Intra-government democracy and policy responsiveness to public opinion

Does the internal organization of governmental parties influence their ability to respond to shifts in public opinion? We argue that intra-government democracy, defined as the average internal democracy of governmental parties, explains variation in responsiveness. Intra-government democracy has positive features such as promoting internal deliberation and it encourages attention to core supporters’ preferences. However, deliberation limits policy changes, and responding to supporters may distract governing parties from the median voter. Thus, we expect that internally democratic governments will be less responsive to changes in the median voter position. We test this expectation using three different estimation strategies for time-series cross-national data on public opinion and governmental policies since the 1970s, and these analyses support our argument. This finding has important implications for our understanding of how intra-party institutions influence substantive responsiveness to public opinion.