Do citizens care for interest representation? A vignette-based study on citizens’ perceived importance of representation through interest organisations

Interest organisations are often seen as important complements to representative democracy, amplifying citizens’ voices and enhancing the legitimacy of political decision-making. Yet, existing scholarship predominantly evaluates interest organisations’ representative function through internal organisational structures or assessing bias in interest group systems, overlooking how citizens themselves perceive representation. This paper addresses this gap by examining the extent to which citizens, particularly disadvantaged citizens, find interest representation important and exploring how citizens evaluate different dimensions of representation. We argue that representation through interest organisations should be understood as relational, subjective and multidimensional. Drawing upon 40 vignette-based interviews conducted in the Netherlands, this study employs four dimensions of political representation: substantive, descriptive, symbolic, and justification and connects this to the context of interest representation to investigate how these dimensions matter to citizens.