Politicians’ motivations for engaging with citizens between elections

Why would politicians want to engage with their constituents – and if they do, how much and in what ways? Conventional theory would suggest that such engagement is strategic: politicians interact with citizens to enhance their prospects for re-election, increase their party’s control over office, or maximise the party’s influence on public policy (Strom Reference Strom1990). In line with ‘formalistic’ perspectives on representation (Castiglione and Warren Reference Castiglione, Warren, Disch, van de Sande and Urbinati2019: 26; Pitkin Reference Pitkin1967, ch. 4), where voters authorise representatives to act on their behalf and subsequently hold them accountable at election time, politicians have a strategic incentive to interact with citizens to ensure their policy decisions sufficiently align with voter preferences. Consequently, intimate knowledge of constituents’ preferences stands out as a key determinant of political success.

Since the seminal study by Miller and Stokes (Reference Miller and Stokes1963) – which found that decisions in Congress often correspond significantly with popular opinion – empirical research has continued to examine the relationship between public opinion and public policy under labels such as policy correspondence, consistency, covariation, and congruence (Wlezien and Soroka Reference Wlezien and Soroka2021). While findings are mixed, the literature overall lends support to the view that representative democracy, to some extent, does function as ‘popular rule,’ with public opinion influencing actual policy – although this influence tends to be biased towards the wealthy and well-informed (Bartels Reference Bartels1991; Gilens Reference Gilens2012). Since citizens do not actually decide in most matters, a likely implication of observed correspondence between opinion and policy is that politicians make efforts to stay informed about public opinion and make policy decisions at least in part based on this information (Soontjens and Walgrave Reference Soontjens and Walgrave2023: 500).

Assessing to what extent policy decisions actually concur with earlier campaign pledges constitutes retrospective control, as representatives face re-election or defeat based on voters’ assessment of their adherence to policy commitments (Downs Reference Downs1957). As Mansbridge (Reference Mansbridge2003) points out, however, the fact that voters make their assessments during the next election means that politicians seeking re-election will strive to anticipate future voters’ preferences – their ‘potential preferences’ (Arnold Reference Arnold1990: 10) – rather than merely keeping past campaign promises. This shift from a ‘promissory’ to an ‘anticipatory’ approach to representation (Mansbridge Reference Mansbridge2003: 517) would be insignificant if voters’ preferences remained stable from one election to the next, as assumed by earlier theorists (Downs Reference Downs1957: 47). However, in a context of rapid changes in the ‘national mood’ (Kingdon Reference Kingdon1984), unstable political agendas (Baumgartner and Jones Reference Baumgartner and Jones1993), and shifting economic and social contingencies, the assumption of static voters’ preferences is unrealistic. Rapidly changing voter preferences put politicians in a tight spot, as the assessments of voter preferences in the next election become increasingly uncertain. A key implication of anticipatory representation and dynamic voter preferences, therefore, is that politicians seeking re-election must be increasingly attentive to public opinion on a continuous basis, to ensure that policy decisions align with future preferences.

The assumption that elected politicians emphasise getting acquainted with public opinion is supported by empirical studies. In a study of US state legislators, Maestas (Reference Maestas2003: 447) found that most politicians spend from 6 to 15 per cent of their time on collecting information about their constituents’ preferences. Similarly, Soontjens and Walgrave (Reference Soontjens and Walgrave2023: 508) reported that Flemish legislators spend on average about 14 hours a week interacting with citizens, with those feeling unconfident about re-election dedicating more time than their confident colleagues. In the same study, US legislators were found to spend, on average, as much as 23% of their time collecting information about their constituents’ opinions (ibid., 510).

Although both theory and empirical evidence indicate that politicians are incentivised to keep track of public opinion, they can obviously do so without direct interaction with voters – for instance by consulting opinion polls, or by reading letters to the editor. Even so, there is much to suggest that two-way interaction with citizens is essential. Mansbridge (Reference Mansbridge2003: 519) noted that although representatives ‘could in theory accurately anticipate the desires of the voter at Time 3 [the upcoming election] without any mutual communication’, they, in practice, ‘usually initiate and welcome the opportunity to communicate with voters, both to anticipate their preferences at Time 3 and to influence them’. Alignment between policies and future voters’ preferences can be achieved through direct engagement with voters between elections in at least three ways. First, direct engagement enables politicians to grasp voters’ preferences more precisely by actually listening to what they say. Second, direct engagement allows politicians to ‘influence the voter’s preferences by the time of the next election’ (ibid., 525), rather than merely receiving opinions passively. In other words, convincing voters may motivate politicians to engage with citizens. Third, institutions that facilitate direct engagement can serve as ‘vehicles of mutual learning’ (ibid., 520), providing forums for deliberation and joint opinion formation. Therefore, the need for deliberation is also likely to motivate politicians to engage interactively with citizens.

