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This article assesses the degree of policy responsiveness in the new democracies of post-communist Europe. Panel data on economic reform and public opinion show that public support for reform has a large and significant effect on reform progress. Where public support for reform is high, reform proceeds more quickly. This effect remains strong even when controlling for the endogeneity of public support and other economic and political causes of reform, though it is strongest in more democratic countries. These results suggest that economic reform may be better promoted by persuading the public of the beneficial consequences of reform than by trying to insulate reformers from the public, and that the quality of democracy in the region may be higher than commonly perceived.

This article assesses the degree of policy responsiveness in the new democracies of post-communist Europe. Panel data on economic reform and public opinion show that public support for reform has a large and significant effect on reform progress. Where public support for reform is high, reform proceeds more quickly. This effect remains strong even when controlling for the endogeneity of public support and other economic and political causes of reform, though it is strongest in more democratic countries. These results suggest that economic reform may be better promoted by persuading the public of the beneficial consequences of reform than by trying to insulate reformers from the public, and that the quality of democracy in the region may be higher than commonly perceived. (British Journal of Political Science/ FUB)

Case mangers must deal with the ever-changing makeup of their client population as well as those who provide managed services to these clients. There is great ethnocultural diversity in the elder population, and statistics contend that it will only increase with time. Similarly, the majority of long-term-care providers have been consistently female and of color. Providing culturally competent services becomes more complex when long-term-care providers and clients possess different identities, countries of origins, and social statuses. This article examines a framework that addresses the complex, multidimensional, and bidirectional process that occurs between providers and consumers of any cultural makeup called cultural responsiveness.

In order for the democratic process to work properly, it is vital that the public pays attention to politics and signals its opinions and preferences back to its representatives; if this is not the case, representatives have less incentive to represent. This article deals with the question of whether and how the public responds to welfare policy change. The thermostatic model departs from the assumption that the public responds to policy change with negative feedback, in relation to its preferred level of policy. The empirical analysis tests this model on public responses following the implementation of a consumer's choice model in Swedish primary health care. Did the reform trigger a thermostatic response from the public, and how should this be interpreted? A contribution in relation to previous research is the inclusion of ideological orientation and proximity, variables which, I argue, condition the nature and direction of public responsiveness. The study was designed as a natural experiment in which preferences of privatization of health care were measured before and after the health care reform of 2009/2010. The results provide partial support for the thermostatic model: preferences for further privatization decrease after the reform, but primarily within one subgroup. Additionally, public responses are demonstrated to vary according to ideological orientation, where the right‐oriented react thermostatically and the left‐oriented do not. The article contributes to a further understanding of the relation between policymaking and public opinion and to the expansion of thermostatic theory.

At the heart of the puzzle of representation is the responsibility to construct policy that both responds to the separatist pull of local constituencies and meets the republican aspiration that government leaders define and promote common interests. The difficulty of balancing responsiveness and deliberation is heightened by divided government, where pursuing a competitive course leads to stalemate, while compromising too readily threatens to undermine party principle. This article argues that politicians have an incentive to accommodate their strategies to divided government, and that this accommodation will take the form of centralizing power in the congressional party leadership, with an increased willingness on the part of the president and the congressional leadership to engage in substantive consultation over the content of the legislative agenda. These accommodations will foster the possibility of meaningful deliberation; whether it will occur on any given issue will depend on the context of information and interpretation. Because most policies are open to multiple interpretations, political leaders have some leeway in framing the issue and thus determining what information and which political resources will shape the strategic context. Beginning with a review of the literature on legislative processes and presidential influence in Congress, and drawing on the formal theory literature on information and uncertainty, I explicate the argument by way of an empirical case study of one of the most historically significant tax policy negotiations in the post-war period.

Why do certain firms handle the challenge presented by changes in the social, economic, and political environments better than others? In order to answer this question, a clearer understanding is needed of the process of institutionalizing responsiveness and the factors that influence the ability of companies to perceive and deal with changes. This paper posits that the model proposed by Ackerman to describe the progression of institutional change from issue awareness to program design and then operational integration is useful, but needs to be refined to take into account the influence of characteristics in each company's traditional way of viewing and managing tasks. Drawing on empirical data from the experiences of a major Swiss corporation, the Migros Genossenschaftsbund AG, this paper reports on a preliminary attempt to elaborate on Ackerman ?s model by integrating the concept of corporate social reporting as an instrument of planned cultural change. ; Warum reagieren einige Unternehmen auf Herausforderungen des sozio-politischen Umfeldes besser als andere? Um diese Frage beantworten zu konnen ist es notwendig den Prozess der Unternehmenskultur sowie die Faktoren, die die Fahigkeit von Unternehmen zur Wahrnehmung und zum Umgang mit Veranderungen beeinflussen, zu verstehen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung geht davon aus, dafi das Ackerman-Modell zur Beschreibung des Entwicklungs-prozesses im Umgang mit gesellschaftsbezogenen Veranderungen - ausgehend von ihrer Wahrnehmung fiber die Einbeziehung in die Planung bis hin zu ihrer Integration in die Entscheidungsprozesse von Unternehmen - niitzlich ist. Das Modell mufi jedoch verfeinert werden, um den Einflufi der unternehmensspezifischen Betrachtungsweise und Managementaufgaben zu berucksichtigen. In dieser Studie werden die empirischen Daten des Migros Genossenschaftsbundes AG herangezogen, um das Ackerman-Modell auszuweiten mit dem Ziel, das Konzept der Unternehmenskultur zu integrieren. Weiterhin wird die Funktion der gesellschaftsbezogenen Berichterstattung als Instrument geplanten kulturellen Wandels analysiert.

