The Nature of Political Representation in Times of Dealignment
Image: Catherine Bebbington. CC-BY-ND 2.0 UK Parliament.This project was collaborative work with Prof. Dr Thomas Zittel and Dr Markus Baumann (Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main), Prof. Dr Rosie Campbell and Diane Bolet (King’s College London), and Marijn Nagtzaam (Leiden University). Wouter Schakel (currently at UvA) has also worked as a postdoc on this project. The project was financially supported by DFG, ESRC, and NWO under the Open Research Area (ORA).
This project was officially concluded in August 2022.
Weakening partisanship in West European electorates results in increasing disconnection between citizens and the state; raising pressing questions regarding future mechanisms of political representation that could sustain responsive government. To explore this serious challenge to democratic governance, this project investigates the viability, and conditions of, dyadic forms of representation in established European democracies. We particularly aim to study whether individual MPs pay attention to citizen-initiated inquiries in low information environments, what types of cues most often gain their attention, and how electoral contexts condition the interactions of citizens and MPs.
