This forum continues the Journal of Public Policy’s series for debate and discussion of important ideas in the scholarly study of public policy. This exchange is anchored with an essay by Christopher Wlezien entitled, “On Policy Responsiveness: Conditions for Effective Demand and Supply.” Understanding the connection between the public and the officials meant to represent them is fundamental to democratic governance. While there is a voluminous literature from across the political science and policy studies spectrum, Wlezien offers a new framework for examining the “theoretical conditions for effective policy representation.” He develops the concepts of “input” as a function of public demand, and “output” as the result of policy supplied. Wlezien concludes that we observe a surprising amount of congruence between what the public wants and the policy it receives. This conclusion is in stark contrast to more pessimistic views prominent in the recent literature.

Population health is shaped not only by global and national processes but equally by decisions taken at the local level. Yet comparatively little is known about why municipal public health policies differ. This study examines how structural conditions, previously found to influence local policymaking, combine with the presence or absence of universal targeting in public health policies across Poland’s 23 largest cities. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis and building on the Local Welfare Regimes perspective, the analysis consistently links universal targeting in municipal public health policy to a combination of strong civil society, substantial representation of women in city councils, and the absence of an unhealthy population. As one of the first explicit applications of the LWR theory with fsQCA, the study contributes to debates on universal targeting, confirming that it can be implemented in a range of ways, while simultaneously highlighting the risk of Matthew Effects.

Political and economic elites often warn that taxes on the rich impair economic growth. Although such warnings have a long tradition in elite discourse, what the public believes about the effects of progressive taxation remains surprisingly understudied. This omission limits our understanding of a basic democratic mechanism, the congruence of elite and public opinion. To close this gap, we employ a conjoint experiment during the 2021 German national election on a representative quota sample. Participants compare policy packages that entail changes in income, inheritance, and corporate taxes and evaluate their impact on equality and growth. We find no evidence that the public believes that progressive taxes promote equality at the expense of growth. Instead, participants believe that progressive taxes are doubly beneficial, promoting both outcomes. Furthermore, such beliefs do not vary by ideology or economic status. Our findings suggest a more consensual view of progressive taxation that emphasizes positive synergies between economic growth and greater equality.

Housing affordability presents a pressing global issue. While there is a growing need for more urban housing, implementation and regulation of housing densification is highly controversial, especially in Switzerland, where local referendums can delay urban development. The article examines residents’ acceptance of housing densification through a three-step research design, utilizing original experimental survey data and combining stated and experimental behavior with subgroup heterogeneity analysis from 3,497 residents across 162 Swiss cities and towns. Findings show acceptance of housing densification to be influenced by individuals’ relative housing costs, perceived neighborhood density, and political ideology; by social and ecological policy instruments; and between subgroups on socio-economic and ideological grounds. Ultimately, results highlight a broad coalition supporting densification to provide affordable housing and address ecological concerns, offering insights for policymakers. Studying residents’ opinions and behaviors within a direct democratic system and renters society further contributes to advancing theoretical understanding of housing politics.

A massive amount of research examines the representation of public opinion by policymakers, increasingly on actual policy actions. The work often provides evidence of a positive association between expressed public preferences and policy, but only some of the time and only to some degree, and there is even less evidence of responsiveness. This essay delves into the conditions for responsiveness, focusing on public demand for policy and policy supply, building on what research on the subjects reveals. The examination makes clear that policy responsiveness requires a great deal of both the represented and the representatives (and scholars too) and that these conditions are not easily met, though sometimes are. The emergent structure seemingly is much as empirical democratic theory would predict, and helps account for patterns of policy “responsiveness” we observe. The concluding section contemplates future research.

What determines incumbent chief executives’ re-election in local government? Most of the literature focuses on the impact of political or economic factors. Yet, given that incumbents also strive to manage the administrative performance of local government, this is an important oversight. We examine whether and to what extent incumbents’ administrative innovation, as a new administrative factor vis-à-vis conventional political and economic factors, determines incumbents’ re-election. Analyzing 292 incumbents’ re-election and vote shares in the two most recent local government elections in South Korea, we find that both political and administrative factors are significant determinants. While political determinants, such as partisan alignment with the central government and affiliation with major parties, have the largest impact, administrative innovation also has a statistically and substantively significant effect. The implications of our findings are clear: incumbents are held accountable not only for their political attributes but also for their administrative performance in local government.

