Party responsiveness to public opinion in a multi-dimensional policy space

Abstract

Party responsiveness to public opinion is a key question in the study of democratic representation. While numerous studies have examined party responsiveness on broad ideological dimensions, there is less comparative research on when and how parties respond to public opinion on more specific issue dimensions. We aim to address this research gap by studying party positional responsiveness on seven issue dimensions. We conceptualise party responsiveness as parties adjusting their positions to eliminate the previous incongruence between themselves and the central point in the voter preference distribution. This enables us to examine not only whether parties are responsive to public opinion, but also how much party responsiveness contributes to party-voter congruence. Building on theories of social cleavages and party competition, we develop and test hypotheses on how patterns of responsiveness vary across issues depending on whether they are of core or secondary relevance to the party's ideological identity. Our empirical analysis combines the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys, the European Social Survey and the European Election Study from 14 Western European countries. We find that parties respond to their supporters on both core and secondary issues. We also show that responsiveness to party supporters is generally compatible with parties responding to the broader electorate.