Explaining motivation to represent: how does descriptive representation lead to substantive representation of racial and ethnic minorities?

Sobolewska, Maria; McKee, Rebecca; Campbell, Rosie

doi:10.1080/01402382.2018.1455408

Cited by 49 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…These include the British Eurosceptic press (Menon and Salter, 2016) as well as the official 'Vote Leave' campaign which messaging focused largely on concerns over immigration and the need to 'take back control' of the United Kingdom's borders (Gamble, 2018;Shaw et al, 2017 in Britain. Data from these candidate studies have been used to study the representation of minorities (Sobolewska et al, 2018), electoral learning (Norris and Lovenduski, 2004), candidate positioning (Buttice and Milazzo, 2011), MPs' ethical attitudes (Allen, 2008) and so on, as they capture both candidates' personal and political profiles. 8.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 7 The 2017 British Representation Study is part of a long series of surveys of general election candidates in Britain. Data from these candidate studies have been used to study the representation of minorities (Sobolewska et al, 2018), electoral learning (Norris and Lovenduski, 2004), candidate positioning (Buttice and Milazzo, 2011), MPs’ ethical attitudes (Allen, 2008) and so on, as they capture both candidates’ personal and political profiles. …”

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confidence: 99%

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The 2016 EU Referendum: Explaining Support for Brexit Among Would-Be British MPs

2020

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The outcome of the 2016 referendum on European Union membership took many by surprise and has continued to define the political discourse in Britain. Despite there being a growing body of research focused on explaining how voters cast their ballot, we still know little about what motivated our politicians to do the same. In this article, we draw on individual-level survey data from the British Representation Study to explore support for Brexit among parliamentary candidates who stood at the 2017 general election. We find that candidates’ political views on immigration and democracy were key determinants of their decision to vote Leave. In addition, more optimistic views of how Brexit was expected to impact British economy and democracy are associated with greater likelihood of voting Leave. These findings highlight that, while politicians were less likely than voters to support Brexit overall, their motivations for doing so were quite similar. Interestingly, however, we also find that candidates contesting constituencies with higher Leave support were no more likely to vote for Brexit themselves. Taken together, these findings have important implications for elite representation of voters’ policy preferences on the issue of Brexit.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

The 2016 EU Referendum: Explaining Support for Brexit Among Would-Be British MPs

2020

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“…The Substantive Representation Hypothesis does not entail direct disadvantages for ethnic minority candidates. In practice, however, opposition to substantive representation would likely disadvantage such candidates, as empirically they are more likely to seek to represent minority constituents' substantive interests (Sobolewska et al 2018). For example, ethnic minority MPs are more likely to ask official Parliamentary Questions about minority rights and about immigration (Saalfeld and Bischof 2013).…”

Section: Substantive Representation and Conditional Ethnic Penaltiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biases at the Ballot Box: How Multiple Forms of Voter Discrimination Impede the Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups

Martin

Blinder

2020

Polit Behav

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Research shows that ethnic minority candidates often face an electoral penalty at the ballot box. In this study, we argue that this penalty depends on both candidate and voter characteristics, and that pro-minority policy positions incur a greater penalty than a candidate's ethnic background itself. Using a conjoint experiment embedded in a panel study of British voters, we investigate the relative contributions of candidate ethnicity, policy positions, affirmative action, and voter attitudes to this electoral penalty. We find that although Pakistani (Muslim) candidates are penalized directly for their ethnicity, black Caribbean candidates receive on average the same levels of support as white British ones. However, black Caribbean candidates suffer conditional discrimination where they are penalized if they express support for prominority policies, and all candidates are penalized for having been selected through an affirmative action initiative. We also find that some white British voters are more inclined to support a black Caribbean candidate than a white British one, all else being equal. These voters (one quarter of our sample) have cosmopolitan views on immigration, and a strong commitment to anti-prejudice norms. However, despite efforts across parties to increase the ethnic diversity of candidates for office, many voters' preferences continue to pose barriers toward descriptive and substantive representation of ethnic minority groups.

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“…From this point of view, therefore, descriptive representation can crucially support the principles of democracy, allowing decisions that are inclusive to a wider set of popular voices. Consequently, there is a potential link between descriptive and substantive representation (Arnesen & Peters, 2018;Sobolewska, McKee, & Campbell, 2018).…”

Section: Parties As Agents Of Representation: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many studies have focussed on the role of descriptive representation in relation to ethnic and cultural minorities or gender equality (see for eg. Lovenduski & Norris, 2003;Mügge, van der Pas, & van de Wardt, 2019;Sobolewska et al, 2018), while this issue is less investigated with reference to the role of new anti-establishment parties emerged in various European democracies after the Great Recession. Yet, as pointed out by Serrano and Bermúdez (2018, p. 27), the social identification between representatives and representatives should be even more powerful in the case of new and anti-establishment parties, precisely because they declare themselves different with regards to recruitment and selection of their ruling classes.…”

Section: Parties As Agents Of Representation: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘We are Different': do Anti-establishment Parties Promote Distinctive Elites? An Analysis of the Spanish Case

Tarditi

Vittori

2020

Representation

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Since the Great Recession, new parties challenged the pre-eminence of mainstream parties in many European democracies. In this paper we wonder to what extent this challenge translates in the representative politics. This paper aims to evaluate whether a) in terms of descriptive representation, the new challenger parties renewed the composition of the Parliaments; b) new challenger parties belonging to different ideological families elect different élites. The analysis focuses on two new successful antiestablishment parties: Podemos and Ciudadanos. Podemos belongs to the radical left family while Ciudadanos is a centre-right liberal party. We have built a dataset of the representatives of these two parties and the two other mainstream parties (PP and PSOE) in the Congress (2016), in the Autonomous Communities (2015) and in the Party in Central Office. Our findings suggest that Podemos and C's elites are younger and better educated compared to mainstream parties. Yet, we found that beyond their common anti-establishment background, different core ideologies matter when it comes to other aspects of the descriptive representation: in terms of education and working background, Podemos and C's élites are more similar to their ideologically closer parties, rather than among each other, thus highlighting the irrelevance of the shared anti-establishment rhetoric.

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Explaining motivation to represent: how does descriptive representation lead to substantive representation of racial and ethnic minorities?

Abstract: Explaining motivation to represent: how does descriptive representation lead to substantive representation of racial and ethnic minorities? West European Politics.

Cited by 49 publications

References 36 publications

The 2016 EU Referendum: Explaining Support for Brexit Among Would-Be British MPs

The 2016 EU Referendum: Explaining Support for Brexit Among Would-Be British MPs

Biases at the Ballot Box: How Multiple Forms of Voter Discrimination Impede the Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups

‘We are Different': do Anti-establishment Parties Promote Distinctive Elites? An Analysis of the Spanish Case

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