How to measure the substantive representation of traditionally excluded groups in comparative research: a literature review and new data

Kroeber, Corinna

doi:10.1080/00344893.2018.1504112

Cited by 24 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…However, important aspects of policymaking also take place in behind‐the‐scenes deliberations between legislators (e.g., in caucuses), in private contacts between legislators, lobbyists, government ministers, and bureaucrats, and in the background work that representatives undertake to learn about issues—aspects that the more common approaches do not necessarily capture. Second, in order for scholars to identify the interests of marginalized groups in terms of votes casts, bill sponsored, or remarks made, they often make assumptions about the relationship between group identities and policy issues (e.g., what constitutes “women’s issues” or “ethnic issues”)—an approach that “risks essentializing group members” (Kroeber 2018, 242) and may overlook heterogeneity in preferences within a marginalized group. Our design sidesteps these limitations by tapping senators’ attentiveness to group policy preferences outside the confines of a formal legislative setting, while also avoiding essentializing assumptions about what issues or preferences “go with” particular group identities.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We believe this new design can be used to study the representation of a wide variety of marginalized groups in a broad comparative perspective. This is particularly the case outside the United States where institutional rules and parliamentary parties might heavily constrain—or even preclude—assessments of individual legislator conduct from parliamentary votes, bills, and speechmaking, while at the same time avoiding essentializing assumptions about what constitutes the interests of marginalized groups (Kroeber 2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Nonelectoral Motivations to Represent Marginalized Groups in a Democracy: Evidence from an Unelected Legislature

McAndrews

Goldberg

Loewen

et al. 2020

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Do legislators from marginalized groups have non‐electoral motivations to represent ‘their’ group? Previous observational and experimental research on this question focuses on elected politicians and is thus unable to isolate representation absent a desire to win re‐election. We address this limitation by observing the decision‐making of appointed legislators who, by institutional design, have no personal re‐election motive. We administered to Canadian senators and their staff a novel survey instrument that captured how they prioritized learning about the policy opinions of various groups of citizens. We show that senators’ group identities—specifically, those associated with racial and regional minorities—influenced which group’s views they chose to learn about. The findings refine the central conclusion of the literature and have implications for the study not only of unelected legislators but also of elected officials in settings where public monitoring is weak.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonelectoral Motivations to Represent Marginalized Groups in a Democracy: Evidence from an Unelected Legislature

McAndrews

Goldberg

Loewen

et al. 2020

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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“…Where claimed constituencies exist, both the authorization by "claimed constituency," and "decision-making authority" can be examined. Considering normative schemes, in our cases, authorization can only be assessed by the authorities (for an alternative approach to authorization of claims by self-selected representatives, see Montanaro, 2017;Kroeber, 2018;Guasti and Rezende de Almeida, 2019).…”

Section: Conceptual Framework For Empirical Analysis Of the Authorizamentioning

confidence: 99%

Claims of Representation: Between Representation and Democratic Innovations

Guasti

Geißel

2021

Front. Polit. Sci.

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This article seeks to build a bridge between the empirical scholarship rooted in the traditional theory of political representation and constructivist theory on representation by focusing on the authorization of claims. It seeks to answer how claims can be authorized beyond elections - selecting three democratic innovations and tracing claims through the claim-making process. Different participatory democratic innovations are selected - providing various claims and taking place in different institutional contexts, i.e., (elected) members of the Council of Foreigners Frankfurt; individual citizens in participatory budgeting procedures in Münster; and citizen’s associations elected politicians in the referendum campaign in Hamburg. We first analyze the claims raised by the different claim-makers to identify their claimed constituency eligible to authorize claims. In the second step, we focus on the authorization by the claimed constituency and the relevant decision-making authority. The article finds that claim-making in democratic innovations is fractured and incomplete. Nevertheless, this is not the reason to dismiss democratic innovations as possible loci of representation; on the contrary, seen through the prism of claim-making, all representation – electoral and nonelectoral – is partial. Focusing on the authorization of claims in democratic innovations provides novel inferences about the potential and limits of democratic innovations for broadening democratic representation

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“…In contrast, what Saward (2010) calls an "effective audience" is too vague and too complex to be taken into account in empirical research (de Wilde, 2013). It would be empirically challenging to detect and to examine all potentially "effective audiences" (for an innovative approach within the framework of substantive representation see Kroeber, 2018).…”

Section: Acceptance or Rejection Of Claim: Conceptual Framework For Empirical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Saward’s Concept of the Representative Claim Revisited: An Empirical Perspective

Guasti

Geißel

2019

PaG

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Representation is a process of making, accepting, or rejecting representative claims (Disch, 2015; Saward, 2014). This groundbreaking insight challenged the standard assumption that representative democracy can be reduced to elections and activities of elected representatives (Pitkin, 1967). It broadened the scope of representative democracy to encompass representation activities beyond those authorized by elections, transformed our thinking and provided a new perspective, putting claims and their reception into the center. This paradigm shift erased the distinction between elected and non-elected representatives and disclosed the potential of non-elected actors’ claims to represent (Andeweg, 2003; Kuyper, 2016; Rosanvallon & Goldhammer, 2008; Saward, 2006, 2009; Van Biezen & Saward, 2008). In spite of this lively debate, we identify an important gap in the literature: while this paradigmatic shift inspired many authors, conceptual <em>frameworks that can be applied for systematic empirical analysis of real-life cases</em> are missing. In this article, we fill this gap and propose frameworks for assessing and validating a variety of real-life claims. Our study provides empirical substance to the ongoing theoretical debates, helping to translate the mainly theoretical ‘claim approach’ into empirical research tools. It helps to transform the conventional wisdom about what representation can (not) be and shines a new light on the potential future of (claims on) representation.

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How to measure the substantive representation of traditionally excluded groups in comparative research: a literature review and new data

Cited by 24 publications

References 74 publications

Nonelectoral Motivations to Represent Marginalized Groups in a Democracy: Evidence from an Unelected Legislature

Nonelectoral Motivations to Represent Marginalized Groups in a Democracy: Evidence from an Unelected Legislature

Claims of Representation: Between Representation and Democratic Innovations

Saward’s Concept of the Representative Claim Revisited: An Empirical Perspective

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