How Do Voters Think About Political Accountability? A Survey on Representation

• In Event: Minority Advocates Beyond Voting

Abstract

Scholars who study political representation have long been concerned with the congruence between descriptive representation and substantive representation, particularly as it pertains to the political outcomes for communities of color. While there is an ongoing debate as to the meaningfulness of descriptive representation as it pertains to outcomes that officeholders provide (see Grose 2011; Tate 1999; Griffin and Keane 2011; Rocca & Sanchez 2008; Bratton and Haynie 1999; Whitby 2002), few studies consider the perspective of voters. That is, it is not clear what voters expectations are around how they should be represented. Do they want a persistent advocate, for example? Or do they want someone to fill potholes?

Moreover, because descriptive representation can play a role in positive evaluations of officeholders (Bowen and Clark 2014), it is also unclear how descriptive representation may shape expectations of what policies and representational activities officeholders are expected to take up. Do voters expect tangible benefits for their specific district or do they expect representatives to pursue benefits for their identity group?

In this work, we engage with the concepts of trustee and delegate models of representation, while taking into account that preferences for and evaluations of types of descriptive representation may moderate expectations about officeholders and their representational activities. Overall, we ask two major questions: First, do voters want their representatives to be attentive to all of their policy demands or do they trust their representatives to do what’s best? Second, do voters’ expectations shift when a representative shares the racial or ethnic identity of the voter?

We focus our study on state and local level officeholders and use a survey to assess voter attitudes about legislative representation. We ask respondents about their views on local and state representatives, how well these individuals represent their interests, and whether those interests involve narrow policies or group-based and persistent advocacy. We will pilot our items on Amazon MTurk as well as in April 2020 exit polls.

Authors

• Jamil Shatema Scott, Georgetown University

• Jack Santucci, Drexel University