Late Peter Mair argued that, in the contemporary multilevel institutional setting of global governance, parties are faced with a dilemma between Responsiveness and Responsibility (RR dilemma). However, Mair did not theorize variation in how different parties experience the RR dilemma (degrees of tension) and how they manage it (strategies). We develop his work in three ways: first, we advance variants of the RR dilemma, where the tension party leaders face differs, and elucidate how viable contenders for executive office are likely to behave in each of these scenarios, and why. Second, we highlight domestic institutional factors (electoral rules and leadership autonomy) that regulate the pressure for being responsive to public opinion and to partisans. Third, we place the RR dilemma in the context of multidimensional issue competition, which helps identify strategies for managing it. Finally, we provide an empirical illustration of our arguments using data on public opinion and partisans. We show that although responsibility can be combined with (some) voters' representation, tension is high when leaders are constrained and partisans oppose responsibility even if the public endorses it; this is also the case under disproportional electoral rules when the public opposes responsibility, even if party supporters endorse it.

It is often argued that electoral vulnerability is critical to constituency responsiveness. We investigate this possibility using different measures of vulnerability, but argue that in the United States the Republican Party may be less responsive than the Democratic Party due to its core constituency and view of representation. We test our hypotheses relying on an innovative research design that exploits referenda in U.S. states to compare legislator voting behavior with voter preferences on exactly the same policy proposal, allowing us to overcome the measurement problems of much previous research. Based on a newly compiled data set of more than 3,000 voting decisions for 818 legislators on 27 referenda, we find high levels of congruence, but that congruence with the median voter is higher for legislators who are running for reelection. We also find that Democrats are more responsive after a close election but that Republicans are not sensitive to electoral margins.

AbstractHow well does public policy represent mass preferences in U.S. states? Current approaches provide an incomplete account of statehouse democracy because they fail to compare preferences and policies on meaningful scales. Here, we overcome this problem by generating estimates of Americans' preferences on the minimum wage and compare them to observed policies both within and across states. Because we measure both preferences and policies on the same scale (U.S. dollars), we can quantify both the association of policy outcomes with preferences across states (responsiveness) and their deviation within states (bias). We demonstrate that while minimum wages respond to corresponding preferences across states, policy outcomes are more conservative than preferences in each state, with the average policy bias amounting to about two dollars. We also show that policy bias is substantially smaller in states with access to direct democratic institutions.

This paper studies the effect of preregistration laws on government spending in the U.S. Preregistration allows young citizens to register before being eligible to vote and has been introduced in different states in different years. Employing a difference-in-differences regression design, we first establish that preregistration shifts state-level government spending toward expenditure on higher education. The magnitude of the increase is larger when political competition is weaker and inequality is higher. Second, we document a positive effect of preregistration on state-provided student aid and its number of recipients by comparing higher education institutions within border-county pairs. Lastly, using individual-level data on voting records, we show that preregistration promotes a de facto youth enfranchisement episode. Consistent with a political economy model of distributive politics, the results collectively suggest strong political responsiveness to the needs of the newly-enfranchised constituent group.

System responsiveness (SR) is defined as the elapsed time until a system responds to user control. SR fluctuates over time, so it must be described statistically with mean (MSR) and standard deviation (SDSR). In this paper, we examine SR in virtual environments (VEs), outlining its components and methods of experimental measurement and manipulation. Three studies of MSR and SDSR effects on performance of grasp and placement tasks are then presented. The studies used within-subjects designs with 11, 12, and 10 participants, respectively. Results showed that SDSR affected performance only if it was above 82 ms. Placement required more frequent visual feedback and was more sensitive to SR. We infer that VE designers need not tightly control SDSR and may wish to vary SR control based on required visual feedback frequency. These results may be used to improve the human-computer interface in a wide range of interactive graphical applications, including scientific visualization, training, mental health, and entertainment.

This article describes the expansion of a transcultural secondary consultation model run by a state-wide transcultural unit. The model aims to enhance cultural responsiveness in partnership with mental health services. We discuss a series of 12 consultations that occurred between 2011 and 2012. We outline the processes of setting up the structure of secondary consultation, the actual consultation-facilitation format, and methods of evaluation. Evaluations were done in two phases: the first immediately after the consult and the second after a period of 3–6 months. The discussion highlights the usefulness of a transcultural model of consultation and, based on the evaluations, identifies the benefits the model brings to understanding and intervening with clients, culture, and systems. The results emphasise the need for multidisciplinary collaboration and a facilitated space for clinical teams to explore culturally responsive therapeutic practices.

We examine the link between the political participation of the young and fiscal policies in the United States. We generate exogenous variation in participation using the passage of preregistration laws, which allow the young to register before being eligible to vote. After documenting that preregistration promotes youth enfranchisement, we show that preregistration shifts state government spending toward higher education, the type of spending for which the young have the strongest preference. A 1 percent increase in youth voter turnout generates a 0.77 percent increase in higher education spending. The results collectively suggest political responsiveness to the needs of the newly enfranchised constituency.