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Effects of Democratic Representation on Public Opinion

Fri, August 31, 12:00 to 1:30pm, Marriott, Salon H

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

There is wide agreement among political scientists that the democratic organization of collective decision-making is preferable to other regime types. However, recent developments in various parts of the world remind us that a stable democratic order depends on persistent updating of public support for the political system. Do established democracies succeed in generating systemic support under adverse conditions, and how is this best achieved?
The papers of the panel address these questions with a particular focus on the role of democratic representation. Elected office-holders are not only expected to represent their constituents in the democratic process but also to represent the political system vis-à-vis their constituents. Methodologically this two-way conceptualization is quite challenging because public opinion apparently affects representation and so a feedback effect of representation on public opinion is not easily identified. Our authors approach this challenge using various analytical techniques, combined with emphasis on different aspects of democratic representation.
Bølstad presents a general model of public opinion and substantive representation. He argues that the correlation of opinion and policy is often misinterpreted as responsiveness of party elites. Using the case of European integration, the paper concludes in favor of a leadership model, whereby elites drive both policy and public opinion, creating a spurious relationship between the two.
Espírito-Santo, Verge and Wiesehomeier broaden the seasoned debate about beneficial consequences of descriptive representation by analyzing the legitimacy of the democratic system among historically underrepresented groups. They draw on an online experiment using national samples from Spain and Portugal to isolate effects of female representation.
Kline and Stack ask whether partisan representation affects voter evaluations of the quality of political and economic governance. They use survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to apply regression discontinuity designs focused on the threshold of legislative representation in numerous countries.
Sandri, Seddone and Russo open up the “black box” of political parties. They ask what consequences democratically organized representation within parties has for system support in the population at large. They build a comparative TSCS dataset to estimate whether democracy within parties goes hand in hand with democracy around parties.

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