Wlezien offers a compelling framework of policy “inputs” and “outputs” to better understand policy responsiveness. Building on this framework, I argue that inequality in policy influence is central to understanding policy responsiveness and must be treated as a first-order concern: disparities in political power complicate both sides of the “inputs” and “outputs” equation. Disadvantaged groups face barriers in signaling preferences and shaping policy agendas, while policymakers respond unequally across groups. These inequalities challenge how we measure responsiveness and question whether aggregate measures capture democratic quality when preferences are polarized along entrenched social cleavages. Institutional reforms designed to improve representation – from public comment periods to the Voting Rights Act – may serve their stated goals while simultaneously producing unintended consequences for equitable responsiveness. I contend that scholars must ask not just whether policy responds to public opinion, but whose opinion it follows. Responsiveness may be necessary but insufficient for democratic legitimacy if one does not reckon with unequal political power.

The topic of this paper is fiscal equalization among municipalities in the four Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Fiscal equalization refers to transfers of financial resources to and between municipalities with the aim of mitigating regional differences in fiscal capacities and spending needs. More specifically, we ask the following research question: How does fiscal equalization impact spatial inequalities? We conduct a comparative empirical analysis of fiscal equalization policies in the Nordic countries. A main contribution is that we construct a granular dataset consisting of all municipalities in the four countries in 2020. We leverage this dataset to analyze inequalities before and after fiscal equalization. Our main finding is that equalization is strongest in Sweden and weakest in Norway, while Denmark and Finland are ranked in the middle.

Why and how should we tax inheritances, gifts, and bequests? This article examines the political theory debate on inheritance taxation and identifies four main arguments and three objections in favor of and against it. It reviews the most common forms of inheritance taxation in OECD countries and proposes an alternative: a lifetime capital accessions tax. This alternative is broadly delineated to compare it with the “average inheritance tax” and assess which of these two options better meets the requirements of the arguments and objections previously stated. The analysis shows that the capital accessions tax is normatively superior to the average inheritance tax. It better satisfies the reasons we have for taxing intergenerational wealth transfers and offers strong replies to three classical objections to inheritance taxation. Discussing the details of the accessions tax allows us to show how it can respond to popular objections to inheritance taxation and gain popular support.

In “On Policy Responsiveness,” Wlezien provides a realist account of policy responsiveness. While recognizing it as a democratic good, he identifies the many obstacles that must be overcome and conditions that must be met to achieve it. Wlezien suggests that “it may be surprising that we observe any representation at all,” considering the many conditions that must be met to achieve it. This raises an important and challenging question, which we expand upon here: what is an appropriate level of responsiveness to expect from democratic systems and what level of observed policy congruence might we deem surprising and/or sufficient? The question of an appropriate counterfactual, apart from being crucial to guide research and hypothesis testing, also creates this fruitful opportunity for collaboration and discussion between a normative political theorist (Scudder) and an empirical political scientist (Grillos). Here, we identify two sources of counterfactual thinking, one normative and one empirical, to provide a benchmark against which we can judge observed levels of policy responsiveness.

Authoritarian regimes have long faced governance challenges arising from decentralization, as central governments struggle to control local government behavior due to information barriers. This paper argues that promoting the disclosure of local government information to the public is an effective strategy to alleviate issues associated with decentralization. Using a policy mandating the disclosure of local government information on social governance as a quasi-natural experiment, we examine its impact on a critical governance challenge emerging from decentralization – the decline of county seats. Using China’s county-level panel data (2015–2022) and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that local information disclosure significantly promotes county seat development. Specifically, it increases land allocation for both economic and public service purposes, thereby breaking the vicious cycle between deficient public services and economic stagnation. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that these effects are more pronounced in counties with higher citizen responsiveness and more constrained fiscal capacity.

The rational allocation of authority across government levels is crucial for the effective provision of environmental public goods. Based on China’s environmental policy texts (1973–2023) and case studies, this paper analyzes the division and adjustment of environmental governance powers. The findings reveal selective decentralization under the trend of centralization over the past fifty years in China’s environmental governance: (1) Legislative power has been conditionally devolved, to encourage distinctive local environmental legislation that is non-contradictory to central legislation; (2) Administrative power has transitioned from an ambiguous two-tier system to a three-category framework with attempts to quantify shared authorities. This recentralization aligns with the principle that national public goods are provided by the central government, while regional ones are supplied jointly; (3) Supervisory power has transitioned from local to vertical management, and its oversight has been elevated to a national initiative, receiving strong political endorsement.

Quantitative studies of policy responsiveness are liable to overstate the fairness and quality of democratic governance, because they neglect to account for forms of capture and distortion by powerful groups that are more difficult to operationalize and measure. The field essay by Christopher Wlezien that surveys these studies is comprehensive and generally fair, but it nevertheless shares the blind spots of that literature as a whole, and therefore dismisses realist skepticism (such as that of Achen and Bartels) too quickly. By properly situating this literature within broader discussions of democratic values and political equality, this response aims to recenter the big picture – and highlight what may be concealed when we give too much weight to policy responsiveness.

