Bringing Representatives Back In. How Political Parties Moderate Patterns of Inequality in Representation

Research on inequality in representation has taken great strides in identifying groups of citizens whose voices carry less weight than others among political elites. As such, they have successfully advanced the idea that differences between voters need to be taken into account when trying to understand patterns of representation and policy outcomes. At the same time, however, many studies in this area fail to incorporate differences when it comes to political elites. All too often, MPs, parties, and governments are treated monolithically, and inequality in representation is examined without taking into account elite characteristics. I argue that this approach is overly simplistic, and that patterns of representational inequality are dependent on the ideological leanings of political parties. Specifically, I expect leftwing parties to be generally more likely to share the policy views of underprivileged voters than rightwing parties are. At the same time, rightwing populist parties, which combine leftwing positions on economic matters with rightwing stances of gal/tan issues, are hypothesizes to have the most congruent views with lower educated and lower income voters. To test these expectations, the paper relies on data from the 2014 and 2019 Belgian election studies, which have gathered data on the policy positions of voters and parties on a large number of issues.