Several classical studies conclude that politicians may engage in direct interaction with voters for other strategic purposes than aligning policy with public opinion, however. Fenno (Reference Fenno1978: 57–59) found that congressmen met with voters less to achieve congruence on political issues, as the theory predicts, and more to build trust by demonstrating qualifications, identification, and empathy with the constituency. In the same vein, Kingdon (Reference Kingdon1968: 139–140) found that personal contact is valued less for deep issue discussion than for signalling attentiveness, accessibility, and respect – qualities that, in candidates’ eyes, voters reward at the polls. Mayhew (Reference Mayhew1974: 147–148), portraying congressmen as ‘single-minded seekers of reelection,’ likewise concluded that their main goal in interacting with constituencies was advertising – building a ‘brand name’ that conveyed personal qualities such as experience, knowledge, sincerity, and so forth – rather than discussing specific issues. Although recent research is scarce, there is consequently reason to believe that policy alignment is not the sole purpose of direct engagement with citizens. Nor does the strategic, interest-maximising perspective on politicians’ motivation necessarily explain everything: one study concluded that politicians to some extent feel a moral obligation to be attentive to their constituents’ opinions (Soontjens and Walgrave Reference Soontjens and Walgrave2023). A long-standing insight is that popular political participation may be driven by a sense of citizen duty – that one ought to participate in the political process regardless of whether it is seen as efficacious (Campbell, Gurin and Miller Reference Campbell, Gurin and Miller1954: 194). Perhaps politicians, conversely, tend to see it as their duty to interact with citizens.

Regardless of purpose, direct interaction between politicians and citizens does not necessarily require face-to-face encounters. Recent studies of ‘Telephone town halls’ (Abernathy, Esterling, Freebourn et al. Reference Abernathy, Esterling, Freebourn, Kennedy, Minozzi, Neblo and Solis2019), online town halls (Minozzi, Neblo, Esterling et al. Reference Minozzi, Neblo, Esterling and Lazer2015), and online ‘Deliberative town halls’ (Neblo, Esterling and Lazer Reference Neblo, Esterling and Lazer2018) indicate that not just listening but also convincing and deliberation can be facilitated by technological means. Whereas these and other formats certainly deserve attention, our focus here is on the far more common and long-standing format of personal interaction: the public meeting. As noted in the introduction, this designation includes various meetings known by names such as open houses, dialogue meetings, and town hall meetings, all characterised by being open to the public and serving a consultative-deliberative rather than decision-making function. Public meetings are particularly interesting since they bring representatives in direct, mostly unfiltered personal interaction with a self-selected sample of their constituencies. Furthermore, we assume that the largely informal character of public meetings – because of the absence of decision-making, which would otherwise likely impose stricter procedural requirements – sets a comparatively low bar for speaking up in plenary sessions, or for initiating person-to-person interaction, for example, during breaks. Because public meetings tend to centre around tangible issues of concern to the locality, discussions should be relatable to the audience, further boosting the potential for engaging with citizens.

Extant literature offers surprisingly little empirical evidence about how and to what extent politicians regard public meetings as appropriate and useful venues for interacting with their constituencies. Even so, there is at least indirect evidence that elected politicians may not always expect public meetings to be ideal venues for earnest interaction with their constituencies. Public meetings have been described as ritualistic, symbolic activities without much impact on real decisions (Heberlein Reference Heberlein1976; McComas, Besley and Black Reference McComas, Besley and Black2010). A study of ‘area assemblies’ in North London, based on recorded audio, revealed that audiences who participate in political discourse in public meetings often engage in disruptive or even offensive discursive practices (Llewellyn Reference Llewellyn2005). Congressional town hall meetings in the United States have at times come off as ‘raucous and hostile’ (Clarke and Markovits Reference Clarke and Markovits2024). A pertinent dilemma is that whereas informal public meetings without a contentious issue tend to attract few participants, meetings addressing difficult and controversial issues often see ‘attendance soars to standing room only and attendees engage in long, angry harangues directed at well-meaning public employees’ (Halvorsen Reference Halvorsen2006: 155). Even so, some politicians see public meetings as useful venues to explain how they voted on a key issue, either to reinforce choices that concur with constituent preferences or to compensate for voting against constituent preferences by noting other actions that they have taken that would support their constituents’ cause (Grose, Malhotra and Parks Van Houweling Reference Grose, Malhotra and Parks Van Houweling2015: 726). Some officials see public meetings as useful for providing information, for allowing opposing groups to ‘blow off steam’ (Heberlein Reference Heberlein1976: 200), to legitimate decisions that have already been made (Checkoway Reference Checkoway1981: 571), but also – in fortunate cases – to enable real interaction with the public about the issue at hand (McComas Reference McComas2001: 39). One recent study notes both ‘promise and peril’ of town hall participation by US congress members (Gibson and King Reference Gibson and King2024: 748–749): While participation allows politicians to signal attentiveness, to informing themselves about public preferences, and to obtaining media coverage, they also risk encountering lack of civility, further alienation of opponents, and even safety concerns.

