Dr. Tao Wang on Performative Responsiveness: Why Legislators Attend Private Weddings, Funerals, and Banquets

Why do legislators dedicate considerable time to attending local, apolitical, and private constituency events? Existing literature on political representation has predominantly focused on the incentives for representatives to cultivate trust and a sense of identification with their constituents. In this article, I present an alternative explanation: legislators respond to the perceived voter demand for impression management. In democracies where clientelist relationships are widely considered valuable assets, constituents eagerly seek the presence of lawmakers at their private weddings, funerals, and banquets. Their attendance helps foster the impression that the hosts are well-connected with powerful political patrons, enhancing their social standing. This bottom-up voter pressure thus compels legislators to participate in what I term performative responsiveness—responding to the self-presentation demands of their constituents. Drawing evidence from elite interviews in Taiwan, this article illustrates how voters, akin to wealthy families adorning brides with gold, engage in impression management by displaying their ties to political elites. The desire among Taiwanese voters to enhance their social standing leads to a high demand for the presence of legislators at weddings and funerals. In return, Taiwanese legislators not only accommodate these demands but also exploit them for electoral gain, sometimes orchestrating staged performances to signal close, though fabricated, connections with voters. The study argues that although performative responsiveness is a widespread phenomenon across various democracies—such as Bangladesh, Ghana, Japan, Korea, and Malawi—it has been notably overlooked in the literature. This article offers both a theoretical framework for understanding performative responsiveness and empirical evidence of its crucial role in political representation.

Tao Wang is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Political Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research lies at the intersection of political representation, public opinion, and propaganda, with a regional focus on East Asia. He is currently working on a book manuscript about Taiwan’s constituency service, exploring the ramifications of social norms such as guanxi. Tao’s research has been published or conditionally accepted in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, the British Journal of Social Psychology, the Journal of Contemporary China, etc. His commentaries have featured in Bloomberg, The Financial Times, and The Guardian, among others.