Policymakers in cities in the United States of America (U.S.) must tailor the right bundle of policies to promote the diffusion of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). We investigate the interplay of (non-)monetary incentives on U.S. state, city and utility-related policy levels. For doing so, we deploy fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of BEV policies in 16 cities in the U.S. to identify policy configurations that promote BEV uptake. We provide a first-ever study to systematically evaluate BEV policy bundles across different U.S. policy levels. Results indicate two policy configurations: monetary incentives received upon/after BEV purchase in conjunction with (non-)monetary incentives for home charging infrastructure extension in conjunction with recurring monetary incentives by utilities (I); the absence of recurring (non-)monetary incentives at the local level in conjunction with (non-)monetary incentives for home charging infrastructure extension in conjunction with recurring monetary incentives by utilities (II) lead to successful progress in BEV adoption.

Individuals who particularly like or dislike a president or presidential candidate may, through a process of motivated reasoning, personally support or oppose the politician’s policy positions as a consequence. I examine the extent to which attitudes toward Donald Trump shaped public opinion on immigration policy, a case that appears to invite motivated reasoning. I estimate the influence of attitudes about Trump by comparing them directly to views of Barack Obama and trade policy using large reputable national surveys. I find a material, if limited, Trump effect. Trump polarized Americans on immigration considerably. However, the polarization was not along racial or ethnic lines. Moreover, any Trump effect on immigration appears not to have been as large as that he brought to bear on trade. Contrary to some recent work, such an effect also appears to have elevated immigration only marginally in the list of those deemed important.

Recent government interventions support the objectives of collective markets through public policy rather than relying on traditional strategic cooperation between non-state actors. We ask when and how left-wing governments intervene in collectively-governed markets. We develop a novel theoretical framework at the intersection of public policy and comparative political economy. We build on public policy scholarship to mobilize a typology of policy instruments available to governments to shore up collective markets, including regulation (sticks), subsidies (carrots), and information (sermons). We embed this hierarchical classification in a political economy framework to outline under which conditions we expect policymakers to opt for different instruments. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach through a case study of least likely policy areas – labor market and training policy – nested within a least likely case – Germany.

A potentially powerful argument for police abolition appeals to root causes of crime. The root causes of crime are (e.g.) poverty and inequality caused by capitalism. By targeting crime at the roots, we can render the police obsolete and abolish them. I argue here that the root cause argument fails. Despite the suggestive metaphor, the fundamental causes of crime are deep and valuable, or in other words not uproot-able. They are essential to us, or we have good reason not to uproot them. To show this, I develop some simple models or recipes for crime inspired by Thomas Hobbes’s model of conflict in the state of nature and by contemporary theories of crime. The models suggest that at best we can manage these causes, and in turn the resulting crime. There is, however, no hope of fundamental reforms that do away with the need for social monitoring and sanctioning, or policing.

This paper assesses the impact of federal grants for research and development (R&D) on state R&D investment in the United States. We find that federal grants for academic R&D do not significantly influence state allocations to academic institutions from 2006 to 2021. By contrast, R&D performed by agencies of the state government is estimated to grow by $0.35 with each additional dollar of federal support. We argue that these divergent results reflect the localized nature of benefits generated from R&D performed by state government agencies compared to university-based research. A computational text analysis of recent federal R&D awards to academic institutions and state agencies corroborates this hypothesis.

This article examines how institutional governance mechanisms shape administrative policy design in risk-oriented, hierarchical public organizations, drawing on two cases from the Danish Armed Forces. The analysis shows how leader-centric governance, role segmentation, and compliance-oriented routines constrain collaborative process demands. These mechanisms restrict dialogue, limit upward communication and reflection, and reinforce established routines while resisting adaptation. Although such structures support operational clarity, they reduce responsiveness when extended into administrative policymaking. The study demonstrates how embedded governance logics and institutional routines condition the feasibility of collaborative policy design, even amid reform ambitions. It contributes to public administration and policy design scholarship by highlighting how hierarchical institutions govern internal policymaking and how institutionalized governance logics constrain adaptation, inclusion, and learning capacity.

Around the start of the 21st century, countries began to experience a unique demographic transition. After generations of declining dependency and expanding labor forces, increasing longevity and persistently low fertility have reversed dependency trajectories. This paper examines the political consequences of rapid demographic aging and retirement reforms. An empirical assessment of 41 countries from 1980 to 2020 suggests that efforts to postpone retirement are politically destabilizing. In particular, increases in average retirement age and labor force participation among older cohorts may increase political instability. Demographic forecasts for rich and middle-income countries indicate a massive growing demand for age-related public services, alongside a rapid decline in the relative size of economically active populations. Policy reform is therefore urgently needed to sustain pension systems, maintain economic growth, and mitigate political instability. The paper concludes that governments must consider country-specific demographic, political, and economic conditions when designing alternatives to potentially destabilizing retirement reforms.