In sum, the limited literature on public meetings highlights several reasons why politicians might be sceptical about using these gatherings as organised arenas for engaging with citizens. At the same time, however, there seems to be numerous motivations for politicians to turn up. To reiterate, we assume that politicians interact with citizens to enact anticipatory representation by listening to better understand voters’ preferences, by convincing voters to shape their preferences in alignment with those of the politicians, and by deliberating to ensure alignment between policy and public opinion through joint policymaking. The realism of these assumptions is however an empirical question, and one that we approach without strong expectations in one direction or another. We will also keep an open ear to alternative motivations, as suggested by earlier studies.

Research context and methods

The 357 municipalities play a pivotal role in Norway’s two-tiered system of sub-national government. Municipal budgets comprise about 16% of GDP, around half of total public spending (Vabo Reference Vabo, Rasch, Haugsgjerd Allern, Braut-Hegghammer and Kolltveit2025). Whereas most municipal tasks are mandatory by law, municipalities are also at liberty to take on tasks on their own initiative. In a comparative perspective, Norwegian local councils enjoy a relatively high level of autonomy (Ladner, Keuffer and Bastianen Reference Ladner, Keuffer and Bastianen2023).

Elections to local councils are held every four years. Candidates are nominated predominantly by local branches of national political parties. The mayor is chosen by the majority parties in the council and is not directly elected as in the ‘strong mayor’ model which is common in other European countries (Heinelt, Hlepas, Kuhlmann et al. Reference Heinelt, Hlepas, Kuhlmann, Swianiewicz, Heinelt, Magnier, Cabria and Reynaert2018). The investigated municipalities are organised in accordance with the alderman model, where the members of the executive board are chosen according to the proportional representation principle, reflecting the party composition of the municipal council. Although in practice some councils are characterised by a clear division between the majority and the opposition, the fundamental principle of proportional representation in the alderman model is to ensure support for decisions from all parties within municipal councils (Vabo Reference Vabo, Rasch, Haugsgjerd Allern, Braut-Hegghammer and Kolltveit2025).

Whereas political party membership is marginal, many citizens choose to engage in politics in other ways. Between one-third and one-tenth of the voters in local elections report to have engaged politically by signing a petition, contacting a local councillor or attending a meeting in the local council (Winsvold, Rose and Klausen Reference Winsvold, Rose, Klausen, Christensen and Saglie2017). Participation is legally required in municipal spatial planning processes, often organised as public meetings. In 2024, 76% of municipalities reported holding public meetings also for issues where participation is not mandatory (Danielsen, Kårtvedt, Monkerud et al. Reference Danielsen, Kårtvedt, Monkerud, Tvedt and Legard2024: 65). When municipalities organise public meetings, politicians are not required to attend. We do not have quantitative data on attendance, but all 30 councillors we interviewed had attended at least one meeting, despite not being selected for this reason. If representative, this indicates that most councillors participate at some point. Hence, public meetings are a staple of participatory democratic practices in Norwegian municipalities. Although the procedures and practices may vary greatly depending on local traditions and the topics on the agenda of the gatherings, we have focused on public meetings that have at least three common criteria: (1) the meetings were publicly announced and open to all citizens, (2) the municipality was involved in organising the meetings, which gave them some formal status, and (3) the meetings were attended by local politicians and addressed local issues relevant to the current debates in the municipal councils. Furthermore, all meetings were referred to by our interviewees as public meetings, using the Norwegian word folkemøter (literally: ‘people’s meetings’), which in Norwegian denotes public gatherings that fulfil the above criteria.

