its planned policies in response to what most people think?’ and ‘[P]lease tell me how often you think the government in [country] today sticks to its planned policies regardless of what most people think?’

0 (never) to 10 (always)

Winner ESS 2012 and Parlgov

Based on ‘Which party did you vote for in that election?’ people were categorized as a winner (when the party they voted for ended up in government) or loser (when the party they voted for did not end up in government)

0 (loser) and 1 (winner)

Evaluation income (negative) ESS 2012 ‘Which of the descriptions on this card comes closest to how you feel about your household’s income nowadays?’

1 (Living comfortably), 2 (Coping), 3 (Finding it difficult), 4 (Finding it very difficult)

Education ESS 2012 ‘What is the highest level of education you have successfully completed?’

1 (less than lower secondary) to 7 (higher tertiary)

Female ESS 2012 Sex of the respondent 1 (male) and 2 (female) Interpersonal trust ESS 2012 ‘( . . . )would you say that most people can be trusted,

or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?’

0 (you can’t be too careful) to 10 (most people can be trusted)

Political interest ESS 2012 ‘How interested would you say you are in politics?’ (the original index was recoded in reverse)

1 (not at all), 2 (hardly), 3 (quite), 4 (very)

Left-right scale placing ESS 2012 ‘In politics people sometimes talk of “left” and “right”. Using this card, where would you place yourself on this scale ( . . . )?’

0 (left) to 10 (right)

Age ESS 2012 Age of respondent Actual age in years

(continued)

Linde and Peters 303

Appendix (continued)

Variable Source Measurement Categories/scale

Feel close to a political party ESS 2012 ‘Is there a particular political party you feel closer to than all the other parties?’

0 (no) and 1 (yes)

Reservoir of goodwill (<2012) ESS 2002- 2010

Index of the questions ‘( . . . ) how satisfied are you with the way democracy works in [country]?’ and ‘( . . . ) thinking about the [country] government, how satisfied are you with the way it is doing its job?’. Indicators are added up and divided by two. The measure indicates the % of people that indicated they are satisfied, and is an average over time (where data was available for the countries that we include).

% satisfied, before 2012

Many-to-many congruence Golder and Stramski (2010)

Measure is based on data from the Comparative Studies of Electoral Systems (CSES), and is calculated an on the basis of: S|F1(x) – F2(x)|, where F1(x) and F2(x) are “the cumulative distribution functions for the citizen and representative preferences” (Golder and Stramski 2010; 96). The variable is reversed re- coded so that higher scores reflect higher congruence.

The higher the value, the higher the congruence

304 Party Politics 26(3)

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