Responsiveness, If You Can Afford It: Policy Responsiveness in Good and Bad Economic Times

Traditional theories of representation posit that political parties have incentives to respond to public opinion which, in turn, is reflected in public policy as parties come together to form governments. Absent from this chain of representation, however, is the notion of costs. We advance the study of policy responsiveness by arguing that the government’s cost of responding to the electorate is marginal under conditions of strong economic growth but considerable during hard economic times. Cross-national analyses of voters and government welfare policies produces results that are consistent with this expectation. The findings imply that democratic performance, expressed as responsiveness, is conditional on economic growth.