Most research on public meetings originates in the United States, yet the institutional setting differs markedly from that of Norway. American studies of representation reflect a two-party system and single-member districts, where legislators build personal relationships with constituents and where practices such as gerrymandering shape electoral competition. In contrast, Norway’s proportional representation system and multiparty councils produce weaker individual accountability and stronger collective decision-making. While US congressional town hall meetings typically feature a single representative engaging with voters from one district, Norwegian municipal meetings bring together several representatives from different parties. Consequently, American politicians may face greater personal exposure – both in opportunities to demonstrate individual qualities and build trust and in risks such as becoming targets of hostility. These structural differences limit the relevance of US findings and reveal a gap in comparative research on representation. Our study contributes to filling this gap by exploring anticipatory representation within a multi-party, high-trust local context. The meetings were identified and investigated through a total of 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with local politicians from a cross-section of political positions and political parties from three different Norwegian municipal councils. The three municipalities selected for the study vary in size: one small (<5000 inhabitants), one medium-size (20,000–30,000), and one large by Norwegian standards (100,000<). An overview of the respondents is provided in the Appendix below. The three municipalities have all recently experienced major community developments that can be expected to increase the need for responsive policy, for example, municipal mergers, major industrial developments, and restructuring of municipal services. The strategic selection of municipalities provides contexts in which the need for responsive policy development is likely to have been recently invoked.

With a qualitative study, our aim was not to achieve statistical generalisability but rather to select interviewees that represent a wide range of experience with the phenomena under investigation – aiming for maximum variation (Maykut and Morehouse Reference Maykut and Morehouse2005: 52) in political affiliation, political position, and municipality size. Respondents were recruited from the full list of elected councillors in the three municipalities, obtained via publicly available council records and party websites. We contacted councillors by email and telephone, and all 30 councillors asked to participate agreed to be interviewed.

Table 1 summarises the distribution of respondents by municipality, gender, age group, party affiliation, and political role.

Table 1.

Distribution of respondents by municipality, gender, age group, party affiliation, and political role

^* The identity of the municipality is withheld for reasons of research ethics and respondent confidentiality.

With a qualitative study, we had no ambition of systematically analysing the data statistically based on contextual variables but will highlight and comment on certain contextual factors when they emerge as significant in our qualitative analysis of the data.

The interviews followed a thematic and flexible interview guide, where the interviewees were asked both about their general practices for engaging directly with citizens and specifically about their recent experiences with public meetings. As with all interview-based research, our data may be affected by biases such as social desirability – respondents portraying themselves in a favourable light – and post hoc rationalisation, where motives are reconstructed after the fact. To mitigate these risks, we asked councillors to recount specific recent public meetings and describe their specific actions and interactions before reflecting on their motivations. This sequencing encouraged detailed accounts rather than abstract justifications. In addition, interviews were conducted under assurances of anonymity, which likely reduced incentives to provide socially desirable answers. While these steps cannot eliminate bias entirely, they increase the reliability of the material. All interviews were recorded and averaged about one hour. While 27 of the interviews were conducted in-person, with one or more of the authors present, three of the interviews were conducted over telephone or digital video call. Interviews were conducted in May 2023, four months before the election and prior to the campaign period. Some interviewees already knew they would not seek re-election, which may have influenced their responses, though no clear effect was observed.

The interviews and subsequent analysis followed an interpretive research approach, aimed at gaining an understanding of how informants subjectively interpreted and made sense of their own, and their compatriot´s, political practices and actions (Geertz and Darnton Reference Geertz1973; Reed Reference Reed2011; Rhodes Reference Rhodes2017). During the interviews, councillors were asked to recount specific public meetings they had recently attended and to describe their experiences, the roles they assumed and what they found useful – whether listening, persuading, or deliberating (see Appendix 1 for the translated interview guide).

We chose an interpretive design because our research question concerns how councillors themselves interpret and ascribe meaning to their participations. Furthermore, thematic analysis offers a systematic yet flexible way of identifying patterns of meaning across interviews while remaining grounded in participants’ own framings (Braun and Clarke Reference Braun and Clarke2006). Alternative approaches, such as content analysis, often seek to quantify manifest features of the text, but they are less suited to uncovering rationales, implicit meanings, and contextually embedded understanding.

