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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political representation'
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Loudes, C. M. H. "Increasing women's political representation : law into politics." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.273116.
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Childs, Sarah. "Women's political representation in contemporary British politics." Thesis, Kingston University, 2000. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/20645/.
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The 1997 British general election saw the return of 120 women Members of Parliament. The central question of this thesis is whether this unprecedented number of women MPs makes a difference to the political representation of women. The research is applied political theory, in which conceptual analysis is informed by and informs the empirical research. Pitkin's seminal contribution The Concept of Representation and Phillips' The Politics of Presence are both considered. In particular, Phillips' 'shot in the dark thesis', which makes a link between women's numerical representation and the substantive representation of women by women representatives, is subjected to empirical analysis. The data are drawn from interviews with half of the Labour women MPs elected for the first time in the 1997 election. The introduction in Chapter 1 includes discussions of the research objectives and the research design and methods. Chapter 2 explores women's legislative recruitment within the Labour Party, focusing upon its policy of all-women shortlists. Chapters 3 and 4 examine Pitkin's and Phillips' ideas respectively. The next three chapters (Chapters 5, 6 and 7) utilise the empirical data to analyse in tum symbolic, microcosmic and substantive conceptions of representation. The last of these chapters centres upon the question of whether women representatives seek and are able to act for women at constituency, parliamentary and governmental levels. The analysis broadly supports Phillips' thesis. However, the intersection of party and gender identities is emphasised to a greater extent. It is also argued that women MPs may not have, at least as yet, secured the 'safe spaces' from which to act for women. These conclusions suggest both that the complexity of the concept of representation must be recognised and that combining conceptual and empirical analysis engenders a more sophisticated understanding of women's political representation.
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Ueda, Michiko. "Essays on political representation." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35543.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2006.Includes bibliographical references.
The central goal of this dissertation is to contribute to our understanding of the link between political representation and policy outcomes. In particular, this collection of essays examines how the institutional arrangements and formal processes that precede and initiate political representation either promote or hinder the representation of various interests in society and thus determine whose interests shape public policies. The first chapter studies the relationship between descriptive representation of traditionally underrepresented minority groups and substantive representation of their interests. Examining the impact of increased African American representation from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, the chapter demonstrates that legislative representation of historically marginalized groups can lead to tangible changes in public policies. The second chapter attempts to understand why legislative representation of minority groups in American society remains low, even to this day. This chapter disentangles the impact of candidates' race on voting decisions from that of candidates' ideology, by focusing on the case of the representation of African Americans.
(cont.) Using extensive individual-level voting data as well as a unique data set on candidates' ideological positions, the chapter shows that minority candidates' race negatively influences voting decisions of white voters only when partisan and ideological cues are absent. The third chapter analyzes the impact of electoral institutions on political representation and policy outcomes. It provides empirical evidence that political units receive larger intergovernmental transfers, when represented by at-large delegations than when represented by delegations elected from single-member districts.
by Michiko Ueda.
Ph.D.
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CINTOLESI, Andrea. "Essays in political economy." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/65524.
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Defence date: 9 December 2019Examining Board: Prof. Andrea Mattozzi, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Andrea Ichino, European University Institute (Co-supervisor); Prof. James M. Snyder, Jr., Harvard University; Prof. Tommaso Nannicini, Università Bocconi
In the first chapter, I study whether the introduction of primary elections induces more or less political polarization. Before 1976, only representatives from Indiana had to pass through the primaries, whereas the reform introduced primaries for Indiana’s US senators too. Using a difference-in-differences, I show that primaries deliver less-polarized politicians and account for one-fifth of the pre-reform average ideological gap between parties. I interpret the results in the light of a conceptual framework in which primaries lower the cost of participating in candidate selection procedures, giving incentives to participate to moderate voters as well. The second chapter is coauthored with D. Iorio and A. Mattozzi. We use a newly collected dataset from 63 democracies, and we construct the tenure accumulated by the ruling party while in office. We merge these data with fiscal policy indicators. We find an expenditure elasticity of 0.061 and a deficit elasticity of 0.055 over the period 1972-2014. Our findings point into the direction of a honeymoon effect: the older is the coalition of parties, the more divisive tend to be the available policy choices, which require costly transfers in the form of public expenditure to keep coalition members together later on. In the third chapter, I exploit newly collected data on ties between local politicians in Italy from 1985 onwards, to study the relation between cross-party connections and future career prospects. Exploiting a difference-in-discontinuities design, I find that ruling coalition members connected with the runner-up are twice as likely to be promoted to the council in which the runner-up leads the opposition. The effect of connections with the leader of the rivals disappears when I consider appointments to boards of state-owned enterprises. These findings suggest that connected politicians act as political brokers and smooth the relationship between government and opposition.
1. Political Polarisation and Primary Elections 2. Good Old Spendthrift. The Fiscal Effects of Political Tenure 3. 'Keep Friends Close, But Enemies Closer': Connections and Political Careers
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Nazerian, Lua. "Rethinking representative democracy : Representation beyond contestation & partisan politics." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Internationella relationer, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-38583.
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The current forms of representative democracy have come to face various fundamental challenges such as: decrease in political participation, distrust in partisan politics and politicians and perhaps increase of ideological polarization. To take solace in the belief that the current democratic tools are far from perfect yet the finest in modern societies, has not contributed to solution-oriented modifications of its efficacy. In this thesis Lua Nazerian intends to address the inadequacies and inherent limitations in the current form of representative democracy, by analyzing its underlying assumptions through a critical examination of the fundamental challenges in Classical pluralism, Agonist and Deliberative democratic theory. Furthermore, it proposes some modifications drawn from the Socratic idea of the non-pursuit of power, the bottom-up political approach and the learnings from the worldwide Baha’i community. The study is carried out within the field of international relations with a normative approach as well as it incorporates a case study of the Baha’i electoral and decision-making principle. Nevertheless, by using the Socratic idea together with the Baha’i principles in a bottom-up approach shifts then the paradigm from the inherent competitive culture of representative democracy to a more inclusive solution-oriented culture of learning.
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FARIA, ALESSANDRA MAIA TERRA DE. "THE SOCIAL AND THE POLITICAL: THEORIES OF POLITICAL REPRESENTATION." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2008. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=12444@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
O presente estudo abordará as teorias da representação política como expostas por Bernard Manin, Nadia Urbinati e Pierre Rosanvallon, sob a perspectiva de que a relação entre democracia e representação política é marcada por uma tensão inerente, como retomada por Bernard Manin. A retórica que acompanha a escalada do sufrágio universal como solução da tensão entre representação política e democracia faz com que a forma de entendimento da institucionalidade representativa esteja cercada de superstições quanto à eficácia e pujança de seus métodos. Interpelar a representação política enquanto um processo mediador destas tensões entre a esfera social e política é um movimento que aproximaria os três autores estudados. A questão é que para os dois primeiros, o processo de representação seria pré-estabelecido e, portanto, fechado e não permeável às mudanças, onde o mundo da política é claramente delimitado. Enquanto que para o terceiro, por uma postura diferenciada no que concerne à relação entre o social e o político, parece haver uma perspectiva singular de processo em aberto a ser considerada, traduzida em uma concepção de política expandida e contraditória, ou seja, do social e do político em intersecção.
