Policy Representation in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Conceptions of political representation abound, but most of them require some sort of congruence in the preferences of citizens and the pledges/behaviours of political elites. By elites here we primarily mean candidates and legislators. The groupings of citizens conceived as ‘constituencies’ or ‘principals’ by the elites, their cross-party differentiation and their intra-party cohesion, the set of represented preferences, and the ratio of responsiveness versus issue leadership vary as a function of the electoral incentives of political entrepreneurs. These incentives are primarily rooted in institutional arrangements, the structure of party alliances, the polarization and fragmentation of the party system, social cleavages and norms. Consequently the accuracy of representation and the dimensionality of the policy space differ across political systems. The panel aims at presenting papers that research the quality of policy representation in democratic countries. Papers that relate the type and degree of representation to the context of elections across a number of countries are particularly welcome. But we also look forward to presentations that compare different levels, arenas, political configurations or institutional settings within a single country. We also encourage applications that focus on the links between policy representation (spatial model) and representation of concerns (valence model) on the one hand, and the structure of party competition, the setup of electoral campaigns, the role perceptions of politicians and their status within political parties.

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