Issue Voting and Government Responsiveness to Policy Preferences

Abstract

Does citizens’ voting behavior influence government policy? Conventional models of democratic representation assume that issue voting by citizens induces government responsiveness to citizens’ preferences. However, existing research has not tested whether voting behavior makes any difference to responsiveness. We present a theoretical model of issue voting and policy responsiveness. We leverage Swedish election study panels and a corresponding dataset on policy implementation to empirically evaluate the influence of issue voting on the adoption by governments of popular policies. We find that parties that enter government are more likely to implement popular policies if supporters of a policy shift their votes towards those parties. Thus, issue voting can lead to government responsiveness as long as it does not force parties to be inconsistent with their prior positions.