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This paper argues that agenda/opinion dynamics should be represented in the form of an error-correction model, where political agendas and public opinion coexist in a long-run equilibrium that is subject to short-run corrections. As such, responsiveness is theorised as an interdependent relationship between the political agenda and public opinion, where dynamic effects include both short-run corrections (i.e. negative feedback) and long-run equilibrium forces/friction. This paper considers time series data for the United Kingdom for the period between 1959 and 2001 on the content of the legislative agenda articulated in the Queen's Speech at the opening of each parliamentary session, coded according to the framework of the Policy Agendas project (see Baumgartner and Jones 1991; 1993; Jones and Baumgartner 2005), plus reconstituted public opinion data on Gallup's "most important problem" from British Political Opinion 1937 - 2001 (King et al 2001) and the original Gallup Index. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination of the extent to which it still remains appropriate to use the term civic culture in the 21st century. Can the term be used in a political system in which there is dwindling public trust and respect for politicians and political institutions? How should we describe the contemporary political system? This paper looks at the recently conducted citizen audit of Britain to examine the public’s contemporary attitudes and behaviour in relation to these questions; in particular, it examines the public attitudes towards the political system in general, levels of political trust. political competence and efficacy, the level and range of political activities and associational involvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous research on the reciprocal effects of citizens' issue attitudes and their party support emphasize citizens' issue positions, political competition revolves equally around issue salience, i.e., debates over which issue areas political parties should prioritize. Using multi-wave panel data from Germany and Great Britain, we analyze the reciprocal effects of citizens' issue salience and their party support over the period 1984-2009, and we conclude that citizens' issue priorities both influence and are influenced by their party attachments, and, moreover, that these effects are linked to parties' long-term policy emphases as articulated in their election manifestos. This effect is strongest among supporters of a small issue-orientated niche party, the Greens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]