write a short note on responsive government in democracy
Answers
Explanation:
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 operationalized 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 leaders 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-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
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