The research herein deals with the theories of political representation as they are exposed by Bernard Manin, Pierre Rosanvallon and Nadia Urbina ti, considering the perspective of a tense existing relationship between democracy and political representation, as it was recovered by Bernard Manin. There is a rhetoric that follows the universal suffrage adoption in which it is seen as a solution to the tense relationship among political representation and democracy, what has led general understanding of representative institutionality to be surrounded by superstitions regarding its mechanisms effectiveness and responsiveness. It is possible to approximate the three studied theorists if political representation is inquired as a process that mediates these tensions between political and social spheres. The question is that for both former authors, the political representation process is pre-established and, thus, closed and not permeable to changes, where the world of politics is clearly delimitated. While to the later, a different attitude towards the relationship between the social and the political seems to assure a singular perspective of open process to be considered, traduced in an expansive and contradictory conception of politics, in others words, of social and political intersection.
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Lee, K. H. "Political legitimacy, representation, and confucian Virtue." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2014. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1429891/.
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This thesis first examines the compatibility of political development and Confucian traditional thought in East Asia, and South Korea in particular, and then suggests an alternative methodology for the study of political theory in regards to culture. In order to accomplish these goals, this research focuses on three concepts: legitimacy, representation, and Confucian virtue. This research proposes political legitimacy as the most fundamental basis in the study of the relationship between political development and culture. Legitimacy is essential in every government and cannot be borrowed externally. Rather, it must be established through the practices and customs of the people and thus, involves culture. From this view, Confucian traditional thought should be considered the foundation of political development in Confucian East Asia. In most cases in modern politics, representation is the only legitimate form of democratic governments. While in principle, representation seems to conflict with democracy, in the sense that not all people participate in the decision-making procedure and representatives are required to have some level of competence, in modern representative democracy, it has been accepted as reasonable by the people. This is possible through an epistemic understanding of democracy whereby democracy is regarded as a system in which people pursue better decisions. Although the concepts of representation and democracy conflict, and the linking of the two in representative democracy shows the double-sided characteristics of representation, this double-sidedness emerges from the conceptual nature of representation in politics—the representation of the people’s interest and will. While representation of will seems to be the intrinsic element in the democratic principle of equality, the epistemic understanding of modern representative democracy implies that the representation of the people’s interest is also important. Based on this view of representative democracy, this thesis argues that Confucian representative theory, that only good people make good representatives, is not in conflict with modern representative democracy. It is often alleged that Confucian virtues do not coincide with the virtues required for modern democracy, even though representative democracy also demands competence in its representatives. However, Confucian virtue is based on the theory of conditional government founded on the Mandate of Heaven. This idea of limited government requires rulers to hear and to respect the people because Heaven only speaks and hears through the people. Therefore, the concepts that are regarded as essential in representative democracy - responsibility, responsiveness, and cooperation - are also important elements in Confucian representative theory, both in principle and practice. The coherence of virtue, one of the characteristics of Confucianism, is not unique to Confucian East Asia. The concept that integrated virtue is necessary in a good representative can also be found in western tradition. Some western theorists have been interested in this topic in regards to whether the good representative in reference to virtue is relevant in modern democracy. For this reason, there seems to be no reason to deny the Confucian view of the virtue of a representative in regards to the coherence of virtue. Although this thesis mainly discusses democratic legitimacy and Confucian virtue, one of the most important implications of this research is the existing methodology used in the comparative research of political theory. This thesis suggests the concept of legitimacy as the foundation of comparative political theory study. Second, this research argues that in comparative political theory research, it is necessary to focus on practice as the accumulation of the people’s behaviours in belief-systems, rather than formal institutions. Third, this thesis proposes that there is a need to find and use more neutral concepts for comparative study, such as representation, which is common in both modern western democracy and Confucian traditional thought. In such neutral categories, an interactive understanding is conceivable in any political system. First, this thesis argues that comparative research of political theory, particularly of different cultures, should start from an understanding of the nature of political legitimacy. This suggests that there should be relative conceptions in political theory and that they should be distinguished from others. For example, while the framework of legitimacy as a belief-system may be common to every government, the contents of the belief-systems are varied, insofar as the way of life is different in different societies. In the same way, though democracy is the only legitimate system of politics, there are varied forms of electoral systems, party systems, and government systems. Second, this thesis suggests that if politics are to be understood in the relationship between legitimacy and culture at a radical level, the practice and custom of the people in each belief-system must also be examined, since legitimacy cannot directly or automatically be established through institutions, nor can it be borrowed from institutions. Although institutions can be established by cultural aliens, a procedure of legitimation created through the practices of the people themselves is necessary. Without practice, the institution cannot be a foundation of political legitimacy. If we focus on institutional aspects, especially those based on the standards of modern values, the comparison may become an unfair one since modern values must be conceptualized in the West first. For this reason, it is necessary to examine the contextual understanding of practice and custom within the belief-system. Third, existing research on different systems of political thought frequently seem to compare different theories on the basis of certain values and ideologies, such as democracy, liberal democracy, or human rights. Based on these standards, theories were compared by statistical indexes in empirical studies, or by institutional or conceptual differences in normative research. Some theorists have tried to clarify whether there is a common idea of equality, liberty, or rights. Some have been interested in institutional similarity and differences. However, since much of the concepts are conceptualized in the context of the modern West, such research easily succumbs to misunderstanding or misjudging non-western theories. Even though we must also be conscious of the prejudice of non-western concepts or ideas, the continued use of western originated standards can lead to unfair comparisons. For this reason, neutral concepts are useful for fair comparison. Along this vein, this thesis offers the concept of representation, a necessary element for legitimate government in both the West and Confucian East. In this case, the main task is to examine the ways in which each tradition is compatible with modern standards of political legitimacy, such as democracy.
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Mor, Shany Moshe. "Law's author, things personated, political representation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:142e4065-de3c-47ff-a940-f85215fad920.
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This dissertation proposes a normative theory of political representation grounded in popular sovereignty and positive law, rather than in democracy and efficient labour allocation. The first three chapters assess the contributions to the idea of representation of three early modern thinkers. Hobbes proposes a formal model of authorised action at a distance, but, contrary to a long-standing consensus in political thought, not an actual theory of representation. Rousseau, a well-known opponent of representation, proposes ideas about government, sovereignty, and positive law, which, despite his contrary intentions, form a foundation for a normative theory of representation. Sieyes refines concepts from both to create a more mature practical statement on representation which he attempts to implement in three revolutionary constitutions in France in the 1790's. The next three chapters make an argument connecting representation to law creation. First the concept of a decision is defined, and then abstracted through various levels of political authority and action. Law creation is distinguished from all other classes of authorised political decision making by four unique properties which tie in with problems initially raised by the early modern philosophers regarding popular sovereignty. Various numbers of authorised actors are considered as constituting political bodies credentialed to carry out the relevant decisions identified as meeting the minimal conditions of law, and ultimately only assembly — a body numbering in the hundreds, with a reserved place for making recognised decisions, and a formal connection to expressed popular preferences — meets the conceptual requirements of the class of decisions mooted. The thesis ends with an argument connecting law to representation as the solution to the problem of plurality.
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Lee, Thomas. "Tracing Hobbesian Sovereignty in Political Representation." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16777.
