Two Sides of the Same Coin? Congruence and Responsiveness as Representative Democracy's Currencies

The public opinion–policy linkage has received scholarly attention for a long time. After all, this linkage is not only a key characteristic of democracy, but one of the most important aspects and quality criteria of a functioning representative democracy. Despite more than 50 years of political science research, there is still a lot of controversy about how the linkage between public opinion and policy actually works. Two related but distinct strands have formed in the literature—one focusing on responsiveness, the other on congruence. While both schools of thought are ultimately interested in the link between public opinion and representatives’ position or behavior they pursue two different strategies leading to confusion over the concepts and measurement in question. We provide a mutually exclusive conceptualization of congruence and responsiveness and structure the review of the extensive literature accordingly. In addition to providing greater theoretical coherence, our conceptualization fosters further development in the field by deliberately combining the two concepts with the research strands on public policy and representation. We conclude with a call for a more integrated research agenda and introduce a novel concept of “congruent responsiveness.” 摘要 一枚硬币的正反面?一致性和响应性作为代议制民主的货币 公共舆论和政策之间的联系长期以来都受到学术关注。毕竟这样的联系不仅是民主的关键特征, 还是一个正常运作的代议制民主最重要的一个方面和质量标准。尽管已有超过50年的政治科学研究, 但（关于）公共舆论和政策间的联系是如何进行的, 还存在许多争议。本文呈现了两种相关的鲜明观点—其中一个聚焦于响应性（responsiveness）, 另一个聚焦于一致性（congruence）。 尽管这两种思想学派最终都关心的是舆论和代表立场/行为之间的联系, 但两派使用的策略不同, 这导致了概念的不确定以及衡量方式受到质疑。本文将一致性和响应性进行概念化, 两种概念相互排斥, 同时本文相应地组织了广泛性文献评论。除了加强理论的连贯性, 本文形成的概念化还专门将两种概念和关于公共政策及其代表的研究观点进行结合, 进而为此领域作出进一步发展。本文结论呼吁研究议程的进一步统一, 同时引入了新的概念”一致的响应性”（congruent responsiveness）。 Resumen Dos Caras de la Misma Moneda? La Congruencia y la Respuesta Como Monedas de una Democracia Representativa El vínculo entre las políticas y la opinión pública ha recibido poca atención de los académicos por un largo tiempo. Después de todo, este vínculo no solo es una característica clave de la democracia, sino también uno de los aspectos más importantes y criterios de calidad de una democracia representativa que funciona. A pesar de que haya más de 50 años de investigación de ciencias políticas, todavía hay mucha controversia acerca de cómo el vínculo entre opinión pública y las políticas funciona realmente. Dos Corrientes relacionadas, pero distintas se han formado en la literatura—una que se enfoca en la respuesta, y la otra en la congruencia. Mie