Our thematic analysis of the interviews was guided by two overarching analytical questions derived from the theories of political representation outlined above, which served to initially sort our data and structure our presentation of findings below. These were as follows: (1) To what extent are public meetings perceived as suitable for listening, convincing, or deliberating? (2) In what ways are public meetings considered helpful for anticipatory representation? Following Braun and Clarke’s (Reference Braun and Clarke2006) six phases of a thematic analysis, we familiarised ourselves with the data, coded the material, generated and refined themes, defined and named them, and integrated them into the analytical narrative. This enabled us to uncover both explicit and implicit themes, linking councillors’ accounts to broader theoretical concepts. Credibility was strengthened through independent coding by multiple researchers, iterative discussions of theme definitions, and the use of verbatim quotations to illustrate key points.

Table 2 provides an overview of the themes generated from the interviews, outlines the coding logic, and illustrates how the analysis was carried out. As the following section shows, the two overarching questions largely overlap, and most of the themes generated relate to both.

Table 2.

Themes generated in councillors’ reflections upon own participation and the role they play in public meetings

Findings and analysis

Concluding discussion

In this article, we explore what may motivate elected representatives to engage with citizens in arenas organised for the purpose of interaction. This question is pivotal, as democratic innovations – which involve interaction and deliberation between elected representatives and citizens – can only bolster representative democracy if elected representatives respond adequately. We depart from representative theory and draw on Mansbridge’s (Reference Mansbridge2003) arguments, which highlight the benefits for elected representatives in engaging with citizens in participatory arenas by listening, convincing, and deliberating. These interactions enable policymakers to align their decisions with voter’s preferences, thereby strengthening their position in upcoming elections. Consequently, we hypothesised that politicians might find public meetings beneficial for anticipatory representation. However, we also referred to findings from previous studies that suggest other motivations for attending public meetings. It is possible that politicians are more concerned with presenting themselves as trustworthy and responsive and less focused on discussing specific issues. And in addition to the anticipated strategic reasons to turn up, politicians may also feel morally obliged to attend.

Fortunately, the public meetings described by our informants did not concur with ‘the stereotypical images of public meetings, including chair-throwing participants, tearful supplicants, and stoic government officials’ (McComas Reference McComas2001: 52). However, our data suggest that local councillors rarely perceive public meetings as appropriate for convincing or deliberating with citizens, and that they perceive such meetings as appropriate for listening only to a limited extent. Few of our respondents found these citizen participation arenas to be conducive to productive debate or deliberative discourse, as the attending citizens often possess strong and entrenched opinions. Generally, the councillors use public meetings organised in an early stage of a policy process to listen and gather input. This is particularly true for representatives of small parties in the council who lack a party group and the capacity to organise meetings to discuss and develop policies. For most politicians, however, public meetings are not providing any new information and are not considered as productive for policy development.

Thus, based on politicians’ experiences with public meetings, the opportunity to listen to citizens could indeed provide motivation for participating. The usefulness of public meetings for enabling anticipatory representation is somewhat limited for two reasons, however. First, it is often challenging to engage citizens in the early stages of the policymaking process, particularly on less controversial issues. Conversely, more contentious issues, typically addressed in public meetings during the later stages of the policy process, often attract participants who aim to protest – making it difficult to use these meetings to gauge voter preferences. It follows, second, that the information obtained at both types of meetings is not considered representative by politicians, since the meetings are either attended by only a small group of the usual suspects or are dominated by protesters representing a limited range of viewpoints. These patterns are consistent with earlier studies, which indicate that participants in public meetings are often perceived as unrepresentative (Halvorsen Reference Halvorsen2006; McComas Reference McComas2001). Furthermore, politicians representing a political party do not necessarily feel that they must or should listen to the views of ‘everybody’. To be re-elected, responsibility towards their party members, voters and potential voters is key. Thus, in practice, it seems difficult to use public meetings to align policies with voters’ preferences by gradually building shared problem definitions and goal conceptions before future elections.

Although the public meetings had limited use in improving policy and did not serve as an arena for swaying political opinion through convincing voters or deliberating with them, politicians still attend because it is expected of them or deemed appropriate. This behaviour can be interpreted as a strategic effort by politicians to strengthen their position – or, at the very least, to avoid weakening it by being absent. This strongly reflects the concept of optimising one’s position vs. the voters by demonstrating responsiveness, as suggested by earlier studies (Fenno Reference Fenno1978; Kingdon Reference Kingdon1968; Mayhew Reference Mayhew1974).

