Deservingness perceptions of politicians in nine democracies

Politicians have to adjudicate between competing policy claims, making judgments as to which to advocate for and which to disregard. Given time and resource constraints, politicians are likely to rely on a deservingness heuristic when making such judgements. However, little is known about how politicians conceive of the deservingness of different policy claims and how this varies by ideology. This paper analyses over 500 interviews with politicians about which characteristics of policy claims prompt them (not) to respond. It explores the circumstances under which politicians spontaneously invoke deservingness as a guiding principle, and how they determine a claim’s deservingness. We find that deservingness is a prevalent criterion that politicians apply to a wide range of policy domains. Further, we find ideological differences in how politicians apply deservingness evaluations: those further from the ideological centre are more likely to make pronounced judgments about whether specific social groups are (un-)deserving. Overall, we reveal that many politicians filter policy claims through moral and political judgments about social groups, highlighting that responsiveness to policy claims is neither equal nor consistent across these different groups.