One disconnect is that your politics.SE question isn't asking for a list of references - it's asking for a list of theoretical models for some kind of behaviors.
This sounds like a great example of a "good subjective" question. It can easily be answered by an expert with the appropriate background. Looking at the question as it is written, it looks like something that is easily answerable in a concise way. Nothing about it seems particularly broad - so long as you approach it with a theoretical mindset.
As an example of a similar kind of question, see Should an elected official feel obligated to vote on an issue based on the majority opinion of his constituents?. The wrong way to approach this would be (as someone pointed out in your original question) to create a list of all elected officials in the world and try to describe, person by person, what their obligations are.
A better way to answer is to start with the theory that has already been laid out and apply that here. In this case I already knew of an existing way to think about these models (from Edmund Burke) and the answer was easy.
Questions about empirical theory are just as straight-forward. However, they require that the person writing the answer have a background in political science (or similar discipline).