5 - Representativeness

Summary

In Chapter 5, we explore the role of scale in structuring representativeness, defined as the faithfulness with which politicians represent the interests, values, and characteristics of citizens. We start by sketching how scale affects representativeness. Building on principal–agent theory, we argue that scale decreases the capacities of principals (citizens) to hold agents (politicians) accountable, as it attenuates the selection of politicians, the expectations of constituents, their capacity to punish, and the payoffs for politicians who pursue a “representative” strategy. Since trust takes its cues from the degree of representativeness, we expect political trust to also be lower in a large community. We explore evidence for these relationships with respect to (a) demographic representativeness, (b) programmatic representativeness, (c) direct constituency connections, and (d) political trust. On the basis of evidence drawn from different datasets as well as qualitative material from small states, we find a negative relationship between scale and these indicators, with the caveat that the link between scale and programmatic representativeness is hard to study empirically.