“Democratic responsiveness” occurs when the democratic process induces the government
to form and implement policies that the citizens want. The linkages that connect citizens' …

Empirical political scientists and normative political theorists both seek to assess the quality
of democracy. But they apply to this task very different criteria and assumptions. Empiricists …

Abundant evidence has been produced to demonstrate substantial empirical relationships
between public opinion (in the sense of survey-measured collective policy preferences) and …

This article explains why dissatisfaction with the performance of individual politicians in new
democracies often turns into disillusionment with democracy as a political system. The …

Responsiveness is a central quality of representative democracy. During the past decades,
a number of innovative studies have advanced our knowledge about actual responsiveness …

Scholars of American politics have long been skeptical of ordinary citizens' capacity to
influence, let alone control, their governments. Drawing on over eight decades of state-level …

Political scientists, analysts and journalists alike have long believed that the degree of
satisfaction with the functioning of democracy determines voter turnout. We use survey data …

Numerous studies—operating with diverse model specifications, samples and empirical
measures—suggest different economic, social, cultural, demographic, institutional and …

Are democracies more transparent than other types of political regimes? Many people
believe that the presence of elections alone is not sufficient for a country to be considered …

In this article I test two competing visions about how democracy produces responsive
government. Electoral theories of democracy posit that elected governments are responsive …