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This thesis examines how contemporary political thought has deployed the concept of political representation. I argue that the leading contemporary accounts of Hanna Pitkin, Michael Saward and Nadia Urbinati overlook the constitutive relationship between political representation and political sovereignty. This relationship is rooted in their founding inheritance from Thomas Hobbes’ accounts of political representation and political sovereignty. The silence of these accounts about their Hobbesian inheritance means that the contemporary grasp of the concept of political representation is more tenuous than admitted. Without dealing with the question of Hobbesian sovereignty, contemporary political thought on political representation comes to be a silent carrier of its elements and vulnerable to exploitation by its defenders and proponents. The resolution of this inheritance and its accompanying tensions has significant consequences for how politics is to be conceived and understood today.
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Forjwuor, Bernard A. "Between democractic promises and socio-political realities the challenges of political representation in Ghana and Nigeria /." Ohio : Ohio University, 2009. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1244222282.
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Wallace, Desmond D. "The diffusion of representation." Diss., University of Iowa, 2019. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/7041.
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An important feature of a democratic society is the notion that the actions and decisions of elected representatives reflect their constituents’ preferences. Existing research shows multiple ways an elected official “represents” the opinions of the public. For example, some elected officials represent their constituents’ preferences absent their personal beliefs and opinions, while other representatives choose to make decisions based on their beliefs absent the views of their constituents. Despite the proliferation in political representation research, one area that has received little attention from scholars is whether the actions of elected officials and their constituents have an influence on how representative elected officials in other jurisdictions are of their constituents. The failure to capture the non-independent features of representation leads to scholars not understanding fully the opinion-policy relationship between politicians and the public.
The goal of this project is to examine the role elected leaders’ actions, individually and collectively, have regarding the relationship elected leaders in other jurisdictions have with their constituents. Using advanced methodological approaches, I investigate whether elected officials’ actions in one jurisdiction influence the representation relationship between contemporary elected officials and their constituents in other jurisdictions and whether this influence is positive or negative. For this project, I focus exclusively on the policy-related actions of elected officials and the policy preferences of constituents. The advanced methodological techniques I use allow me to model the actions of an individual politician, or an entire government, as dependent on the actions of their neighbors. I find that accounting for the interdependence among representatives is crucial for understanding political representation.
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Lore, Grace Alexandra. "Women’s descriptive and substantive political representation : the role of political institutions." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/58671.
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This dissertation explores how political institutions shape the behaviour of women in politics. It asks whether the relationship between the gender of representatives (descriptive representation) and the representation of women’s interests (substantive representation) depends on the institutional context. Using prominent institutional perspectives a theory is offered for how the division or fusion of powers and electoral systems affect substantive representation in both individual behaviour and policy outcomes. When party ties are weakened and internal party competition increased, women do more to substantively represent women, while men focus on other unincorporated interests. Institutions affect policy outcomes, not only by affecting individual behaviour but also by determining how those actions are aggregated. The theory is tested using a mixed methodological approach. Two datasets capture individual behaviour - an international survey of representatives and an original dataset examining representative’s tweets. The results demonstrate that the gap between substantive representation by women and that by men is larger under the conditions of a division of powers and when electoral systems incentives the representation of unincorporated interests. Interviews and surveys with more than 90 legislators from 7 countries provide evidence of the causal mechanisms. The aggregate effect of the number of women on gendered policy outcomes is tested using data combined from a range of sources. The findings results are equivocal: institutions that facilitate individual action can also make policy change more difficult. In short, institutions moderate the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation at the individual level and, to a lesser extent, at the aggregate level. This ‘institutionalist turn’ improves understanding of how, when, and why women act to represent women. The ‘gender turn’ in the study of institutions demonstrates the flexibility of the theories and the broad and consequential impact of institutions. There are implications that extend beyond gender to include other issues and identities not incorporated into the party system, such as ethnicity.Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate
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Larsson, Falasca Kajsa. "Political representation in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa." Thesis, Mid Sweden University, Department of Social Sciences, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-296.
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This is a Minor Field Study (MFS) which is a scholarship financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). It was conducted in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa in 2007/2008. The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the political representative in the system of political representation and it will test the different theories of political representation based on interests or identity. This study is concerned with the function of the political representatives as they are the link between the system of representation and the electorate. Since the election system is designed for political representation based on interest and the voting in South Africa suggests voting based on identity/race the representatives must balance these different signals.
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Wilson, Yolonda Yvette Boxill Bernard R. "Representation and the interests of political minorities." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,2147.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008.Title from electronic title page (viewed Feb. 17, 2009). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy." Discipline: Philosophy; Department/School: Philosophy.
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Bailey, Delia Ruth Grigg Katz Jonathan N. "Essays on causal inference and political representation /." Diss., Pasadena, Calif. : California Institute of Technology, 2007. http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-05242007-154102.
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Mc, Neill Rebecka. "Nästa generation utan representation : En fallstudie av ungas representation i Sundsvalls Kommun." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-36790.
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IntroductionRepresentation in politics has been a major debate in political science with various groups being underrepresented in the decision-making assembles, one of these groups has been the youth which is strongly underrepresented. This essay aims to examine youth representation at a municipal level. Few studies have conducted about youth representation but there is widespread study about representation. The already elected politicians are in many ways key factor in order for the youth to even be able get their representation since they possess the power to let them inside the political room. It will be this gap inside political science that is going to be investigated in this essay. MethodThis essay methodology is qualitative case study of Sundsvall municipality's politicians approach to youth representation. Four politicians with different backgrounds and party belong have been interviewed and afterwards have a thematic analysis been conducted from their answers. With made it possible to find patterns and connections that are related to research within representation and youth. ResultsThe essay concluded that youth representation is much based on the parties and their structured way how to influence society and henceforth complexed to be represented in any other way. Everything that the politicians acts on is what the political parties want with mean the can never express their own agenda and feel like they represent the party voters and ideology more than Sundsvall city. The parties hold a lot of power because aside the mandate in the municipal council they appoint all the positions in various committees and municipal companies that the votes never choose between. Which means that the youth relies on parties including them to grant them these positions. The biggest issue with this is that studies have shown that youth are going away from becoming member of political parties which here becomes issue with young representation with this essay concur. Based on the Hanna Fenichel Pitkin approach to representation the politicians express that they think substantive representation are most important then descriptive representation but with deeper analysis shows more than both are combined rather than separate. The few elected youth can in many ways through symbolic representation developed becoming a symbol for youth represented as a group. The essay found that young politicians argued that they do not consider descriptive as most important but that they themselves had received votes because there are youths and experienced duty to manage youth opinion, which here may drew the conclusion about when a group are underrepresented the descriptive representation became more important and puts more pressure on those who is to belong to their group to represent that particular group. Youth representation in Sundsvall was able to examine by the LUPP resulted there the youth express that I high and much high level want to influence the municipality policy, but few believe that they can actually do it. The politics said that this is an issue but note that they want to know if this only applies to youth or everybody. All politician was, to some extent self-critical and meant that they themselves needed to get better at including youth and not having them on the sideline.2019-06-04
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Dubrow, Joshua Kjerulf. "Enhancing descriptive representation in a new democracy a political market approach /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1155050854.
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Karlsson, Martin. "Covering distance : essays on representation and political communication." Doctoral thesis, Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-32019.
