Sir Robert Peel’s Policing Principles
In 1829, Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police Force. He became known as the “Father
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urgent today as they were two centuries ago. They contain three core ideas and nine principles.
1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of
legal punishment.
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protecting and preserving life.
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authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
9. To recognize always that the test of police ef�ciency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not
the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop crime before it happens, we
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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: jonas.linde@uib.no
Party Politics
2020, Vol. 26(3) 291–304
ª The Author(s) 2018
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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
SIES
PT
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
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4310-3328
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4310-3328
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4310-3328
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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