Incivility and Political Representation

Interpersonal violence disproportionately affects representatives that descriptively stand for underrepresented groups, particularly women. While this is well-established in international research, we know much less about the substance of political contestation. However, with far-right and anti-feminist ideologies on the rise, there is evidence to suggest that certain policy areas are particularly contested and prone to backlash. Drawing on Hanna Pitkin’s (1967) distinction between descriptive and substantive representation and the literature on incivility, which provides a general conceptual understanding of political discourse phenomena that violate deliberative norms, our work examines the impact of incivility on political elites. In particular, we address two closely related research questions: (1) How and to what extent does incivility toward local political elites in Germany affect descriptive and substantive representation? (2) To what extent do representatives’ descriptive characteristics and their policy focus moderate these effects? Our empirical work focusses on local politics in Germany, based on the The German Metropolitan Survey 2022, an online survey of all local elected officials in German major cities (≥ 100.000 residents). Our analyses explore the prevalence, (online and offline) forms, and consequences of incivility, revealing that the vast majority of local political representatives experience it. This negatively affects both descriptive and substantive representation, fostering withdrawal considerations and topic avoidance, with particularly pronounced effects for specific groups and party contexts. Our results further show that descriptive representation is particularly jeopardised for racialised office- and mandate-holders, whereas for women, it is predominantly substantive representation that suffers. Female representatives are more likely to avoid addressing certain issues, suggesting a gendered pattern of silencing within political discourse. While we do not observe gender-specific differences in the level of incivility, differences become apparent in the consequences for political careers and the coping strategies adopted by those affected. At the same time, our findings warrant discussion with regard to the intersection of racialisation, gender, and class. The results thus help to provide a more nuanced understanding of how political elites pursue their representative role under conditions of incivility and violence, highlighting the consequences for free and undistorted political representation.