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Political representatives’ democratic legitimacy rests on their ability to cover the distance between themselves and citizens. Representatives must avoid being perceived as distant and aloof from the needs and wishes of those they represent. The aim of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how new forms of communication with citizens, through participatory initiatives as well as political blogging, are used by politicians in their roles as representatives. Underlying this aim is the question of whether new forms of communication can contribute to reducing the distance between representatives and citizens. The central argument of this thesis is that such types of communication aid representative democracy only to the extent that they offer representatives efficient channels for performing functions related to political representation. This study presents a theoretical framework that identifies potential functions of communication between representatives and citizens for political representation. Its empirical analyses, presented in five articles, find that representatives widely communicate with citizens through participatory initiatives and political blogging to aid their roles as political representatives. Furthermore, results show that representatives’ communication is significantly determined by strategic, practical, and normative factors. The representatives are found to act strategically as communication practices are adapted to accommodate their particular situations, needs and normative orientations. Keywords:
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Blidook, Kelly. "Dyadic representation and legislative behaviour." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=18725.
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This project seeks to answer two questions related to representative behaviour by MPs in Canada: 1.) What drives the legislative participation of individual representatives? and 2.) Are the actions of individual parliamentarians representative of those who elect them? Despite relatively strong institutional constraints – executive dominance and party discipline – upon individual parliamentary behaviour, there appears to be, based primarily upon Canada's Single Member Plurality electoral system, an electoral incentive for individual representatives to gain personal recognition over and above depending upon their party's profile. This incentive should accordingly increase participation and representative behaviour in policy venues that are conducive to individual representative behaviour. Here, the policy venue of focus is Private Members' Business (PMB). It should especially be true for those MPs experiencing electoral pressure that their participation in PMB reflects the “electoral connection” (Mayhew 1974) between these MPs and their constituencies. MPs' looking to bolster their electoral prospects should tend to take advantage of PMB for both advertising and position-taking opportunities. “Dyadic representation” – that is, MPs acting on behalf of their constituencies' interests – should be the result. Using statistical analyses of legislative, electoral, MP and constituency data, as well as qualitative analyses of face-to-face interviews with MPs, strong evidence is provided that suggests MPs substantively represent constituency interests through PMB, though this varies by MP and by the action taken. The analyses suggest that MPs with greater electoral pressure are more likely to engage in the more symbolic PMB avenue of motions, rather than the more time-consuming and policy-focused avenue of bills. These results indicate rather convincingly that dyadic representation does occur, and much of it appears to be the result of an electoral cCe projet vise à répondre à deux questions se rapportant au comportement des élus de la Chambre des Communes à Ottawa. Tout d'abord, quels sont les facteurs qui influencent le travail législatif des élus ? Ensuite, est-ce que ce travail vise spécifiquement une représentation fidèle des électeurs de leurs circonscriptions ? Les parlementaires canadiens doivent négocier avec de fortes contraintes institutionnelles (domination de l'exécutif, discipline de parti) affectant leur champ d'action. Pourtant, certains facteurs, dont notamment le système électoral uninominal à un tour, offrent des incitatifs aux élus pour chercher des gains électoraux dans leurs comtés en allant au-delà de l'intérêt du parti. Conséquemment, ces incitatifs devraient pousser les parlementaires à augmenter leur participation et à se positionner stratégiquement sur des enjeux de politiques publiques qui leur semblent saillants. Ici, l'outil législatif privilégié est le projet de loi privé (PLP). Le parlementaire en situation d'incertitude électorale sera particulièrement porté à utiliser cette avenue que ce soit comme outil publicitaire ou encore comme moyen de prendre position sur des enjeux importants pour ses électeurs. C'est ce que David Mayhew (1974) a appelé la « connection électorale » entre élu et électeurs. Deux sources de données sont mises à profit. D'abord, de données couvrant l'activité législative, les élections ainsi que les caractéristiques des parlementaires et des circonscriptions fédérales sont utilisées dans le cadre d'une analyse statistique. Ensuite, des entrevues individuelles auprès de parlementaires complètent le portrait. L'analyse suggère que les parlementaires fédéraux expriment de façon importante les intérêts et préférences de leurs électeurs en utilisant les PLP. Il y a par contre une certaine variance entre députés dans leurs façons d'intervenir au Parlement. L'analyse suggère également que la p
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Figueras, Irma Clots. "Female political representation and economic development in India." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2006. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2692/.
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The first substantive chapter of this thesis studies the impact of a politician's gender on the educational achievements of a representative sample of Indian citizens aged 13-39 in 1999/2000. For this purpose I collected a unique and detailed dataset on politicians in India who contested in elections during 1967-2001 and I matched them to individuals by district of residence. These data allows me to identify close elections between women and men, which yield quasi-experimental election outcomes used to estimate the causal effect of a politician's gender. I find that increasing female political representation by 10 percentage points increases the probability that an individual attains primary education in urban areas by 6 percentage points, which is 21% of the difference in primary education attainment between the richest and the poorest Indian states. This framework is then applied in the second substantive chapter to analyze whether politicians in India favour individuals who share their same identity more than the rest in policy making. I do this by matching the politician's identity to the identity of the beneficiaries of educational policies. I focus on the two groups that have lower educational achievements in India: women and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. I use reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) and variation on female political representation in order to determine the politicians' identity. Results show that caste reservations only have a positive effect on the education received by SC/ST individuals when the proportion of SC/ST population in the district is high. Female politicians increase girls' education in urban areas. In addition when defining identity as gender and caste, results show that SC/ST female politicians increase women's and SC/ST's education while general female politicians increase women's and general individuals' education. Given that development policies are taken by the state governments, in the third substantive chapter I use panel data from the 16 main states in India during the period 1967-1999 to study the effects of having higher female representation in the State Legislatures on public goods provided, laws enacted and expenditure. I find that both the politicians' gender and caste matter for policy. Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe female legislators favour investments in primary education, and in beds in hospitals and dispensaries. They favour "women-friendly" laws, such as amendments to the Hindu Succession Act, proposed to give women the same inheritance rights as men and propoor redistributive policies such as land reforms. In contrast, general female legislators do not have any impact on "women-friendly" laws, oppose land reforms, invest in higher tiers of education and reduce social expenditure.
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Stallings, Bethany Ann. "Discourse of Defection: Political Representation of North Koreans." OpenSIUC, 2013. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1186.
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This paper uses theoretical frameworks from Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze articles from a South Korean English-print newspaper (the Korea Times), one humanitarian group's website (Liberty in North Korea), and an article in The Economist as examples of the two major discursive styles of representation(s) of North Korea and its people. In mapping the two major representations of North Korea and its people: 1) as "defectors" and 2) as "refugees," I examine the discursive themes employed in each of the three texts. I conclude by describing some of the implications of a discourse of defection and suggest that for future interactions with North Korea to be mutually fruitful, major English media sources must re-examine the terminology used and how it charges North Koreans with a political incentive that belies the underlying reasons for their displacement. Alternative representations and conceptions of North Korea should look to its people in order to see how they are representing themselves. In addition, international diplomacy and news media should learn about the history of relations between North and South Korea since the end of the Korean War in order to develop a culturally contextual representation of North Korea.
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Conti, Erika. "Political rights and representation for women in Egypt." Thesis, IMT Alti Studi Lucca, 2008. http://e-theses.imtlucca.it/63/1/Conti_phdthesis.pdf.
