Have parties’ representative capacity – i.e. their ability to transfer voter interests and preferences to public office through the party organization – decreased significantly in the wake of party membership decline and increased state finance of parties in Europe? The question is much discussed in current party literature and we aim to contribute to the debate by means of a longitudinal study of Norway, a country where the decline of party members has been steep, the level of public party subventions is generous, and the party control of candidate (s)election is strong. Using times series of comparable survey data covering voters, members, delegates, and candidates/MPs, we are able to provide an original and empirically sound assessment of the actual development of parties’ representative capacity over time. In this paper, we concentrate on background representation, and firsts how that the social profile of party MPs as compared to voters – in terms of gender, age, education, occupation etc. – has significantly changed in recent decades. Second, we examine whether this, largely more ‘elitist’ development, can in fact be linked to similar changes in different party strata since the 1980s, as much general party literature would suggest. We test specific hypotheses generated from party and representation theory, trying to move beyond the traditional use of mainly mean-based quantitative analyses of representation, in general and party-by-party.
