Research in many democracies suggests that a considerable part of citizenry experiences existing forms of government insufficiently responsive to citizens’ needs and opinions. But what does the reality of government look like for such citizens? What norms do they see failed by reality? In what sense? And what about citizens who are more satisfied about responsiveness? Presently these are pertinent issues to raise since it has become clear that we have limited understanding of what politics and citizenship mean for many citizens who are, for example, ‘dealigned’ or ‘disaffected’ ,yet wish to be ‘taken seriously’ an d ‘listened to’. This paper presents an interpretive study that involved eighty semi-structured interviews with Dutch citizens who were relatively satisfied or dissatisfied with government responsiveness. The paper analyses these citizens’ understandings and evaluations of the responsiveness of government in the Netherlands, and comparatively addresses citizens’ dissatisfaction and satisfaction. The approach to responsiveness taken here is interactional and relational in nature. To what is government sufficiently responsive or not, in citizens’ view? Who is sufficiently responsive or not? Whose voice is or is not sufficiently heard? What voice is that? And what is responsiveness? Through addressing these questions, we learn about citizens’ constructions of government and its relating to citizens, but also about citizens’ constructions of citizenship.