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Since their independence, Arab countries have experienced several periods of political openness based firstly on the establishing and then the strengthening of democratic institutions: universal suffrage, elections, representative assemblies, the system of checks and balance to foster rule of law. By the Nineties, a wave of potentially deepreaching
political changes seemed to be underway in the Arab region
in general and the North Africa in particular In Egypt, Mubarak launched a new period of political liberalisation with even more vigour with the starting of the XXI century. The first multi-party presidential elections held after the approval of a constitutional amendment was the most optimistic sign of this shifting period. Probably triggered by international organization, Mubarak continued seeking for a public support of its political reform. The government officially claims higher participation of all citizens and promises concrete actions in favour of under-represented groups, such as women. A deeper analysis reveals
some discrepancies between government’s rhetorical discourse and actions. Restriction on political rights and freedom with the maintenance of the emergency law questioned seriously the reversal trend toward authoritarianism. Is the real government’s engagement towards the rule of law? Is it effectively involved in the construction of a more inclusive system where all fragments of the society are represented? The present research is intended to provide some answers by a twofold structure: some general tools for analysis and, afterwards, the case-study focused on the exercise of women’s political rights.
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Shahdadi, Arian 1980. "Barnyard politics : a decision rationale representation for the analysis of simple political situations." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/18031.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 101).
How can a computational system understand decisions in the domain of politics? In order to build computational systems that understand decisions in the abstract political space, we must first understand human decision-making and how human beings, in turn, are able to understand ideas in abstract realms such as politics. The work of Jintae Lee attempted to address the problem of understanding decision rationales in a non-domain specific way. His work falls short, however, when applied to decision problems in politics. I present a new representation, the Augmented Decision Rationale Language (ADRL) that attempts to address the shortcomings of Lee's work in this regard. ADRL expands Lee's vocabulary of relations to include forms of causation such as enablement and gating. ADRL also refines the relations and primitives of Lee's representation and focuses primarily on States, Actions and Goals as the basic units of decisions. Finally, ADRL grounds itself in spatial understanding using the Lexical Conceptual Semantics of Jackendoff, in contrast to the DRL, which ignores the text associated with a decision rationale. An implementation of a subset of this representation is displayed, along with a matcher that is able to create analogies between two decision scenarios cast in the representation. The matcher is presented an existence proof that this representation can be used to readily structure decision scenarios and make analogies between them.
by Arian Shahdadi.
M.Eng.
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Prosser, Christopher. "Rethinking representation and European integration." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1f596c7e-bfb9-43ff-b3e8-2de716f234ec.
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In representative democracy the chain of political legitimacy runs from voters to governments through votes cast at elections. In order for representation to occur, political parties must offer distinct policy platforms that citizens consider in their vote choices. This thesis examines whether citizens are adequately represented within the European Union. It finds that although representation on left-right issues occurs, it does not occur for European integration preferences. Over the course its history, European integration has changed from being primarily an economic issue to a social issue. This separation from the primary axis of political competition has increased the need for representation on EU issues directly. Political parties have polarised over European integration providing increased choice, but voters have not engaged with the issue. Examining how voters process party signals about policy positions shows that very few are affected by signals on the EU. Accounting for voters' cognitive biases suggests that the influence of EU issues in European Parliament elections has been overestimated and is non-existent in most member-states. As direct democracy might offer an alternative to inadequate representation this thesis examines why referendums have been held on the EU but finds that they are largely driven by governments' desire to contain the threat of EU issues at national elections, further undermining representation. However, as a result of institutional differences between national and European Parliament elections rather than the emergence of the EU as an electoral issue, the size of party systems at European Parliament elections has grown considerably over successive elections in many member-states, a change that has fed into national party systems. Although representation on EU issues is inadequate, the expansion of European party systems and the redrawing of the lines of political competition offers some hope that representation on EU issues might improve in the future.
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Skyttberg, Sara. "Kvinnlig representation i regeringar : En kvantitativ studie om koalitionsregeringars påverkan på kvinnlig representation iOECD-länders regeringar." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-43157.
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Political representation is important for gender equality. Women are underrepresented at alll evels of power around the world. Much of the previous research has been studying female representation in parliament, this essay will therefore focus on female representation in governments. The purpose of the study is to test the theory about coalition governments increasing female representation in governments in a contemporary OECD countries context. By including control variables in the analysis the study also aims to create a broader knowledge of how the factors affect the relationship between coalition government and women in governments and how it affects female representation in governments in general. The results indicated that coalition governments do not create a higher proportion of women in the current governments. Electoral system, the government's left-wing positions, the proportion of women in parliament and the total number of ministers can explain almost fifty percent of the variance of women in governments. Electoral systems and the proportion of women in parliament are the most important factors for female representation in governments.2021-06-04
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Vidal, Correa Maria Fernanda. "Women's representation in Mexican state politics." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.632853.
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Hong, Jae Woo. "What can institutions do? : comparative analyses of the effects of political institutions on governance, democratic support and ethnic conflict /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2004. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p3144423.
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Loose, Krista (Krista M. ). "Three papers on congressional communication and representation." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107538.
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Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2016.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 125-134).
This project evaluates how elected officials communicate with their constituents and whether voters can tell if their interests are being represented. Specifically, I examine whether political communication strategies may inadvertently lead to suboptimal representation. In my first paper, I evaluate whether members of Congress use criticism of Congress as a means to connect with their constituents, using approximately 10,000 campaign advertisements aired throughout the 2000s. In both this observational evidence and through an original experimental study, I show that when members criticize Congress, this message has little impact on attitudes toward Congress in general or the member in particular. However, survey respondents view a member who criticizes Congress as more "like them," potentially introducing a distracting valence issue into elections. In my second paper, I find clear evidence that legislative behavior does not change as a consequence of the rise or fall of military presence in a district. However, members' communication with their constituents does change. Members who gain bases are more likely to emphasize military issues in their emails than they were prior to the redistricting, while those who lose bases reduce their mentions of military-related subjects. While members are not lying about their work in Congress, they are nonetheless painting a misleading picture of the scope of their efforts on behalf of district interests. In my third paper, I show that, despite incentives not to mention other politicians, members of Congress do talk about their peers in DC in about 30 percent of their political communications. I claim this is a means of ideological signalling, where members cite others who share their ideological space. Additionally, I demonstrate through a series of survey experiments that the public makes reasoned judgments about the ideology of a member who talks about another politician. Members thus have the opportunity to shape how constituents view their representative through references to other politicians. In these three papers, I show that members can use sometimes subtle techniques to influence their relationship with the district.
by Krista Loose.
Talking about congress: the limited effect of congressional advertising on congressional approval -- representing their former district: do members do it and do they admit it? -- Politicians as positions: citing others as a cue to ideology.
Ph. D.
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Söderberg, Elida. "Färgblind representation? : En undersökning av vilken betydelse en deskriptivt jämställd etnisk representation har för den lokala integrationspolitiken." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-42612.
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Xydias, Christina V. "Women Representing Women?: Pathways to Substantive Representation." The Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269445382.
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Thomas, Timothy LLoyd Carleton University Dissertation Political Science. "The Montreal Citizen's Movement; new forms of political representation and municipal politics 1974-1990." Ottawa, 1994.
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Laughren, Pat. "Picturing Politics: Some Issues in the Documentary Representation of Australian Political and Social History." Thesis, Griffith University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366409.
