The Representative Disconnect: Investigating the Interplay Between Political Responsiveness and Citizen Engagement

Purpose: This study examines how citizens' perceptions of political representatives' responsiveness influence their democratic engagement, testing how different combinations of representatives' receptiveness and power affect political participation through institutional trust and emotional responses. Background: Democratic institutions face a legitimacy crisis marked by declining trust and participation. The "representative disconnect" reflects misalignment between political institutions' governing capacity and citizens' expectations. While prior research has examined policy responsiveness or political efficacy separately, their interaction remains understudied. Methods: Using a 2x2 between-subjects experimental design, we manipulated representatives' receptiveness (receptive vs. non-receptive) and power (powerful vs. powerless) through vignettes describing responses to local crime issues. Participants (N=2000) from four European countries (Italy, Norway, Poland, UK) were randomly assigned to conditions representing different types of responsiveness. We measured political participation, trust, and emotional responses. Results: Preliminary analyses demonstrate a robust pattern of effects across our key variables. Representatives' receptiveness emerges as a critical factor, enhancing both institutional trust and political participation across all measured forms of engagement. While political power independently bolsters institutional trust, it does not directly influence participatory behaviors. The emotional landscape shows a nuanced pattern: low power elicits negative emotional responses, whereas high receptiveness cultivates positive emotional states. Importantly, mediation analyses reveal that the relationship between representatives' receptiveness and citizens' participation operates through dual psychological pathways, encompassing both institutional trust and positive emotional responses. Conclusions: These findings advance our understanding of how institutional performance shapes political behavior by highlighting the distinct roles of receptiveness and power. The results suggest that citizens' engagement is primarily driven by representatives' willingness to address demands rather than their capability, with trust and emotions mediating this relationship. The main limitation remains the focus on crime-related issues, potentially affecting generalizability to other policy domains.