Rethinking the Comparative Perspective on Class and Representation: Evidence from Latin America

Abstract

Does it matter that working‐class citizens are numerically underrepresented in political offices throughout the world? For decades, the conventional wisdom in comparative politics has been that it does not, that lawmakers from different classes think and behave roughly the same in office. In this article, we argue that this conclusion is misguided. Past research relied on inappropriate measures of officeholders’ class backgrounds, attitudes, and choices. Using data on 18 Latin American legislatures, we show that lawmakers from different classes bring different economic attitudes to the legislative process. Using data on one least likely case, we also show that pre‐voting decisions like sponsoring legislation often differ dramatically along social class lines, even when political parties control higher‐visibility decisions like roll‐call votes. The unequal numerical or descriptive representation of social classes in the world's legislatures has important consequences for the substantive representation of different class interests.

Race, Resources, and Representation: Evidence from Brazilian Politicians

“…16 Following best practice from previous research, we included various measures of race to account for the complexities of racial classification in Brazil. 17 These measures include (1) the five census (IBGE) categories used in Figure 1; (2) a 0-1 variable for African descent; and (3) a 0-1 variable for Black (Preto) or White (Branco).…”

Does it Matter that Most Representatives are Higher Educated?

“…But what about socio‐economic variables? Recent research on the class background of representatives in the United States and Latin America (Carnes ; Carnes and Lupu ) has shown that legislative behavior of working class representatives differs markedly from that of representatives from white collar professions. Class anchors attitudes towards social spending both for representatives and the represented in the sense that people from working class backgrounds are more in favor of redistributive measures.…”

Democratization and the depoliticization of the banking sector: Are all banks affected equally?

“…Democratization is seen as a salve; if it successfully ushers in institutional changes that equalize the right to allocate political and economic resources (Carnes and Lupu 2015;Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2010;Freeman and Quinn 2012;Haggard and Kaufman 2012;Hollyer, Rosendorff, and Vreeland 2011;Limongi and Przeworski 1993;O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead 1986), then it should be the case that political influence and rent-seeking in economically important sectors should dissipate. As the banking sectors of authoritarian regimes are typically controlled by politicians or their cronies (Chekir and Diwan 2014;Haggard and MacIntyre 2001;Morck, Yavuz, and Yeung 2011), the transition to democratization should thus correspond with a loosening of the grip on financial resources by the elite (Dryzek 2009).…”