Political Representation and Diversity in the German parliament: On the notions of representation in the 2021 election campaign

Since the constructivist turn in the theory of representation, political representation is no longer considered a mere result of elections and does not only describe the relationship between constituents and Members of Parliaments. However, in political practise, the political under-representation of marginalised groups in society became more important in the last decade. In Germany, a growing number of initiatives and associations are campaigning for greater diversity and/or increased representation in the German federal parliament (Bundestag). Moreover, in the electoral campaign for the Bundestag elections in 2021, several candidates from different parties made the under-representation of women, migrants, or queer people into an election issue itself. But what are these different political actors criticising exactly and what are they striving for? In this paper, I seek to analyse these negotiations about what the problem with the status quo of political representation in Germany is and how it should be. Different actors have different conceptions of what representation should be; in political practice representation itself becomes a contested concept: What should be at the core of representation: ideas or bodies (Phillips 1995)? Who should be represented at all? Is there a problem with representation; and if so, how do we solve it? Thus, the guiding research question is: What notions of representation do different political entrepreneurs use to criticise or legitimise the composition of the Bundestag? Using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2014), I analyse seven interviews I conducted in August and September 2021 with politicians from the Christian Democrat Union, Social Democrat Party, the Liberal Party (FDP), and the radical small party The Urban. A Hip-Hop Party (Die Urbane) as well as with representatives from the associations Migration Council Berlin (Migrationsrat Berlin), Brand New Bundestag, and Alternative Homosexuals. In the analysis, five key categories from the material are generated: the guiding principle of representation (politics of ideas, politics of presence, or both); the construction of the referent of representation (Volksstaat principle, nationally affected principle, and globally affected principle); degree of problematisation of the status quo; the purpose (improved) representation should fulfil (increasing the belief of legitimacy vs increasing responsivity) and the means that should be used to improve representation (among others quotas or institutionalised deliberations). Particularly, the Urban party’s proposal of a globally affected principle represents an approach that addresses emerging crises like the climate crisis and seeks to give all people who are affected by policies a say. While the implementation of this principle may appear anti-democratic, it reflects the democratic ideal that everyone who is affected by democratic domination should have a say in the process. Finally, I will conclude that the sample shows that the line between democratic and non-democratic representation becomes blurry and we need to analyse representative claims precisely to understand whether an approach is democratic or not.