Democratic governments, owing to limited resources, have no choice but to respond selectively to citizens’ preferences. This study focuses on the characteristic of selective government responsiveness and explores the influencing factors. We argue that institutional and political resources affect selective government responsiveness, and we try to prove this argument through Korea's electronic governance system: the Korean National Petition. Specifically, this article collects and analyzes a unique data set of petitions and government responses in the system between September 2017 and December 2020. The results from multinomial logistic regression showed that government response to petitions differs depending on institutional resources. In addition, in the case of political resources, the influence of the resources on selective responsiveness is different according to incentives to be responsive.
Points for practitioners
This article reveals that the government shows selective government responsiveness to citizens’ preferences within the electronic governance (e-governance) system according to its resources. This result provides practical lessons for practitioners who are concerned about an e-governance system as a space for communication between the government and citizens. In addition, this article suggests a new direction for scholars by presenting empirical evidence for government responsiveness in governance, which has been primarily conceptually studied because it is difficult to measure directly.
AdamsJDowJMerrillS (2006) The political consequences of alienation-based and indifference-based voter abstention: Applications to presidential elections. Political Behavior28(1): 65–86.
2.
BartelsLM (2006) ‘Is the water rising?’: Reflections on inequality and American democracy. Political Science and Politics39(1): 38–42.
3.
BrooksJE (1990) The opinion–policy nexus in Germany. Public Opinion Quarterly54(4): 508–529.
4.
CarsonMBurnsTRCalvoD (2009) Paradigms in Public Policy: Theory and Practice of Paradigm Shifts in the EU. Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH.
5.
ChenJPanJXuY (2016) Sources of authoritarian responsiveness: A field experiment in China. American Journal of Political Science60(2): 383–400.
6.
CobbRRossJRossM (1976) Agenda building as a comparative political process. American Political Science Review70(1): 126–138.
7.
CyertRMMarchJG (1963) A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
8.
DahlRA (1971) Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. CT & London: Yale University Press.
9.
DawesSS (2008) The evolution and continuing challenges of e-governance. Public Administration Review68 (S1): S86–S102.
10.
DistelhorstGHouY (2014) Ingroup bias in official behavior: A national field experiment in China. Quarterly Journal of Political Science9(2): 203–230.
11.
DownsA (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York, NJ: Harper and Row.
12.
DrorY (1986) Policymaking Under Adversity. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
13.
FleissJL (1986) Reliability of measurement. In: FleissJL (ed.) Design and Analysis of Clinical Experiments. New York: John Wiley, pp. 1–32.
14.
FredericksonHG (1997) The Spirit of Public Administration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
15.
GilensM (2005) Inequality and democratic responsiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly69(5): 778–796.
16.
HairJFBlackWCBabinBJ, et al. (2006) Multivariate Date Analysis, 6th edn.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
17.
HanS (2013) Political resources and the powers of the prime minister and role change. Journal of Legislative Studies19(1): 143–176.
18.
HoboltSKlemmensenR (2008) Government responsiveness and political competition in comparative perspective. Comparative Political Studies41(3): 309–337.
19.
ImT (2007) Conceptual analysis of time: Focusing on applicability to public administration studies. Korean Public Administration Review41(2): 1–21.
20.
JanowskiT (2015) Digital government evolution: From transformation to contextualization. Government Information Quarterly32(3): 221–236.
21.
KennedyJB (2015) “‘Do this! do that!” and nothing will happen’: Executive orders and bureaucratic responsiveness. American Politics Research43(1): 59–82.
22.
KimB (1989) National assembly’s influence on the executive: An analysis of the plenary session’s interpellation session to the government. Korean Public Administration Review23(1): 3–19.
23.
KimH (2010) Citizen’s participation motivation and political participation. Journal of Local Government Studies22(3): 83–104.
24.
KimSLeeJ (2012) E-participation, transparency, and trust in local government. Public Administration Review72(6): 819–828.
25.
KingdonJW (1984[1995, 2010, 2013]) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
26.
KnappAWrightV (2006) The Government and Politics of France. New York: Routledge.
27.
KnoxCHughesJ (1994) Equality and equity: an emerging Government policy in Northern Ireland. New Community20(2): 207–225.
28.
