Winners and Losers of Representation: Geographic Inequalities in Representation

• In Event: Disproportionality, Inequality, and the Structure of Electoral Systems

Abstract

Is every citizen equal when it comes to the geographical representation they receive? We examine the extent to which
different geographical localities receive unequal levels of attention in parliament, relative to what we would expect based on their population size, which the fully proportional ideal.

Using 20 years of parliamentary speech data (1999-2019) in Portugal, whose electoral system has a very large variance in district magnitude and low levels of mallapportionment, we employ a Name Entity Recognition system together with Google Maps data in order to collect every mention to places in the speeches of parliamentarians. We then investigate which places are overrepresented or underrepresented in parliament, relative to their population size.

Our findings indicate that a place’s population size and the
proportion of its population with higher education have important effects on the levels of representation each geographical locality receives. Overall, we find that both small localities and large cities are overrepresented in parliament, while medium sized cities
and the suburban peripheries of major metropolis are the losers of representation. These results carry important normative implications for forms of territorial-based representation, on which many electoral systems rest.

Author

• Ana Mafalda Pratas Fernandes, Harvard University