Political representation and its descriptive conception

Abstract

Parliamentarians in Western liberal democracies barely resemble the people they represent through their characteristics. Political consequences such as distrust, a loss in legitimacy, exclusion of political minorities and over-representation of political elites pose problems to the existing political structure. By answering the research question ‘can a descriptive conception of representation be theoretically and practically unified with a substantive conception of representation within a democratic party system?’, this thesis tries to provide a solution to the abovementioned problems. The thesis provides arguments for the intrinsic and instrumental importance of descriptive representation for political representation, a conception that is argued to be pluralistic in nature. After applying this new, pluralistic conception to a democratic party model that features cartel parties, five suggestions for improved representation arise: to connect representatives more to civil society, to disconnect them more from the state, to use quotes, better recruitment efforts or lotteries to ensure that electoral candidates represent the populace descriptively. Thus, the thesis provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, theoretical and practical analysis of what it means to represent in contemporary democracies.