Responding to whom? An experimental study of the dynamics of responsiveness to interest groups and the public

Abstract

While politicians are commonly depicted as having strong incentives to beresponsive to both interest groups and citizens to govern and maintainoffice, the literature lacks designs that allow for assessing the causal effect ofboth types of actors on individual policy-makers. This study addresses thisgap by formulating theoretical propositions regarding responsiveness ofpoliticians to both public opinion and interest groups and testing them in avignette experiment with responses from over 2000 Danish and Dutch local,regional and national elected representatives. Our study finds importantdifferences in the dynamics of responsiveness to the two types of actors:Public opinion has a strong direct effect on the intended voting behaviour ofpoliticians, whereas the effects of interest groups are weaker and mainlydemonstrate the potential to influence the views of ideologically alignedlegislators. Left-wing politicians, in particular, are responsive to civil societygroups. These results have implications for understanding politicalrepresentation and the role of interest groups across multiple levels ofgovernment. While the heightened sensitivity of politicians to some alignedgroups creates a risk of policy-making biases, it is reassuring that interestgroups have a weaker effect than public opinion and primarily hold potentialto influence like-minded politicians.