Democratic theory defines legitimate government by its responsiveness to citizen preferences

Evidence

The concept of “responsiveness” is central in democratic theory. Dahl (1971, 1) famously argued that “a key characteristic of a democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens,” and Pitkin (1967, 209) claimed that representation meant “acting in the interest of the represented, in a manner responsive to them”. — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 17

Categorization

• DEFINE: Anchors ‘responsiveness’ in the canonical formulations by Dahl and Pitkin that the paper’s congruence framework builds on.