Asian and Pasifika Representatives in New Zealand: Balancing Party and Ethnic Community Expectations of Substantive Representation

While the literature on substantive representation has generally focused on how representatives act on behalf of marginalized groups in order to achieve policy outcomes, we can also ask whether representatives invariably aim to influence policy. What broader sets of acts and interactions could be considered as providing substantive representation, even in the absence of a direct policy-influencing aim? If so, how do we assess the range and impact of these types of actions? Using the case study of New Zealand, this paper examines how the types of representative activities of ethnic minority MPs of Asian and Pacific origin is shaped by different (and sometimes competing) expectations of political parties and ethnic communities themselves about the role of ethnic representatives in the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system, especially in the context of non-citizen voting at parliamentary elections. Drawing on an original dataset of all candidacies at parliamentary elections from 1996 - 2017, and on in-depth interviews with migrant-origin politicians and political parties, I demonstrate the substantial emphasis placed by both communities and political parties on non-policy roles, notably bridge-building, familiarizing the political class with ethnic communities, fund-raising, and communicating between parties and perceived vote blocs. Perhaps reflecting differences in the meaning and function of gender-based and ethnic representation, political parties consider these representative acts crucial to incorporate new, culturally-diverse, and rapidly growing populations into the political system, but also into partisanship. Policy-oriented representation, in contrast, is emphasized less and often valued less. Yet, such expectations generate difficult choices for ethnic-minority politicians who seek to ‘normalize’ their political career, and the latter part of the paper considers the normative implications of these findings.