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This submission groups together four 'TV Hour' documentaries - Red Ted and the Great depression 1994, The Legend of Fred Paterson 1996, The Fair Go: Winning the 1967 Referendum 1999, and Stories from the Split: the Struggle for the Souls of Australian Workers 2005 - researched, developed and produced between1990 and 2005. Each of the submitted documentary films treats an event or individual that made a decisive and lasting contribution to Australian political and social history in the course of the 20th Century. The projects also had the good fortune to win support from institutions such as the Australian Film Commission, the Australian Research Council, the Film Finance Corporation, the Australian Foundation for Culture and the Humanities and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The selected films may be viewed as representing a sustained exploration of the relations between documentary modes and production practices, the uses of oral history, the institution of television, and certain understandings of Australian Politics. Taken together, the works exemplify some significant issues in the documentary representation of Australia political and social history. All the films take their content from the field of Australian political and social history; all work within the limits of the 'Television Hour' - from 51 to 60 minutes for public broadcasters; and all emply a mix of interview and archival materials in their construction. Crucially, the films emphasise the experience, opinions and testimaony of participants and witnesses rather than experts. Each film also employs elements of an approach to compilation filmmaking which can be traced to the montage strategy pioneered by the Soviet filmmaker Esther Shub; celebrated by Jay Leyda in his groundbreaking study 'Films Beget Films' (1964).Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy by Publication (PhD)
Griffith Film School
Arts, Education and Law
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Hindman, Hugh D. "Determinants of union representation election outcomes in Ohio's public sector." Connect to resource, 1989. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1267625561.
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Nuesser, Andrea. "Who leads? Who follows? Political representation and opinion formation." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/62078.
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To understand political representation and opinion formation, we need to comprehend the dynamics between political parties and voters: Who leads? Who follows? The comparative representation literature assumes that voters lead and parties follow. Representation is understood as a principal-agent relationship in which citizens elect parties to act on their behalf. Most studies assume that voters have fixed issue opinions and regularly engage in policy voting. Conversely, the increasingly dominant view within the American public opinion literature is that parties lead and voters follow. Focussing on cognitive processes, these works suggest that the correspondence between policy preferences and party choice is not the product of policy-oriented evaluation, but of other psychological forces—mainly persuasion and projection—and conditional on partisanship. As almost all the evidence comes from the US, we know little about the impact of parties in multiparty systems, where voters are naturally pressed to think of governing coalitions. In the US, both processes have become more prevalent during the current era of polarization. To the extent that polarization animates the last twenty years of American scholarship, what is the story in Europe? A handful of single-country studies claim the opposite trend: depolarization. What is missing is systematic evidence from multiple countries and longer periods.
This dissertation bridges the gap between European and American scholarship and makes important contributions to the literature. First, it fills a Europe-wide gap on polarization and depolarization, suggesting that both movements occur and that both are functionally linked. While depolarization is the dominant trend on the general Left-Right dimension, polarization best describes party movement on European unification and multiculturalism. Second, the dissertation demonstrates that an increase in sophistication is required to deal with aggregate notions of leading and following. It shows that depolarization is an under-theorized concept that should not be mistaken for simply the opposite of polarization. Third, using advanced estimation techniques, this thesis provides realistic assessments of leading and following. The results suggest that leading is much less prevalent in Europe than commonly assumed. Instead, there is solid evidence that European voters follow, conditional on partisanship.Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate
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Ågren, Hanna. "Essays on political representation, electoral accountability and strategic interactions /." Uppsala : Department of Economics, Uppsala University, 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-6052.
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Karlsson, Martin, and Joachim Åström. "Social Media and Political Representation : (How) Are They Related?" Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-28877.
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Daremas, Georgios. "The concept of political representation from Hobbes to Marx." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2011. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/7598/.
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The object of this thesis is the examination of the concept of political representation in the corpus of Hobbes, Locke, Hegel and Marx. Through the method of textualreconstruction I foreground the concept's salience in their writings. Political representation constitutes a unitary political society as the basis of representative government by entrusting to a separate part of the political community the exercise of the legislative and executive functions on behalf of the political society. Hobbes's author-actor model grounded the concept of political representation by introducing the act of the transfer of will to a representative by authorisation. Thereby he established the problematic relationship of permanently alienated, absolute, representative power acting in the name of the political community. Locke conceptualised political representation in a way that restored to political society the power to determine the legitimacy of its representative government in case the latter transgressed the norm of acting for the public good of society. Hegel, in turn, assigned to political representation the crucial function of integrating civil society into the power system of the state thus securing the identity of subjective and objective freedom in the rational state, though political representation bestows only formal freedom to civil society's involvement in the affairs of the state. For Marx, the relationship of political representation makes the representative polity appear as a democratically governed political society within which individual freedom and the public good are secured. This is vitiated by the rift between political society/state and civil society. Marx censures liberal and republican theory for ignoring the primacy of civil/bourgeois society over the representative political society. As a consequence,he argues,the representative polity is not a form of self-government but other-determined and neither freedom nor the public good are realised. Instead, under the regime of private property, money assumes the authorial function of organising social exchange and human relations, shaping the representative polity after its own image, and thus it renders democracy as popular sovereignty a lie.
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Dageförde, Mirjam. "Evaluating representation from citizens’ perspective : concepts of congruence, context and Europeans’ representational judgments." Thesis, Paris, Institut d'études politiques, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017IEPP0042.
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Dans cette thèse, nous proposons d’évaluer la représentation politique en Europe, tout en insistant sur la nécessité de considérer le point de vue individuel du citoyen. Nous développons ainsi une perspective nouvelle et originale sur la congruence entre les citoyens et les partis politiques. De plus, nous analysons la manière dont le système partisan affecte cette congruence au niveau micro et macro et, par conséquent, la manière dont celle-ci influence la satisfaction des citoyens envers le système politique. Nous nous appuyons tout d’abord sur le concept de représentation chez Pitkin, ainsi que les théories récentes sur le rôle des représentants. Ce faisant, l’importance des partis politiques, en particulier dans le contexte européen, est rappelée. Nous abordons ensuite la recherche sur l’opinion publique et la façon dont cette dernière analyse la relation entre les citoyens et l’Etat. Dans un troisième temps, nous revenons sur les approches qui combinent la recherche sur les partis politiques et l’opinion publique, en nous concentrant en particulier sur le concept de congruence. Toutefois, ces recherches présentent des lacunes, auxquelles nous proposons de remédier en développant une nouvelle approche de la relation entre les citoyens et les partis politiques. A partir d’une compréhension normative différenciée de la qualité de la représentation, des nouvelles normes pour juger la représentation du point de vue des citoyens sont présentées et de nouveaux concepts de congruence au niveau micro sont développés. Ce faisant, nous élaborons une typologie innovante de la congruence entre les citoyens et les partis politiques, reposant sur neuf concepts différents, introduits à travers (1) l'identification des critères d'évaluation de la représentation et (2) la formulation des normes pour l'évaluation de la représentation. Ces normes sont alors concrétisées en des indicateurs empiriques. Nous commençons par décrire, dans une optique comparative, la congruence entre les États membres de l'UE pour l'année 2014. Nous explorons ensuite la relation entre le système partisan et la congruence au niveau micro et macro, mettant ainsi en lumière l’impact du système partisan sur la congruence en fonction des divers concepts utilisés. Au niveau micro, l’analyse montre que la relation entre un concept de la congruence et le système partisan est stable et ne diffère pas, quel que soit l’enjeu. Au niveau macro, en revanche, les effets ne sont pas systématiques, mais varient en fonction des enjeux. Ces résultats éclairent sous un nouveau jour la relation entre le système partisan et la représentation, et contribuent ainsi à sa meilleure compréhension. Enfin, les effets de la congruence sont analysés à