We examine when and under what institutional/political conditions governments are more responsive to public preferences. Ultimately, this will be done through a comparative analysis of six cases. This paper presents the results from the Canadian case and outlines our theoretical expectations for the other cases. The specific objectives are to: determine the conditions under which governments choose to emphasize policy priorities in line with public preferences; determine the conditions under which governments choose to emphasize policy priorities in line with the policy preferences of government partisans; and examine the extent to which government responsiveness to public opinion depends on political context, such as the institutional and popular constraints facing the executive. The results we will present from the Canadian case demonstrate that minority governments are subjected to direct pressure from public opinion. Unlike majority governments, the ability of minority governments to pass legislation depends upon its popularity in the vote intention polls. In fact, a minority government is only able to be as legislatively effected as a majority government when it is polling at around 40 percentage points (the commonly agreed-upon threshold to form a majority). Further, minority governments are more responsive to the policy preferences of the public, while majority governments are more responsive to their partisan supporters. This leads to the classic trade-off between effectiveness and responsiveness. Compared to majority governments, minority governments are more responsive but less effective. As indicated above, we will also outline our theoretical expectations for the other cases.