LandisJRKochGG (1977) An application of hierarchical kappa-type statistics in the assessment of majority agreement among multiple observers. Biometrics33(2): 363–374.
29.
LeeILeeY (2019) Semantic network analysis on core values and policy orientation: By focusing on moon administration policy road-map. Korean Public Administration Quarterly31(4): 643–670.
30.
LeeYMoonM (2011) A study on a government agenda change and governmental reorganization. Korean Review of Organizational Studies8(1): 59–106.
31.
LightP (1999) The President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press.
32.
LindeJPetersY (2020) Responsiveness, support, and responsibility: How democratic responsiveness facilitates responsible government. Party Politics26(3): 291–304.
33.
LiuLJuJFengY (2017) An extensible framework for collaborative e-governance platform workflow modeling using data flow analysis. Information Technology for Development23(3): 415–437.
34.
MairP (2009) Representative Versus Responsible Government. MPIfG Working Paper 9/8. Cologne: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
35.
MarchJGSimonHA (1958) Organizations. New York: Wiley.
36.
MarcheSMcNivenJD (2003) E-government and e-governance: The future isn’t what it used to be. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de L’Administration20(1): 74–86.
37.
MillerWEStokesDE (1963) Constituency influence in congress. American Political Science Review57(1): 45–56.
38.
MorlinoLQuarantaM (2014) The non-procedural determinants of responsiveness. West European Politics37(2): 331–360.
39.
MullerDC (2008) Public choice: An introduction. In: Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy. Boston, MA: Springer, pp. 31–46.
40.
PalviaSCJSharmaSS (2007). E-government and e-governance: Definitions/domain framework and status around the world. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Government, Montreal, QC, Canada, 27-28 September 2007. Mumbai, India: Computer Society of India, pp. 1–15.
41.
PetrocikJR (1996) Issue ownership in presidential elections, with a 1980 case study. American Journal of Political Science40(3): 825–850.
42.
PitkinHF (1967) The Concept of Representation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
43.
PowellGB (2000) Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
44.
RothsteinBOTeorellJA (2008) What is quality of government? A theory of impartial government institutions. Governance21(2): 165–190.
SaltzsteinGH (1992) Bureaucratic responsiveness: Conceptual issues and current research. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory2(1): 63–88.
47.
SaxenaKBC (2005) Towards excellence in e-governance. International Journal of Public Sector Management18(6): 498–513.
48.
SchumakerP (1975) Policy responsiveness to protest-group demands. The Journal of Politics37(2): 488–521.
49.
ShinW (2003) Analysis on the action and output in local council. Gyeonggi Research Institute Review5(4): 71–84.
50.
SorokaSWlezienC (2005) Opinion-policy dynamics: Public preferences and public expenditure in the United Kingdom. British Journal of Political Science6(4): 65–689.
51.
SorokaSWlezienC (2010) Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
52.
StimsonJMackuenMEriksonR (1995) Dynamic representation. American Political Science Review89(3): 543–565.
53.
StiversC (1994) The listening bureaucrat: Responsiveness in public administration. Public Administration Review54(4): 364–369.
54.
SuZMengT (2016) Selective responsiveness: Online public demands and government responsiveness in authoritarian China. Social Science Research59 (September): 52–67.
55.
UraJDEllisCR (2008) Income, preferences, and the dynamics of policy responsiveness. PS: Political Science & Politics41(4): 785–794.
56.
YangKPandeySK (2007) Public responsiveness of government organizations: Testing a preliminary model. Public Performance & Management Review31(2): 215–240.
57.
YoonJM (2001) Citizen participation and administrative responsiveness: Focused on the responses of urban government to citizen participation using internet. Journal of Local Government Studies13(2): 143–163.
58.
VerbaSNieNH (1972) Participation in America: Social Equality and Political Democracy. New York: Harper& Row.
59.
VerbaSNieNKimJ (1978) Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
60.
VigodaE (2002) From responsiveness to collaboration: Governance, citizens, and the next generation of public administration. Public Administration Review62(5): 527–540.
61.
WellerP (1985) First Among Equals: Prime Ministers in Westminster Systems. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin.
62.
WlezienCSorokaS (2011) Inequality in policy responsiveness?In: Enns Peter K. Wlezien Christopher (eds), Who Gets Represented?, 285-310. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
