Parliaments have recently invested considerably on the role of public engagement. Faced with declining levels of trust, parliaments have invested time and resources to new activities focusing specifically on engagement: educational resources, cultural events or training sessions for citizens are only a few of those examples. This embodies a new role for parliament, besides legislation, scrutiny and representation. Most parliamentary public engagement aims to demonstrate to citizens the symbolic importance of parliament, following a rationale that if people can relate to it, they will trust it. This paper explores whether this new area of activity embodies forms of “symbolic” representation, where identity and meaning prevail, rather than the representation of interests. Based on empirical evidence from parliaments, we explore whether this new role changes the way we perceive parliamentary representation, reinforcing its symbolic elements to the detriment of the accountability understanding of representation; but also whether it is more inclusive.
