The Party Paradigm and Democratic Political Representation

In studies of political representation, the ‘party paradigm’ has not been strongly felt. This is particularly so within the ‘constructivist turn’ over the last two decades. In the field of democratic political representation the focus has been on the represented and the representative with significantly less attention on the intermediary institutions of representative democracies such as political parties. Consequently, this paper argues that rather than moving beyond, or away from, the party paradigm in studies of democratic political representation more attention is needed on the role of political parties as central intermediary institutions. This is while recognising the variation in the role and importance of political parties and elected representatives internationally. This paper draws on research on Australia’s four largest parties – the Labor Party (centre-left), the Liberal Party (centre-right), the National Party (centre-right/right/agrarian), and the Greens (left/environmental). Australia offers a particularly good case with: a) an electoral system allowing both a prominent role for parties and individual elected representatives, and b) a mix of parties – major parties (government forming) and minor parties (non-government forming) which provides a useful case for exploring the different representative roles of different types of parties. While recognising the need for more attention on the views of party members and citizens more generally, through elite interviews and other forms of qualitative data analysis, this paper explores the understandings and reflections of party elites: a) current and former elected representatives, and, b) current and former party officials. Both groups include the national (federal) and sub-national (state) levels. The paper reflects on the serious need for further research examining the role of political parties within the broader political system, namely the representative claim-making and contestation between parties. But, importantly, also the important representative dimensions within parties, both in terms of contestation over what the party should stand for and whom it claims to represent as well as different understandings of representation particularly in terms of representation as advocacy and concerns over descriptive representation. So while acknowledging the contemporary challenges to political parties and the party paradigm, this paper argues that in the field of political representation, and particularly within the constructivist turn, much more theoretical and empirical research is needed on the contemporary representative role of political parties. This paper seeks to contribute to this lacuna with both theoretical and empirical reflections on the role of political parties in contemporary democratic political representation.