Responsiveness – To Whom? Why the Primacy of the Median Voter Alienates Minorities
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| Author | Miriam Hänni |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321716680376 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
680376PSX0010.1177/0032321716680376Political StudiesHänni
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Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(3) 665 –684
Responsiveness – To Whom?
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321716680376
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Voter Alienates Minorities
Miriam Hänni
Abstract
Many see responsiveness towards the majority as sufficient for democracy because no other
policy position receives more support. By contrast, I argue that the primacy of the majority is
normatively and empirically problematic. From a normative point of view a ‘good’ democracy not
only needs to maximise the influence of the majority but must also protect minorities against
oppression by the majority population. These two goals are difficult to reconcile when majorities
and minorities have different policy preferences. From an empirical point of view, a lack of
policy responsiveness towards minorities has real empirical consequences as it may endanger the
legitimacy and stability of a democracy by decreasing the political support of minority groups. The
empirical analyses with 28 minority groups confirm the risks of a lack of policy responsiveness:
minorities exhibit less political support than majorities, partly because responsiveness towards
them is lower.
Keywords
policy responsiveness, divided societies, median voter, political support
Accepted: 5 October 2016
Policy responsiveness is one of the central pillars of democracy (Dahl, 1971: 2) and
directly related to the democratic ideal of ‘rule by the people’ (Roberts, 2010: 39).
Therefore, ‘good1’ democracies require politicians who heed the policy preferences of the
people and respond to them when deciding on issues.
While this is a general requirement for democracies, the question of policy responsive-
ness is particularly complex in heterogeneous societies with salient group identities.
In these societies, two principles of democracy risk colliding. On the one hand, political
authorities need to be responsive to the preferences of their population. On the other hand,
they need to treat all citizens as political equals and grant them equal voice (Dahl, 1971).
Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Corresponding author:
Miriam Hänni, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse
10, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.
Email: miriam.haenni@uni-konstanz.de
666
Political Studies 65 (3)
Reconciling these two aspects of democracy might prove difficult in heterogeneous soci-
eties with identity-based cleavages, where preference differences are often structured
along group lines (Giger et al., 2012; Lieberman and McClendon, 2012). Here, respon-
siveness towards the majority of the population (namely, the median voter) may lead to
neglect of the preferences of identity-based minority groups. Exclusion which is based
on group identity fundamentally violates the idea that every citizen is treated as politically
equal.
While the literature on varieties of democracy has long acknowledged that democra-
cies come in many shapes and forms – the most important distinction being between
consensus and majoritarian democracies (Lijphart, 1999) – the literature on policy respon-
siveness has mostly overlooked this tension and analysed policy responsiveness from a
majoritarian perspective of democracy (e.g. Hobolt and Klemmensen, 2007; Kang and
Powell, 2010; Roberts, 2010). Even in proportional systems, legislative decisions are
eventually taken by simple majority votes. This is problematic if majorities are persistent
and related to identity, rather than open to change (Guinier, 1994: chap. 1), because it car-
ries the risk of creating a ‘tyranny of the majority’, as preferences which divert from the
majority’s position are not considered in policy making (Diamond and Morlino, 2004:
29). The consideration of the preferences of minority groups should, however, be a key
element of all democracies, even, and particularly, if they contradict the position of the
majority (Kymlicka, 1995; Van Cott, 2005). This does not mean that the preferences of
minorities should generally overrule the majority, an inherently undemocratic request.
Rather, it implies that preferences of minorities should be recognised if they concern
certain minority relevant policies and/or if preference differences overlap with identity-
based groups in society. This might be achieved through political systems which encour-
age compromises among different factions of society – be it through political institutions
that require coalition governments (such as consociational or consensus democracies) or
electoral rules that make politicians dependent on the preferences of majorities and
minorities alike (e.g. Horowitz, 1985; Lijphart, 1969). In a similar vein, some political
theorists demand that decision-making power is distributed proportionally to people’s
stakes in a particular decision (Brighouse and Fleurbaey, 2010: 137) or voting rules
adapted to ensure that identity-based minorities are not consistently outvoted (Guinier,
1991).2 These approaches try to ensure that majorities cannot overrule minorities on
issues that are of particular importance to minorities (but not to majorities).
However, the primacy of the majority is not only problematic from a normative point of
view but also empirically relevant as it may put the sustainability of democracy at risk.
Citizens who feel that the government is unresponsive towards their preferences tend to
lose confidence in the political system and to express less support for political institutions
(Roberts, 2010: 8). A lack of political support is problematic for the stability of a political
system because it is often associated with political alienation or even demands for regime
change (Dalton, 2004; Easton, 1965; Ishiyama, 2001; Ruiz-Rufino, 2013). Therefore, this
article discusses not only the normative implication of pure responsiveness to the majority
but also the empirical consequences by investigating how (a lack of) policy responsiveness
towards minorities affects their support for the political system they live in.
Previous research has shown that minorities are less supportive of their political sys-
tem than majorities (Bühlmann and Hänni, 2012; Norris, 2004: 221). Considering the
different institutional set-up of heterogeneous countries, these studies argue that more
consensual institutions should ameliorate the difference between majorities and minori-
ties because minorities are more likely to be included under consensus democracies and
Hänni
667
their interests more likely to be represented. However, whether this is true is all but clear.
On the one hand, under certain circumstances majoritarian systems can be equally repre-
sentative as proportional systems (Stojanovic, 2006; Zollinger and Bochsler, 2012). On
the other hand, it is unclear whether proportional systems indeed raise policy responsive-
ness towards minorities (Bieber, 2008: 114). Given this argument, it is not surprising that
the empirical evidence for the effect of institutions on the support of minorities is mixed
(Norris, 2004; Ruiz-Rufino, 2013). In contrast to these studies, I argue that the political
support of minorities primarily depends not on the chosen political institutions, but on
their functioning – namely, the extent to which political authorities are responsive towards
minorities and the degree of their inclusion. I am, therefore, not analysing a country’s
institutional set-up, but the underlying causal mechanism, namely the degree of inclusion
and responsiveness.
The problem that governments systematically overrule minorities potentially applies
to a wide variety of identity-based groups, such as ethnic, religious or socio-economic
groups. Here, minorities are operationalised as ethno-national minority groups who
self-identify with their group based on shared language, culture or religion, because
ethnicity is a relatively persistent identity that changes only slowly over time (Fearon,
2003; Horowitz, 1985). Politically mobilised ethnic identity groups are understood as a
subset of all possible identity groups, which might be affected by low government
responsiveness.
The remainder of this article proceeds as follows. First, I review previous research on
policy responsiveness and establish the argument that a rigid focus on the majority is
normatively problematic. In the light of this, I examine the empirical consequences of a
lack of policy responsiveness in today’s heterogeneous societies by focusing on the ques-
tion of political support. The third and fourth sections discuss the data and the results. The
final section discusses the implications of the findings for democracy in heterogeneous
societies.
Policy Responsiveness towards Minorities
Why Policy Responsiveness towards the Majority Alienates Minorities
Policy responsiveness is a central aspect of liberal democracy (Dahl, 1971). Democratic
rule implies not only a certain procedural process but also that the preferences of the
people influence the policies that are implemented (Powell, 2000: 160). While the impor-
tance of responsiveness towards citizens’ preferences is uncontested, it remains an open
question towards whom policy makers ought to be responsive. For those who favour a
majoritarian model of democracy, responsiveness towards an absolute...
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