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This study examines the proposition that an area's recruitment culture may be an im portant intervening factor between community characteristics and the policy attitudes of elected decision makers. The research departs from previous studies in that it attempts to look at partisanship and the recruitment of local officials as a cultural, rather than strictly legal, phenomenon. In analyzing both aggregate and survey data gathered in Wisconsin counties, it was found that, in spite of legal nonpartisanship, there was much variation among the counties in terms of partisan factors surrounding decisions to seek public office, and that variation in recruitment cultures seemed to be related in systematic ways to the collective policy preferences of county boards.

It is frequently asserted by democratic theorists that policymakers should be highly responsive to citizen inputs. Because of its importance in normative theory, the concept of responsiveness has been the subject of many empirical investigations seeking to describe and explain the degree of responsiveness of American state and local governments. However, broad generalizations regarding the degree of responsiveness of these governments and general explanations specifying the social and political conditions enhancing responsiveness have not been forthcoming. A major reason for the lack of cumulative knowledge in this area is that the concept of responsiveness to citizen inputs has been treated in a casual and often ambiguous fashion.
Most scholars agree that responsiveness occurs when citizen concerns and activities, treated as input variables, are reflected in public policy, treated as output variables. A lack of responsiveness occurs when policymakers adopt and implement policies which are independent of, and contrary to, citizen concerns. However, the ambiguity of this definition is apparent if one considers the multiplicity of types of citizen inputs to which policymakers can potentially respond.

Responsiveness bias, the degree to which governments respond unequally to the public policy preferences of various community subpopulations, is a previously unstudied dimension of political inequality. An empirical examination of responsiveness bias in the 51 cities of the Permanent Community Sample, based on simulations of subcommunity preferences, reveals that responsiveness is usually biased to favor the advantaged, though a few communities favor the disadvantaged. Larger & wealthier cities, with well-organized interest groups having little minority representation, are likeliest to bias their policies to favor the advantaged. 8 Tables, Appendix. Modified HA.