Acknowledging the elitist character of representative democracy, this book seeks new approaches to empirical studies on the relationship between citizens and their elected representatives. Focusing on the way representatives and citizens interact during mandate periods between elections, it integrates research literatures that study representative parallel relationships; it identifies new research questions; and it suggests a new understanding of the key concept ‘responsiveness’.
This book brings a novel and integrating perspective to non-electoral representative democracy. While research has documented the crude nature of the electoral instrument – although distributing legitimacy, mandate and punishment – the literature on representative processes between elections rarely conceptualizes their overarching, supplementary impact. The authors examine the rich toolbox available to citizens and representatives to gain guidance and establish limitations for responsive, everyday government. They refine our theoretical understanding and extend our empirical knowledge of the behavioural and communicative processes central to representative, but elitist democracy. -- Knut Heidar, University of Oslo
Traditional political representation research focuses mainly on elections as instruments of representative democracy. In theory, voters can bring public policy in line with their preferences by voting for parties and representatives that share their policy views. But they can do so only once every four or five years. For the effectiveness of political representation, it is at least as important how responsive political representatives are in the long periods between elections and which mechanisms make them more or less responsive.
This book makes an important and original contribution to the literature on political representation by studying the effectiveness of these mechanisms between elections. Esaiasson and Narud’s extremely timely volume is a must-read for anyone interested in the normative and empirical aspects of political representation. -- Jacques Thomassen, University of Twente
Peter Esaiasson is professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg. He has published several books on political representation, election campaigning and empirical democratic theory. His articles have appeared in journals including the British Journal of Political Science; European Journal of Political Research; Electoral Studies; Governance; European Political Science Review and Party Politics.
Hanne Marthe Narud (1958-2012) was professor of political science at the University of Oslo. Her main research focus was on coalition behaviour, political recruiting, and voting behaviour. She published articles in Comparative Sociology, European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies, West European Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies, Party Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies, Journal of Theoretical Politics and Acta Politica, in addition to numerous contributions to books in Norwegian and English. She also wrote a book with Henry Valen on political representation in a multiparty system. She was frequently called upon to commentate on Norwegian politics in the news media.
Kees Aarts is holds degrees from the University of Amsterdam (Ba, MA) and Twente (PhD). He is Professor of Political Science at the University of Twente and scientific director of its Institute for Innovation and Governance Studies.
Audrey André is a F.R.S.-FNRS postdoctoral researcher at the Centre d’étude de la vie politique (CEVIPOL) of the Université libre de Bruxelles. Her research focuses on the impact of electoral institutions on parties’, legislators’ and voters’ behaviour. Key findings have been published in the European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies, Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, Acta Politica and West European Politics.
Henrik Serup Christensen is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science at Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. His research interests include political participation and how the proliferation of new forms of citizen involvement affects the functioning of democracy. His current research project examines the causes and consequences of the spread of political disenchantment in representative democracies.
Sam Depauw is Assistant Professor and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research concentrates on legislative and electoral studies. He has published extensively on political representation and party discipline in West European Politics, the Journal of Legislative Studies, Acta Politica, and Party Politics. Sam Depauw has coordinated the PartiRep comparative legislator survey in fifteen European democracies.
Kris Deschouwer is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research focuses on political parties, elections, regionalism and federalism, democracy in divided societies, and political representation. He is the central coordinator of the PartiRep research project on Political Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies, http://www.PARTIREP.eu. Kris was co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research (2003–2009) and authored The Politics of Belgium (Palgrave, 2012). He was ECPR Chair, 2018–2021.
Roy Gava is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva. He participates in the Swiss Policy Agendas Project and is currently finishing a doctoral dissertation on banking regulation. His research interests include comparative public policy, internationalisation and the regulation of financial services.
Mikael Gilljam is Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. His main areas of interest are public opinion and democracy, political representation, local government, and election studies.
Marco Giugni is a Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the Institute of Social and Political Research (RESOP) at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. His research interests include social movements and collective action, immigration and ethnic relations, unemployment and social exclusion.
Marc Hooghe is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Leuven (Belgium) and a Visiting Professor at the universities of Mannheim (Germany) and Lille (France). He has published extensively on political participation and social capital, and holds an ERC Advanced Grant to investigate the democratic linkage between citizens and the state.
Swen Hutter is a researcher and reader in Comparative Politics, University of Munich. He is a 2012/2013 Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. His research interests include social movements, political parties and cleavage structures. Hutter studied political science at the Universities of Zurich and Växjö (Sweden) and holds a PhD from the University of Munich. He co-authored a book with Hanspeter Kriesi et al. on Political Conflict in Western Europe (Cambridge University Press) and his revised dissertation on New Cleavages and Protest Politics in Western Europe is forthcoming with the University of Minnesota Press.
Rune Karlsen is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo, and a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Research, Oslo. His research interests include elections, campaigning, and political communication.
Ann-Kristin Kölln is a PhD student in political science at the Institute for Innovation and Governance Studies at the University of Twente. She is also a member of the European Social Survey team in the Netherlands. Previously, she has studied and worked at the University of Münster, University of Warwick, and University of Gothenburg. Her research interests are in party politics, representative democracy, and survey methodology.
Sofie Marien is an assistant professor at the University of Leuven. Her research interests are focused on democratic legitimacy, democratic innovations and political equality.
Mikael Persson is a doctoral student at the University of Gothenburg. His primary areas of interest are political behaviour and public opinion. His journal articles have appeared in Political Behavior, the European Journal of Political Research, European Political Science Review, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Party Politics, West European Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, Scandinavian Political Studies, and Politics.
Liz Richardson is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester, and a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She conducts research on citizen participation, local politics and local government, public services, and public policy. She has an interest in methodological innovation including participatory research approaches and experimental methods.
Frédéric Varone is Professor of Political Science at the University of Geneva. His current research interests include comparative public policy, programme evaluation and public sector reforms.
