This paper examines how public demand and institutional contexts shape the substantive representation of LGBTQ+ populations across Europe. I argue that while positive social constructions of LGBTQ+ populations are a necessary condition for the advances of LGBTQ+ rights, issue salience can facilitate LGBTQ+ rights only if public opinion on LGBTQ+ is positive. Furthermore, I assert that translating social constructions of LGBTQ+ populations into policy outputs is mediated by the proportionality of electoral systems. I analyze policy scores, public attitudes, and online interest concerning LGBTQ+ topics. I find that positive social constructions are correlated with more inclusive LGBTQ+ rights across countries, and the positive impact of issue salience on LGBTQ+ rights is observed only in countries with positive social constructions. Additionally, the analysis of electoral systems provides mixed evidence regarding the role of proportionality.

While research shows that public preferences across policy domains tend to move in parallel, the mechanisms behind this dynamic remain unclear. We examine four explanations: (1) alignment in preferred policy levels; (2) parallel policy movement combined with domain-specific thermostatic feedback; (3) feedback to global policy across domains; and (4) responsiveness to presidential partisanship. These mechanisms matter for how we interpret public opinion change and policy responsiveness. We develop and test a theoretical model using data on four social spending domains in the USA. Our findings suggest that spending mood reflects both parallelism in preferred policy levels and responsiveness to overall social spending and presidential party affiliation.

Democracy requires responsiveness. While empirical responsiveness research tends to focus on opinion polls, there are other ways elites listen to public opinion. Therefore, we need to examine those forms of public opinion that elites see and hear. This is explored through a dataset of letters to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, coded consistent with the Comparative Agendas Project. I find evidence of deliberate, systemic non-responsiveness in the political agenda (measured by the topics of Mr Howard’s speeches) to the volume of letters. Mr Howard knowingly, deliberately ignored this public opinion. There are, however, indications that the topics of the letters are responding to government announcements. The findings highlight the selective nature of elite engagement with public opinion. The study contributes to understanding political agenda-setting, representation and the institutional conditions under which public input is ignored. These results have implications for theories of representation and responsiveness in policymaking.

This research note presents the results of audit studies that were conducted with the constituency offices of provincial and federal elected representatives across Canada. We investigate whether individuals from ethnic minority groups, the LGBTQ+ community and French or English speakers are discriminated against when contacting their constituency office for administrative services. Survey experiments administered to both candidates of the 2021 Canadian election and a representative sample of Canadian citizens complement these studies. Our results indicate the absence of discrimination towards constituents from an ethnic minority or who identify with the LGBTQ+ community. We found, however, that emails sent in French were less likely to be answered by Members of Parliament (MPs) than those sent in English. Constituency offices of anglophone MPs and those representing ridings with a small proportion of francophones were significantly less likely to respond to French emails. A similar pattern, albeit more moderate, is observed among constituency offices of francophone MPs in response to English emails. The survey experiments show similar discrimination from citizens but less so from candidates.

Since the 1980s, the study of opinions towards immigration has grown exponentially throughout European scholarship. Most existing studies, however, are limited in their scope and do not specifically refer to an aggregate phenomenon, but rather an individual one. This study seeks to establish empirically whether aggregate public immigration preferences across 13 European democracies relate systematically to national socio-political indicators or other underlying societal mechanics. Particularly, we analyze four mechanisms more in-depth, namely the predictive values of economic deprivation, immigration policy, immigration flows and the political environment. To do so we rely on country-level level data and update a unique dataset of immigration opinions. We find that (ii) economic deprivation is an important correlate of more restrictive immigration opinions, (ii) immigration opinions respond thermostatically to immigration policy, (iii) the non-asylum inflow of foreigners further restricts immigration opinions, and (iv) the immigration positions of government and opposition parties have antithetical effects on immigration opinions.

What benefits do inclusive institutions offer authoritarian rulers? Previous research has studied delegate behaviour in authoritarian institutions but has been less well-equipped to assess government reactions to it. Analysing the case of one People's Political Consultative Conference in China, I argue that an overlooked key benefit of inclusive institutions is their provision of expertise. Drawing on novel data comprising more than 9,000 policy suggestions submitted by delegates, delegates' biographies and the corresponding government responses, I illustrate that the government generally values suggestions that signal expertise. While this is especially true for departments of a more technocratic nature, I also find that members of the institutional leadership are systematically favoured. These findings provide an important addition to our understanding of the role of authoritarian institutions in policymaking processes.

How do legislators respond to coethnic and cominority constituents? We conduct an audit study of all state legislators to explore white legislators’ responsiveness to different minority groups and minority group legislators’ responsiveness to each other. Black and Latino Americans currently make up about one-third of the overall U.S. population and an even larger share of some state populations. In light of this growing diversification of the American electorate, legislators may have incentives to appeal to a broad racial constituency. In our experiment, state legislators are randomly assigned to receive an email from a white, Black, or Latino constituent. Our findings suggest a lack of legislators’ discrimination, on average, against Black relative to white constituents. Instead, we find that all legislators, on average, respond more to both white and Black constituents relative to Latinos. The evidence suggests that Black legislators do not exhibit coethnic solidarity toward their Black constituents or cominority solidarity toward their Latino constituents; however, Latinos do exhibit coethnic and cominority solidarity (though there are too few Latino legislators to definitively establish this claim). We also estimate effects among white legislators by party and racial composition of districts in order to provide suggestive evidence for white legislators’ intrinsic vs. strategic motivations.

Several recent studies have found unequal policy responsiveness, meaning that the policy preferences of high-income citizens are better reflected in implemented policies than the policy preferences of low-income citizens. This has been found mainly in a few studies from the US and a small number of single-country studies from Western Europe. However, there is a lack of comparative studies that stake out the terrain across a broader group of countries. We analyze survey data on the policy preferences of about 3,000 policy proposals from thirty European countries over nearly forty years, combined with information on whether each policy proposal was implemented or not. The results from the cross-country data confirm the general pattern from previous studies that policies supported by the rich are more likely to be implemented than those supported by the poor. We also test four explanations commonly found in the literature: whether unequal responsiveness is exacerbated by (a) high economic inequality, (b) the absence of campaign finance regulations, (c) low union density, and (d) low voter turnout.

Socialist governance and popular sovereignty require state administration of care. In the People's Republic of China (PRC) today, such state care is provided in the form of public services and in the guarantee of social security. Ideally, different levels of government should foster relations of care in local communities and remain responsive to “the people.” Local self-government, relations of mutual support and ritual communities, however, reveal the deficits of state care. Much like general philosophies of care, such local ethics of care propose universal benchmarks against which social practice can be measured. This article outlines the main contours of state care in the post-Mao Zedong PRC, and contrasts its findings with empirical research on public services, social security and ritual responsiveness. Mutual help, neighbourhood communities and ritual practice, in particular, provide alternative models of care. As such, they can be extended and universalized, and offer possibilities for a critique of care.

Do elected judges tailor criminal sentences to the electorate’s ideology? Utilizing sentencing data from North Carolina’s Superior Courts—which transitioned from statewide to local elections in 1996—we study whether judges are obliging to voters’ preferences. We find some evidence of responsiveness: judges from liberal districts were more lenient, while those from moderately conservative districts assigned harsher sentences. Judges from increasingly conservative districts did not change their sentencing patterns, which leads to lower re-election rates. These findings suggest that judges adapt their behavior to retain office, or else they are held accountable by the public.