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How Responsive are Political Elites? A Meta-Analysis of Experiments on Public Officials

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  • Costa, Mia

Abstract

In the past decade, the body of research using experimental approaches to investigate the responsiveness of elected officials has grown exponentially. Given this explosion of work, a systematic assessment of these studies is needed not only to take stock of what we have learned so far about democratic responsiveness, but also to inform the design of future studies. In this article, I conduct the first meta-analysis of all experiments that examine elite responsiveness to constituent communication. I find that racial/ethnic minorities and messages sent to elected officials (as opposed to non-elected) are significantly less likely to receive a response. A qualitative review of the literature further suggests that some of these inequalities in responsiveness are driven by personal biases of public officials, rather than strategic, electoral considerations. The findings of this study provide important qualifications and context to prominent individual studies in the field.

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  • Costa, Mia, 2017. "How Responsive are Political Elites? A Meta-Analysis of Experiments on Public Officials," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 241-254, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jexpos:v:4:y:2017:i:03:p:241-254_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Kenneth Lowande & Andrew Proctor, 2020. "Bureaucratic Responsiveness to LGBT Americans," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 664-681, July.
    2. Nicholas R. Jenkins & Michelangelo Landgrave & Gabriel E. Martinez, 2020. "Do political donors have greater access to government officials? Evidence from a FOIA field experiment with US municipalities," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(2).
    3. Hou, Yue & Liu, Chuyu & Crabtree, Charles, 2020. "Anti-muslim bias in the Chinese labor market," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 235-250.
    4. Gaddis, S. Michael & DiRago, Nicholas V., 2021. "Audit Studies of Housing in the United States: Established, Emerging, and Future Research," SocArXiv fn4ta, Center for Open Science.
    5. Crawfurd, Lee & Ramli, Ukasha, 2020. "Discrimination by Politicians against Religious Minorities: Experimental Evidence from the UK," SocArXiv tc42s, Center for Open Science.
    6. Charles Crabtree & John B. Holbein & J. Quin Monson, 2022. "Patient traits shape health-care stakeholders’ choices on how to best allocate life-saving care," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(2), pages 244-257, February.
    7. Christian R. Grose & Abby K. Wood, 2020. "Randomized experiments by government institutions and American political development," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 401-413, December.
    8. Pfaff, Steven & Crabtree, Charles & Kern, Holger L. & Holbein, John B., 2018. "Does religious bias shape access to public services? A large-scale audit experiment among street-level bureaucrats," SocArXiv 9khds, Center for Open Science.
    9. Wittels, Annabelle Sophie, 2020. "The effect of politician-constituent conflict on bureaucratic responsiveness under varying information frames," SocArXiv 4x8q2, Center for Open Science.
    10. Luciano Lavecchia & Carlo Stagnaro, 2019. "There ain’t no such thing as a free deed: the case of Italian notaries," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 277-290, April.
    11. David Niven & Benjamin Plener Cover & Michael Solimine, 2021. "Are Individuals Harmed by Gerrymandering? Examining Access to Congressional District Offices," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(1), pages 29-46, January.

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