Representing the People

Modern democracy is organized as a representative democracy in which those representing the people are elected to office. Political parties play a crucial role in this. They select the candidates, form or oppose governments, and organize the work of the representatives in parliament. This model of democracy is however being criticized. Parties are hardly trusted and voters have become volatile. How, then, do elected representatives of the people see and fulfil their role? To study this a survey was organized among the members of statewide and sub-state parliaments in fifteen countries. Members of seventy-three parliamentary assemblies were asked how they perceive their representative role, what they do to keep in touch with voters, how they behave and vote in parliament and how they will try to get re-elected. One of the ways in which candidates and elected members of parliament might react to the changing conditions in which they have to represent the people is by stressing more personal characteristics as opposed to the party label and party ideology. Representation might then become more a matter of personal choice. The results of the survey presented in this book do however confirm quite strongly that representation is very much shaped by the political institutions in which it is performed. Representation differs between countries, between different electoral systems, between statewide and regional parliaments, and depends strongly on the party to which a member of parliament belongs. Representation depends not as much on who the representatives are, as on where they are.

Auteur

Kris Deschouwer's research has focussed on political parties, elections, and the governance of divided societies. He is the central co-ordinator of the research programme PartiRep on political participation and representation. One of the projects of this PartiRep programme was the survey among members of parliament on which this book is based. He is Professor of Politics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Sam Depauw's research concentrates on legislative and electoral studies. He has published extensively on political representation and party discipline in West European Politics, the Journal of Legislative Studies, Acta Politica, and Party Politics. He is Assistant Professor and Post-doctoral Researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Contenu

1 Kris Deschouwer, Sam Depauw, and Audrey Andre: Representing the People in Parliaments; 2 Agnieszka Dudzi?ska, Corentin Poyet, Olivier Costa, and Bernhard Wessels: Representational Roles; 3 Daniele Caramani, Karen Celis, and Bram Wauters: The Representation and Old and New Groups; 4 Silvia Erzeel, Didier Caluwaerts, and Karen Celis: From Agency to Institutions and Back: Comparing Legislators' Acting on on Behalf of Women in Parliamentary Democracies; 5 Audrey Andre, Andre Freire, and Zsofia Papp: Electoral Rules and Legislators' Personal Vote-Seeking; 6 Cynthia M.C. van Vonno, Reut Itzkovitch Malka, Sam Depauw, Reuven Y. Hazan, and Rudy B. Andeweg: Agreement, Loyalty and Discipline; A Sequential Approach to Party Unity; 7 Marcelo Jenny, Wolfgang C. Muller, Jonathan Bradbury, Nikolaus Eder, and Gabriella llonszki: MPs' inter-party Contacts and the Operation of Party Democracy; 8 Audrey Andre, Michael Gallagher ,and Giulia Sandri: Legislators' Constituency Orientation; 9 Tor Midtbo, Stefaan Walgrave, Peter Van Aelst, and Dag Arne Christensen: Do the Media Set the Agenda of Parliament or is it the Other Way Around? Agenda Interactions Between MPs and Mass Media; 10 Jean-Benoit Pilet, Filippo Tronconi, Pablo Onate, and Luca Verzichelli: Career Patterns in Multilevel Systems; 11 Kris Deschouwer and Sam Depauw: The Institutional Constraints of Representation; Appendix