Suchergebnisse

By exploring the nuances of responsive phenomenology, Streib extends the science of wisdom beyond person-centric phenomena to include the social, interpersonal, and intersubjective dimensions. We applaud Streib's efforts to enrich wisdom models and highlight several areas requiring further clarity, particularly regarding the causal relationship between responsive phenomenology and wisdom, and the role of broader cultural-historical factors for understanding the wisdom of responsiveness. Our commentary highlights the need for greater conceptual precision to differentiate responsiveness from related constructs in social psychology and calls for future research to delineate when responsiveness contributes to wisdom in varied contexts. Through this critical examination, we aim to advance the science of wisdom by emphasizing the significance of responsiveness within a comprehensive social-ecological framework, thereby fostering a deeper understanding of interpersonal and intergroup relations.

A discussion of the importance of responsiveness for the quality of democracy contends that responsiveness may be viewed as a series of linkages intended to ensure that governments respect the preferences of the governed. It is maintained that democratic responsiveness is an ongoing, complex, & dynamic process that begins with the policy preferences of citizens & moves through such stages as voting, election outcomes, formation of policy-making coalitions, policy making between elections, & public polices themselves. It is noted that similarities between government outcomes & citizen desires does not necessarily indicate democratic responsiveness. The need for institutional arrangements to provide incentives supporting linkages of responsiveness is discussed, along with conceptual difficulties involved in evaluating democratic responsiveness, & theoretical disputes related to empirical research on linkages between citizens' preferences, election outcomes, political influence, & policy outcomes. The need for a more complex research agenda encompassing multiple, context-sensitive measures of procedure, substantive content, & citizen evaluation is emphasized. 1 Table, 1 Figure. J. Lindroth

Gender gaps have been documented in numerous areas of American politics, but one area that has not yet been fully explored is responsiveness, the link between citizen preferences and public policies. Equal responsiveness to the preferences of citizens is a central aspect of democratic representation. This article extends work on income gaps in responsiveness to gender gaps. Specifically, it considers whether women's preferences are less likely than men's preferences to be adopted as policy in the US. It uses data on preferences and policy adoptions from 1981 to 2002 created by Gilens. The main finding is a large gender gap in responsiveness. The gap is similar in size to the one between rich and poor, it is particularly large in policies related to the use of force, and it did not narrow over the two decades studied. These results show that inequalities beyond social class deserve significant attention in the study of democratic responsiveness and that aspects of bias against women in politics remain underexplored.

Studies of political representation have focused on responsiveness driven by electoral mechanisms in liberal-democratic regimes. In a single-party system like China's, how does the government respond to citizens' service requests? Whose and what interests are being represented in governmental responsiveness, and to what extent? This article explores these questions through the lens of "representation as responsiveness" by analyzing an exclusive data set from the city public service hotline in Shanghai. Data analyses show that Chinese municipalities have good responsiveness to citizens' practical concerns, and the quality of responsive representation has been improving in recent years. However, some groups of residents tend to be underserved for multiple reasons. This article argues that a responsive model of authoritarian representation will become a significant source of resilience for the party regime.

Abstract
Major theories of democratic representation posit that elected officials ought to reflect the preferences of their constituents and act accordingly. But a growing body of research finds that the preferences of the most affluent influence policy outcomes more than those of the least affluent. Yet, broad studies of unequal policy responsiveness have so far only examined Northern Europe and the USA. This biased sample limits our ability both to generalize about unequal responsiveness and to build theories about its causes. We address these limitations by studying Spain, which differs from prior cases in important ways. We collected data from Spanish mass surveys fielded over the period 1976–2016 and researched which of these policies were subsequently approved. We find consistent evidence that policy responsiveness in Spain is unequal. We also find that this pattern holds regardless of the ideology of the government and the type of policy, although with some variation.

