In parliamentary democracies, the relationship between elections and legislative agenda-setting power is precarious and indirect. Most of these democracies employ proportional electoral systems, which rarely result in a single party controlling a legislative majority. Access to agenda-setting power, controlled primarily by government ministers, must therefore be apportioned across multiple parties in a coalition government. Because elite bargaining intervenes between legislative elections and coalition formation, the allocation of ministries does not always respond to elections in normatively appealing ways. For example, incumbent government parties may gain legislative seats but lose power in government—either (1) by losing coalition membership, (2) maintaining membership but suffering losses in the share of ministries they control, or (3) maintaining membership but losing control of ministries critical to delivering policy benefits desired by their constituents. This study examines whether responsiveness through these paths occurs, and, building on Martin and Vanberg (2020, 2025), offers a theoretical argument of responsiveness based on the characteristics of party voters. Specifically, we argue that parties bargaining over coalition outcomes are constrained by the ideological sophistication of their voters: parties with more ideologically aware voters are less likely than those with less aware voters to lose those ministries that are most vital to their constituents’ policy preferences. In short, responsiveness in power-sharing depends on voter knowledge. Using a novel measure of government policy power and comprehensive data on portfolio allocation, we test our expectations using approximately 150 multiparty bargaining situations in 16 parliamentary democracies.