Political Parties and Representative Claim-Making

In studies of political representation, the role of political parties requires further attention. This is particularly so within the ‘constructivist turn’ over the last two decades. 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. 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). 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 representative 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.