When and how do governments deliver public goods and services in response to citizen preferences? We review the current literature on government responsiveness, with a focus on public goods and service delivery in developing countries. We identify three types of actors that are commonly present in these accounts: politicians, bureaucrats, and citizens. Much of this literature examines interactions between dyads of these actors. The study of electoral accountability and constituency services emphasizes relationships between citizens (or voters) and politicians. Studies of bureaucratic incentives and political oversight of bureaucrats emphasize interactions between politicians and bureaucrats. Finally, studies of bureaucratic embeddedness and citizen oversight of bureaucrats elaborate the interactions between bureaucrats and citizens. We argue that an emerging literature that considers interactions between all three types of actors provides rich theoretical and empirical terrain for developing our understanding of responsiveness and accountability in low- and middle-income countries and beyond.

PurposeThe coping of demand oscillation is an important challenge in dynamic transport planning. A reliable request fulfillment must be provided even if the number of incoming requests temporarily climbs over the expected demand and resource scarceness appears. The aim of this paper is to propose an innovative planning approach that enables a transportation fleet to maintain a sufficiently high percentage of timely‐fulfilled customer requests even in demand peak situations.Design/methodology/approachThe effectiveness of the new approach is verified in computational simulation experiments. Quantifications for the system's responsiveness are proposed. Then, the quantified knowledge about the intermediate responsiveness is exploited to adjust the decision model representing the next schedule update task in a rolling horizon re‐planning.FindingsThe observed simulation results suggest the suitability of the proposed approach. An adjustment of the plan update model supports the maintenance of a high percentage of timely completed requests during and after the demand peak.Research limitations/implicationsThe generic approach presented and evaluated here motivates an adaptation to other more practical problem settings, in order to show its general applicability.Practical implicationsThe proposed methodology contributes to the current demand for computational support for increasing the responsiveness of logistic systems.Originality/valueThe original contribution of this paper is the autonomous feedback‐controlled adjustment of decision preferences which enables a rolling horizon re‐planning framework to maintain a stable output performance even if the input oscillates significantly over time.

A growing body of research shows that women legislators outperform their male counterparts in the legislative arena, but scholars have yet to examine whether this pattern emerges in non-policy aspects of representation. We conducted an audit study of 6,000 U.S. state legislators to analyze whether women outperform or underperform men on constituency service in light of the extra effort they spend on policy. We find that women are more likely to respond to constituent requests than men, even after accounting for their heightened level of policy activity. Female legislators are the most responsive in conservative districts, where women may see the barriers to their election as especially high. We then demonstrate that our findings are not a function of staff responsiveness, legislator ideology, or responsiveness to female constituents or gender issues. The results provide additional evidence that women perform better than their male counterparts across a range of representational activities.

Considerable attention has recently been given to possible contradictions between public sector reform initiatives aimed at making agencies more responsive to political institutions and publics, and initiatives designed to make them more responsive to markets. This article reports on a study that demonstrates ways in which tensions and conflict can arise within a government agency when the aims of political responsiveness and market responsiveness are pursued simultaneously. The study also shows that conflict arises not only from contradictions between political and market responsiveness, but also from failures in organizational structure and change implementation strategies. Despite this, it is possible that the contradictions between the reforms need not be fatal if integrative structures are adopted and if conditions are created for effective participation and collaboration.

Pogge (2008) and Wenar (2008) have recently argued that we are responsible for the persistence of the so-called 'resource curse'. But their analyses are limited in important ways. I trace these limitations to their undue focus on the ways in which the international rules governing resource transactions undermine government accountability. To overcome the shortcomings of Pogge's and Wenar's analyses, I propose a normative framework organized around the social value of government responsiveness and discuss the implications of adopting this framework for future normative assessment of the resource curse and our relationships to it. ; Support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (award #752-2007-0083) is gratefully acknowledged.

Pogge (2008) and Wenar (2008) have recently argued that we are responsible for the persistence of the so-called 'resource curse'. But their analyses are limited in important ways. I trace these limitations to their undue focus on the ways in which the international rules governing resource transactions undermine government accountability. To overcome the shortcomings of Pogge's and Wenar's analyses, I propose a normative framework organized around the social value of government responsiveness and discuss the implications of adopting this framework for future normative assessment of the resource curse and our relationships to it. ; Support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (award #752-2007-0083) is gratefully acknowledged.