l'aide de modèles multi-niveaux, de façon à démontrer comment la congruence influence les jugements des citoyens sur la représentation politique. Il est démontré qu’au niveau micro, cette influence est systématique ; toutefois, l’intensité de cet effet varie selon l’enjeu. De ce point de vue, les enjeux qui importent le plus sont l’intégration européenne, la redistribution et la politique fiscale. En conclusion, notre recherche enrichit le débat théorique sur les partis politiques ; nos résultats permettent une meilleure compréhension de la représentation et expliquent la présumée « crise de la représentation », ouvrant de nouvelles pistes de recherches pour le futurThe thesis aims at evaluating representation in Europe while emphasizing the need to consider the individual citizen’s perspective. It develops a new and original perspective on how congruence between citizens and parties affects systemic satisfaction. It draws on Pitkin’s theory on representation and the most recent theoretical advancements which focus mainly on representatives. The thesis highlights the important role of political parties, especially in the European context. After elaborating the “supply” side of the representational link (political parties), it demonstrates how the relation of citizens and the state is analyzed in public opinion research – the “demand”-side. In a next step, the dissertation refers to approaches which combine the supply and the demand-side of the representational link. In particular, it focuses on the concept of congruence. Building up on these lines in research, the thesis reveals gaps in existing research and develops an innovative insight into the representational link. Based on a differentiated normative understanding of “good” representation, the dissertation develops new standards for judging representation from citizens’ perspective. It develops new conceptualizations of congruence on the micro-level and suggests a typology of congruence between citizens and parliamentary parties, including micro- and macro-measures, resulting in nine different conceptualizations. The new concepts are introduced through (1) identifying the criteria for evaluating representation that every perspective suggests and (2) the formulation of the implicit standard for evaluating representation. These standards are transformed into empirical indicators. Based on this new, nuanced understanding of “good” representation, the dissertation explains how the characteristics of party-systems impact on different types of congruence. Further, the thesis contributes to the explanation of citizens’ political attitudes. It formulates nuanced assumptions about the relation between congruence and perceived responsiveness, yet highlighting the need to distinguish between an aggregate and an individual perspective on representation. The empirical analysis is based on an own original dataset which integrates EES-and CHES-data. First, the descriptive part of the empirical analysis compares congruence within the EU-member-states for the year 2014. We explore congruence on the micro- and on the macro-level with reference to multiple issue-dimensions that relate to societal cleavages or dimensions on which parties compete. The empirical analysis reveals a differentiated judgment about the functioning of representation in the EU- member-states, depending on the respective understanding of “good” representation. Second, we explain the relation of party-systems and congruence and provide greater insight into the relation of context and the quality of representation. The study refers – again – to multiple issue-dimensions and systematically compares the results of the dissertation with findings offered by the conventional macro-perspective on congruence. Third, the thesis tests how congruence influences citizens’ representational judgments via multi-level models. The analysis accounts for the nuanced conceptualization of congruence and is conducted for multiple issue-dimensions. The results provide new insights into the relevance of different standards for evaluating representation for citizen’s attitudes and accounts for differences between issue-dimensions. Concluding, the thesis illustrates how these results impact on our understanding of good representation, relates the findings to the presumed “crisis of representation” and highlights how this dissertation might inspire future research
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Coomaraswamy, Tara. "Parliamentary representation in Sri Lanka 1931-1986." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.292662.
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Belcastro, Julia. "Political Representation of Women in Argentina and Bolivia : A comparative case selection study on the effects of women´s movements on political representation." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-437700.
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Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie. "Legislative representation in Latin America: A comparative study of descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation of women." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/280324.
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Women and minorities have long been underrepresented in politics but, in recent years, pressure has mounted to diversify national legislatures. A prominent argument is that increasing the percentage of seats held by an underrepresented group will lead to greater representation of that group's interests and provide symbolic benefits for its members in society. I test this thesis with an empirical analysis of the interrelationships between descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation of women. In Part I, I examine the determinants of women's election to office (descriptive representation) with a cross-national sample of thirty-two countries. In Part II, I narrow the study to an in-depth analysis of substantive representation of women in Latin America defining substantive representation as responsiveness and focusing on four forms of responsiveness--policy, allocation, service, and symbolic. I argue that descriptive characteristics of legislators (such as gender), formal institutions, and socioeconomic environments shape the extent to which legislators respond to women and their interests. In this section, I draw on time-serial bill initiation and committee assignment data in Argentina, Colombia, and Costa Rica as well as responses to an original survey of legislators conducted during 2001-2002. In Part III, I return to a large, cross-regional sample of countries to explain variation in symbolic representation measured as the amount of confidence that women in society have in their national legislature. Further, I use structural equation modeling to estimate the direct and indirect relationships between formal, descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation. I conclude that the four forms of representation are interrelated. Proportional representation electoral rules help women win legislative office and, once in office, female legislators are more responsive to women's interests than male legislators. Women are more likely to initiate women's interest bills, sit on women's interest committees, conduct constituency service on behalf of women, and partake of symbolic actions that benefit female constituents. Further, women's descriptive representation engenders greater trust among women in society for their national legislatures. Formal rules that define the process of representation can make legislatures more diverse which in turn has significant implications for substantive and symbolic representation of underrepresented groups.
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Kedir, Abdu Abdurazak. "The need for the political representation of persons with disabilities in Ethiopia." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/18615.
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Modern parliaments are mostly compared to the top echelon of the society.The unfairness of the representation still holds true even where free, fair and periodic democratic elections are held. PWDs constitue the largest minority group accounting for 15.6% of the world's population. In Ethiopia approximately the same percentage of the population is disabled though nor fairly represented in the political system.Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2011.
http://www.chr.up.ac.za/
nf2012
Centre for Human Rights
LLM
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KRSULOVIC, CARLA DE CASTRO AMORIM M. "WITHOUT REPRESENTATION: CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION AND THE PROPOSALS OF THE THEORY OF RECOGNITION AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2018. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=36234@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTITUIÇÕES COMUNITÁRIAS DE ENSINO PARTICULARES
A ciência política tem destacado o debate acerca da percepção de contexto de crise das instituições representativas e questionamentos sobre a existência, ou não, de correlação entre a atuação dos representantes estatais e a vontade popular. Nas manifestações sociais, ocorridas em Junho de 2013 no Brasil, foi cunhada a expressão não me representa, como forma de sintetizar o distanciamento entre representantes e representados. Na presente dissertação, partimos da análise do sistema representativo e contrapomos os modos pelos quais a crise de representação tem sido abordada na teoria política e na filosofia política, por meio das propostas da participação democrática e da teoria do reconhecimento, intercaladas ao pensamento político nacional, para argumentar que a rejeição à representação política tradicional revela novas formas de ação política, como, por exemplo, por meio da participação em grupos chamados coletivos.
Political science has approached the debate about the perception of context of crisis of representative institutions and questions about the existence, or not, of a correlation between the performance of state representatives and the popular will. In the social protests, that took place in June 2013 in Brazil, the expression without representation was coined as a way of synthesizing the distance between representatives and represented citizens. In this dissertation, we analyse the representative system and contrast the ways in which the crisis of representation has been approached in political theory and political philosophy, through the proposals of democratic participation and theory of recognition, interspersed with national political thought, to argue that the rejection of traditional political representation reveals new forms of political action, such as through participation in so-called collective groups.
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Prato, Giuliana Beatrice. "Political representation and new forms of political action in Italy : the case of the Brindisi." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365862.
