Abstract
This chapter deals with a central element of representative democracies: the representation of the citizens by legislators in parliament. The basic link for this relationship are elections. Critics argue it is especially the lower stratum of society that is participating less in elections and whose preferences subsequently become systematically less represented in parliament. So far, however, the plausibility of this argumentation has rarely been tested empirically. To close this gap, we are testing if less electoral participation of the lower stratum leads to a worse substantial representation of these citizens. By using survey data, we analyze whether the policy preferences of citizens are congruent with those of the elected.
We find that although belonging to a specific social stratum is not the defining concept for policy preferences, the lower stratum is still worse represented than the middle and upper strata in all eight parliaments under investigation. Its reduced level of electoral participation has indeed a modest impact on substantive representation. But the differences in the quality of representation are larger between countries as between the different social strata within countries. With respect to the level of individual parties, we see a similar picture: parties represent their voters from the middle and upper strata often slightly better than their voters from the lower strata. In summary, we cannot find a real crisis of substantial representation of the lower strata, but we can find a significant cross-country underrepresentation that—if it increases over time—has the potential to damage representative democracies.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
These are, for example, the so-called social milieu models. The traditional indicators are supplemented by a number of indicators vertical to income and educational hierarchies. They include gender, age, ethnic and regional origin, and marital status (Geißler 2010, 42). Second, there are the social milieu models, which add subjective indicators such as lifestyles and life attitudes to the objective ones (ibid., 45). A classical example of such a classification is the Sinus-Milieus, where on a second axis, traditionalists, modernizers, individualists, and people open to reorientation are distinguished from one another (SINUS 2011, 14). A recent model focuses on inclusion and exclusion. In its basic form, it is bipolar in structure, concentrating on a small group of extremely disadvantaged people who have lost their place in society through unemployment, poverty, a lack of prospects, and a damaged self-image (Geißler 2010, 49).
- 2.
Huber and Powell (1994), too, identify this link between MP preferences and their later action as the idea behind the proportionate influence vision. However, the study points in a somewhat different direction than ours, so that their findings cannot be directly transferred. But they are a further indication that there is good reason to posit a link between MP preferences and parliamentary output.
- 3.
In cases where surveys were carried out on two elections in a country, we used data that comes from the same legislative period as the data on parliamentarians.
- 4.
Members of regional and national parliaments were asked to participate in the study. For the following analysis, only data on members of national parliaments were used.
- 5.
Since the income variable states only quintiles and no exact household incomes, the mean income within the quintile is estimated, and for each respondent, this value is divided by the number of household members.
- 6.
In the case of four countries (Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Switzerland), no satisfactory categorization was possible because of the way these categories have been aggregated by the CSES country experts. For these four countries, the income variable was used more restrictively in defining classes in order to take account of differences in the coding of educational qualifications.
- 7.
This method is not influenced by whether attitudes are normally distributed, because it takes the complete distribution into account and not only aggregated values (Golder and Stramski 2010, 95). Moreover, since all the distributions used in this analysis overlap, this formula, slightly simplified in comparison to the use of differences of cumulative distribution functions, can be used.
- 8.
We have not for all respondents observations on all variables used in this analysis. These citizens are therefore excluded from the study. Most of the answers that are lacking are to questions on income and on left-right self-positioning. The number of cases is therefore considerably reduced especially for Portugal and Ireland. And in the party-specific analysis in Sect. 6.3, only respondents who state their concrete choice of party could be taken into consideration.
- 9.
“Some people would like to see lower taxes even if that means some reduction in health, education, and social benefits; others would like to see more government spending on health, education, and social benefits even if it means some increases in taxes.” (11-point scale).
- 10.
“Should more nuclear power stations be built or should all nuclear power stations be closed down today?” (11-point scale).
- 11.
“We now turn to the issue of immigration. Should laws on immigration be relaxed or be made tougher?” (11-point scale).
- 12.
Individual citizens are assigned to the party which they stated they voted for at the last election (variable C3023_LH_PL in CSES).
References
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Burke, E. (1774). Speech to the electors of Bristol. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/ documents/v1ch13s7.html. Accessed 13 July 2013.
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) (2011). CSES Module 3 full release [dataset]. 27 March 2013. www.cses.org. Accessed 14 May 2013.
Dahl, R. A. (1971). Polyarchy. Participation and opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Dahl, R. A. (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dalton, R. J. (2000). The decline of party identifications. In R. J. Dalton & M. P. Wattenberg (Eds.), Parties without Partisans. Political change in advanced industrial democracies (pp. 19–36). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dalton, R. J. (2002). Citizen politics: Public opinion and political parties in advanced industrial democracies. New York & London: Chatham House Publishers.
Diamond, I., & Hartstock, N. (1981). Beyond interest in politics: A comment on Virginia Sapiro’s ‘When are interests? The problem of political representation of women’. The American Political Science Review, 75(3), 717–721.
Dovi, S. (2007). The good representative. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Geißler, R. (2010). Die Sozialstruktur Deutschlands. Aktuelle Entwicklungen und theoretische Erklärungsmodelle. WISO Diskurs, November 2010. Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
Gilens, M. (2005). Inequality and democratic responsiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(5), 778–796.
