Political Responsiveness to Public Preferences under the EU Integration Process: the Case of The Republic of Moldova

This thesis is devoted to studying political responsiveness in the Republic of Moldova in the context of European integration. The study examines effective responsiveness, measured in correspondence between public policy priorities and state budget distribution on corresponding issues. The study analyzes seven policy areas in the period from 2014 to 2023 using Pearson correlation coefficients, first difference correlation, and cross correlation. Findings reveal a statistically significant moderate positive correlation in four out of seven policies based on correlation in levels. However, period-to-period analysis (first difference) indicates the presence of a positive correlation only in one policy area. The final part of the analysis provides systematized data on the EU financial investments in favor of Moldova, highlighting the EU’s policy priorities in the country and its potential alignments with Moldovan public policy priorities. This study contributes to the existing corpus of literature by conducting the first analysis of effective responsiveness in Moldova and theorizing responsiveness through the EU External Governance perspective.