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Forjwuor, Bernard A. "Between Democratic Promises and Socio-Political Realities: The Challenges of Political Representation in Ghana and Nigeria." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1244222282.
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Wakeman, Raffaela Lisette. "Containing the opposition : selective representation in Jordan and Turkey." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53083.
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Thesis (S.M. and S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-173).
How does elite manipulation of election mechanisms affect the representation of political regime opponents? While the spread of elections has reached all the continents, the number of actual democracies has not increased at a comparable rate. If anything, observers have learned that the presence of elections in a country does not necessarily mean that it is also a democracy. This thesis addresses an underexplored topic in the study of electoral politics: the manipulation of election systems in order to achieve selective representation. I focus on the experience of opposition parties in two cases, Jordan and Turkey, an autocracy and a democracy, to analyze the impact of engineered election mechanisms on their representation. I contend that parties in power exploit the rules of the electoral game to contain their opposition. This is done by different mechanisms, depending on the makeup of the country and the options available to the manipulators. Mechanisms of electoral systems are used to reduce the representation of groups that are considered a threat, and to amplify the representation of those groups that the regime would like to strengthen. Analyzing the effect of malapportioned seats and the use of a single non-transferable voting system in Jordan on the Islamic Action Front Party (IAF), the main political rival to traditional tribal politicians, I expose the power of these targeted electoral mechanisms for control. Examining how the 10% national election threshold in Turkey affects representation of the Islamist political parties in the Grand National Assembly uncovers the distorting effect of this universal mechanism on representation.
(cont.) I analyze the election results for the 1993, 1997, and 2003 parliamentary elections in Jordan, measuring malapportionment and the variation in turnout. While the motivations for the Hashemite regime are to maintain stability and power in their country, I show that there are unintended consequences for this manipulation through an analysis of turnout and a policy study of honor crimes, the cause of the majority of Jordanian women's deaths every year. I examine Turkey's elections since 1961, calculating the difference between vote share and seat share, which uncovers an increase in the disparity between votes and seats since the installation of the election threshold. I conduct a counterfactual analysis, using a set of districts and reallocating the seats in each district using a 5% national election threshold instead of the current 10% threshold. Even by lowering the threshold this much, there is a much more equal representation of votes in the parliament. Electoral systems are engineered to suit the country in question. While the characteristics of states and election mechanisms used in each country are without a doubt different and specific to each case, the concept of representation is universal to all systems. In both Jordan and Turkey, the end goal of containing the opposition has not necessarily been reached: the Hashemite regime and its tribal loyalists don't see eye to eye on all issues, while in Turkey the AKP, a conservative Islamist political party, has overcome the obstacles to become the beneficiary of the threshold.
by Raffaela Lisette Wakeman.
S.M.and S.B.
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Blomqvist, Linnéa. "Gender Quotas in the Constitution : A method to achieve gender equality?" Thesis, Umeå universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-154135.
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Drawing on earlier research and theories regarding female political representation and its effects on gender equality, the attempt in this study is to investigate whether political gender quotas, legislated in the constitution, has a positive association and effect on gender equality in a society. A substantial number of studies supports the notion that quotas increase female representation in the political context. Yet, few studies examine gender quotas effect on women’s everyday life. The study investigates the variation in gender equality amongst new democracies where countries with gender quotas are compared to countries without. The overall findings appoint that political gender quotas demonstrate more far-reaching effects than to increase the number of women elected. Having a high female representation does affect women’s everyday life and a quota will increase gender equality in a society. This should be regarded as a solid argument in favour of an implementation of a gender quota. Additionally, the results from this study indicate that Anne Phillips theory the Politics of Presence, which points out the importance of having high female representation, does exert an effect.
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Adolino, Jessica R. "Representation and political integration : ethnic minority local councillors in Britain /." The Ohio State University, 1993. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487842372897165.
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Morricone, Corrado. "Education, democracy and representation in John Stuart Mill's political philosophy." Thesis, Durham University, 2016. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11683/.
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This thesis is concerned with John Stuart Mill’s democratic theory. In chapter I, I examine the relations between political philosophy and political theory and science before providing a detailed outline of the aims of the dissertation. In chapter II, I argue that in order to reconcile the concepts of progress and equality within a utilitarian theory, a Millian political system needs to devise institutions that promote general happiness, protect individual autonomy, safeguard society from mediocrity. Chapter III discusses what different authors have said about Mill and liberty, then explores James Mill’s theory of education and Coleridge’s influence on John Stuart Mill’s thought. I conclude by criticising Richard Arneson’s interpretation according to which the Considerations and On Liberty are inconsistent, and some of Gregory Claeys’ conclusions on Mill and paternalism. Chapter IV explores the methodology of the social sciences and the philosophy of history as found in Mill’s writings; then it considers Mill’s thought in regard to his father’s Radical proposals. I also discuss at some length the idea of the tyranny of the majority. Chapter V begins with a discussion of Hanna Pitkin’s theory of representation. I then provide a critical account of Richard Krouse and Nadia Urbinati’s interpretations of Mill. I conclude by arguing that, in a Millian democracy, the higher is the degree of complexity or the need for expertise in dealing with affairs, the greater is the bearing of the principle of competence in assessing whether a representative should act as a trustee or a delegate. I also introduce the idea of rational debate as a sort of ‘influence multiplier’, arguing that this would help to make a democracy rational and effective along Millian lines. In the last two chapters, I stress the relevance of Mill’s political philosophy as for some contemporary issues (nationalism, European federalism, current social and economic changes) while suggesting some potential further investigations, and summarise my conclusions.
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Thompson, Mark Colin. "Emerging socio-political representation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10036/3569.
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The aim of this study is to assess the extent to which the Saudi Arabia National Dialogue and activities of King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue (KACND) represent a viable attempt to address socio-political issues; whether the ongoing National Dialogue process accurately reflects the aspirations and concerns of contemporary Saudi society; what its impact on socio-political development may be; and how it relates to wider regime strategies and to the evolution of the Saudi polity. The thesis examines KACND’s institutions, practices and impacts, as well as Saudis’ perceptions of all these. It does so by embedding the analysis in a survey of the evolution of broader Saudi socio-political dynamics; drawing in particular on Gramsci, it asks whether the system is moving from a form of patrimonial state to one of ideological hegemony, and whether the KACND is a catalyst in this transition or may even be part of the apparatus that is driving this transition, including its indirect or unintended effects. To that end, the thesis examines the mutual relationship between KACND and the key Saudi social constituencies, with their attendant issues. In particular, it explores the extent to which the KACND’s activities directly and indirectly impact on internal cross-constituency communication and discourse in the Kingdom. The thesis explores the legitimisation of state-society dialogue in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the direct and indirect consequences of the National Dialogue process with reference to the role and activities of KACND. It examines the expanding activities of KACND, including the evolving range of issues discussed as part of the institution’s activities, and the scope of participants. It highlights the shift from ideology-based National Dialogue Meetings such as on national unity and women’s rights, to service-based National Dialogues such as on employment and health. It also examines the newly established Cultural Discourse and assesses the impact of this initiative as a space for ideological debate. The study is based on extensive fieldwork in Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2011, referencing information and official documentation not previously available, and drawing on findings from a wide range of focus groups, interviews, and participant observation with National Dialogue participants, KACND officials, government ministers, lawyers, journalists, scholars and members of minority constituencies