Golder, M., & Stramski, J. (2010). Ideological congruence and electoral institutions. American Journal of Political Science, 54(1), 90–106.
Gould, C. (1996). Diversity and democracy: Representing differences. In S. Benhabib (Ed.), Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political (pp. 171–186). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Habermas, J. (2001). Between facts and norms. Contribution to a discourse theory of law and democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hamilton, A., & Madison, J. (1788). Federalist No. 57. In A. Hamilton, J. Madison, & J. Jay (Eds.), The Federalist Papers. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_57.html. Accessed 3 Feb 2013.
Holmberg, S. (1991). Political representation in Sweden. In H.-D. Klingemann, R. Stöss, & B. Weßels (Eds.), Politische Klasse und politische Institutionen (pp. 290–324). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Huber, J. D., & Powell, G. B. (1994). Congruence between Citizens and policy-makers in two visions of liberal democracy. World Politics, 46(3), 291–326.
Institut für Sozialforschung und Gesellschaftspolitik (ISG) (2011). Überprüfung der These einer “schrumpfenden Mittelschicht” in Deutschland. Expertise im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Arbeit und Soziales: Köln: ISG.
Mansbridge, J. (1999). Should blacks represent blacks and women represent women? A contingent ‘Yes. The Journal of Politics, 61(3), 628–657.
Merkel, W., & Petring, A. (2012). Politische Partizipation und demokratische Inklusion. In T. Mörschel & C. Krell (Eds.), Demokratie in Deutschland. Zustand—Herausforderungen—Perspektiven (pp. 93–119). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften: Wiesbaden.
Miller, W. E., & Stokes, D. E. (1963). Constituency influence in Congress. The American Political Science Review, 57(1), 45–56.
PARTIREP (2012). Comparative MP Survey. Dataset. 1 September 2012. http://www.partirep.eu/. Accessed 20 May 2013.
Phillips, A. (1998). Feminism and politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pitkin, H. F. (1967). The concept of representation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Powell, G. B. (2000). Elections as instruments of democracy. Majoritarian and proportional visions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rattinger, H., Roßteutscher, S., Schmitt-Beck, R., & Weßels, B. (2012). Vor- und Nachwahl-Querschnitt (Kumulation) (GLES 2009). GESIS Datenarchiv, Köln. ZA5302 Datenfile Version 6.0.0, doi: https://doi.org/10.4232/1.11373.
Rebenstorf, H., & Weßels, B. (1989). Wie wünschen sich die Wähler ihre Abgeordneten? Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfrage zum Problem der sozialen Repräsentativität des Deutschen Bundestages. Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 20(3), 408–424.
Rosset, J., Giger, N., & Bernauer, J. (2011). Political representation of the poor and economic inequality: A comparative analysis. Paper, Drei-Länder-Tagung. Basel, 13–14 January 2011.
Sapiro, V. (1981). When are interest interesting? American Political Science Review, 75(3), 701–716.
Schäfer, A., & Schoen, H. (2013). Mehr Demokratie, aber nur für wenige? Der Zielkonflikt zwischen mehr Beteiligung und politischer Gleichheit. Leviathan, 41, 94–120.
Schmitt, H., & Thomassen, J. (1999). Distinctiveness and cohesion of parties. In H. Schmitt & J. Thomassen (Eds.), Political representation and legitimacy in the European Union (pp. 111–128). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. New York, NY: Harper Press.
SINUS. (2011). Informationen zu den Sinus-Milieus 2011. Heidelberg: SINUS-Markt- und Sozialforschung GmbH.
Tsebelis, G. (2002). Veto players. How political institutions work. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Ura, J. D., & Ellies, C. R. (2008). Income, preferences, and the dynamics of policy responsiveness. Political Science and Politics, 41(4), 785–794.
Verba, S., & Nie, N. H. (1972). Participation in America. Political democracy and social equality. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Williams, M. (1998). Voice, trust, and memory: Marginalized groups and the failings of liberals representation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Weßels, B. (1985). Wählerschaft und Führungsschicht: Probleme politischer Repräsentation. Ein Forschungsbericht. Freie Universität Berlin. Information aus Lehre und. Forschung, 2.
Weßels, B. (1991). Abgeordnete und Bürger: Parteien und Wahlkreiskommunikation als Faktoren politischer Repräsentation. In H.-D. Klingemann, R. Stöss, & B. Weßels (Eds.), Politische Klasse und politische Institutionen (pp. 325–356). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Weßels, B. (1993). Politische Repräsentation als Prozess einer gesellschaftlich-parlamentarischen Kommunikation. In D. Herzog, H. Rebenstorf, & B. Weßels (Eds.), Parlament und Gesellschaft (pp. 99–137). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Weßels, B. (1999). System characteristics matter: Empirical evidence from ten representation studies. In W. E. Miller, R. Pierce, J. Thomassen, R. Herrera, S. Holmberg, P. Esaiasson, & B. Weßels (Eds.), Policy representation in Western democracies (pp. 137–161). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lehmann, P., Regel, S., Schlote, S. (2018). Inequality in Political Representation: Is the Lower Social Stratum Worse Represented?. In: Merkel, W., Kneip, S. (eds) Democracy and Crisis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72559-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72559-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72558-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72559-8
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)