Thus, our study suggests that participatory arenas like public meetings may serve politicians in their role as responsive representatives, but not necessarily in the way assumed by theory on anticipatory representation. The gain is only to a limited extent substantial in bringing in new information, enabling effective deliberations, or convincing voters to change their opinions. Politicians may even develop a dislike for attending public meetings, particularly when these meetings are organised in the later stages of the policy process and become politicalised arenas where opposing parties have mobilised.

Despite these limitations, public meetings are not without value. They may serve an important purpose by signalling to voters that politicians are willing to listen to them and address their concerns. Furthermore, there may be intrinsic value in the enduring nature of public meetings. The consistent and familiar format of public meetings, coupled with the fact that almost all political systems have experience with them, make these meetings an easy and reliable option for elected officials seeking to engage with citizens. The institutionalised nature of public meetings may reinforce their symbolic and practical role in maintaining trust between elected representatives and the public.

Furthermore, the fact that politicians find it important to attend even contentious public meetings, just to be present, can be seen as a demonstration of accountability. Departing from the framework of representation focused on retrospective control, the obligation to justify decisions and account for (broken) election promises appear to motivate engagement with citizens between elections. However, this form of responsiveness – explaining to voters why one chooses not to follow public opinion on a difficult or contentious issue – can also be regarded as a mode of anticipatory representation. As Mansbridge (Reference Mansbridge2003: 517) observes, ‘anticipatory representation encourages us to think of voters at Time 3 as educable’ and moreover, that the voters can be ‘educated’ by the representative, who seeks and formulates ‘explanations’ for his votes. Alternatively, the experienced importance of attending may be interpreted as tokenism, as pointed out by some of the politicians we interviewed. When the outcome of the issue at hand is in fact predetermined by party-internal decision-making, citizen inputs voiced in the meeting will in reality fall on deaf ears. Retrospective control would presuppose that political standpoints are openly declared for public meetings to function as true arenas for holding politicians accountable. Paradoxically, however, many politicians find it uncomfortable to defend and argue their positions in heated circumstances.

On a deliberation continuum – with the most deliberative and information-rich events at one end and the least deliberative and informational events at the other end (Geissel Reference Geissel, Geissel and Joas2013: 11) – public meetings can be categorised as belonging to the latter group. Therefore, in terms of enhancing deliberative democracy, public meetings offer little, while democratic innovations that provide high-quality deliberative procedures, including representative citizenry and well-organised, facilitated processes, present a better alternative. However, another paradox emerges: the limited literature on how politicians experience deliberative arenas suggests that such forums are often not valued. When citizen interactions are organised, questions about power sharing arise, and politicians frequently struggle to determine the roles they should assume (Rangoni, Bedock and Talukder Reference Rangoni, Bedock and Talukder2023; Sønderskov Reference Sønderskov2020). Thus, even if participatory arenas were better designed to foster genuine communication than public meetings currently are, this would not necessarily motivate politicians to engage more actively with citizens.

The Norwegian context undoubtedly has a significant impact on the evidence and reflections presented in this article. Norwegian local governments are vital political systems, and unlike in many European countries, representative institutions in Norway are still trusted by citizens, as is also the case in other Nordic countries (DFØ 2024; OECD 2024). Although party membership is low, most councillors may feel responsive to their constituents through the party system. While the literature on democratic innovations focuses on establishing arenas for citizen interaction based on an idea of anticipatory representation, a well-functioning party system may be better suited for elected politicians to align policymaking with voter preferences and strengthen their position in upcoming elections – in accordance with the idea of retrospective control.

Although the Norwegian context impacts the evidence presented, our primary findings align with existing literature on public meetings. Despite the limited scope of this literature, this suggests that the findings from our analysis of three Norwegian municipalities can be generalised. To strengthen generalisability, however, additional research should be conducted across more cases and in different countries. The political-administrative model in Norway is distinct, with an emphasis in elections on party lists and a consensus-oriented alderman model with a cross-party executive board. This may be one of the reasons why politicians primarily use public meetings to listen to what the residents have to say. Given a different political-administrative system, such as the strong mayor model which is the most common in Europe (Heinelt, Hlepas, Kuhlmann et al. Reference Heinelt, Hlepas, Kuhlmann, Swianiewicz, Heinelt, Magnier, Cabria and Reynaert2018), the need to confront own positions on relevant issues with residents would likely be different and the arena for citizen participation that public meetings represent could be perceived in a different way. Additionally, to better understand the motivation of elected representatives for engaging with citizens in organised arenas, further theoretical development is necessary. While this article has taken departure from a specific theory on representation, future studies could consider additional or alternative approaches including democratic theory and political leadership theory.