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Political Representation

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Governing Human Well-Being

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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the relationship between political representation and human well-being and argues that a more representative system enhances human well-being as it is indicative of an inclusive and competitive society. A higher degree of representation connotes the prevalence of a more inclusive political system that enables multiple swaths of society to convey their needs and preferences to political officials and results in policies that are better able to encompass the interests of the masses. A higher degree of representation also signals the presence of a more competitive system, which provides incentives for all representatives to perform better for political survival. The theory is tested through a statistical analysis on a global sample of countries and includes a case narrative on Brazil.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The literature presents different conceptions of representation. For instance, see Pitkin (1967) for differences between descriptive, symbolic, formal, and substantive representations. This chapter, however, focuses primarily on the consequences of political representation and therefore does not engage the literature on the meaning of representation. It adopts a generic meaning that is broadly accepted, namely, that representation refers to answerability of officials to their citizens.

  2. 2.

    Cited in George H. Sabine. 1961. A History of Political Theory. 3rd ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p. 695.

  3. 3.

    Destuutt de Tracy. 1811. A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws, Philadelphia: William Duane, p. 19, cited in Adrienne Koch. 1964. The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, Chicago: Quadrangle, p. 152, 167.

  4. 4.

    This variable is discussed in greater detail below in the empirical analysis section.

  5. 5.

    Indeed there are a few countries that are representative but do not have political parties, such as small Pacific islands of Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu (Anckar and Anckar 2000). This chapter, however, primarily focuses on the representational role played by political parties.

  6. 6.

    Lijphart’s (2012) consensual model comprises multiparty coalitions, a balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, multiparty systems , proportional electoral systems, coordinated and corporatist interest groups, federal and decentralized government, a bicameral legislature, rigid constitutions, judicial review, and independent central banks. The majoritarian model is associated with institutional alternatives that fall on the other end of the spectrum.

  7. 7.

    Centripetalism is primarily associated with a unitary, parliamentary, and a party-list proportional representation electoral system, among other institutions. Decentralism is associated with a federal, presidential, and single-member district or preferential voting system, among other institutional alternatives. Centripetal systems are similar to consensual systems in that both emphasize an inclusive political system. However, in contrast to consensual systems, centripetal systems emphasize centralized authority while consensual systems emphasize decentralized authority. More specifically, one key difference between the consensual and centripetal models is that, whereas the former emphasizes federal systems, centripetal models emphasize unitary systems. See Gerring et al. (2005) for a detailed overview of the centripetal model.

  8. 8.

    John Adams, Letter to John Penn, Works (Boston, 1882–1865) cited in Pitkin (1967).

  9. 9.

    James Wilson. 1986. Works. Edited by James DeWitt Andrews: Chicago. Cited in The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, edited by Max Ferrand: New Haven.

  10. 10.

    Infant mortality data for Kerala are available from the Sample Registration Systems published by the Census of India (various years). The average infant mortality rate among OECD countries in the developed world between 1960 and 2013 was 12 per thousand live births (WDI 2015).

  11. 11.

    See Dahl (1971) for specific institutional guarantees that provide these opportunities to citizens.

  12. 12.

    While inclusiveness in Dahl’s model refers to the extent of citizens’ participation, inclusiveness in this chapter refers to the inclusiveness of the political system in terms of political representation.

  13. 13.

    See Gidwitz et al. (2010) for a detailed overview of the construction of the HDI. Note that the primary dependent and control variables, as well as the methodology, are discussed here and thus not repeated in subsequent chapters.

  14. 14.

    Note that the baseline models are fixed effects models, which assess whether a change in political representation within a country brings about a change in human well-being outcomes within the same country. Subsequent models do not use a fixed effects estimation technique, which enables us to analyze the effect of political representation on human well-being between countries. The findings indicate that political representation plays a more important role in explaining variations in education across countries than within countries.

  15. 15.

    This model does not include GDP per capita as a control because the HDI index includes GDP as a component of human development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Service, Political Science, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA

    Nisha Bellinger

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Bellinger, N. (2018). Political Representation. In: Governing Human Well-Being. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65391-4_2

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