Constituent Demand and District‐Focused Legislative Representation

• Author: Mathias Wessel Tromborg,Leslie A. Schwindt‐Bayer
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12217
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• Date: 01 February 2019

35

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 44, 1, February 2019

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12217

MATHIAS WESSEL TROMBORG

Aarhus University

LESLIE A. SCHWINDT-BAYER

Rice University

Constituent Demand and District-

Focused Legislative Representation

Legislative responsiveness to constituent demands is integral to the con-

cept of representation. Yet, research on district-focused legislative behavior and

priorities, such as allocating resources to districts, has largely ignored constituent

demand as an explanatory variable. In this article, we propose a demand-based

theory of district-targeted legislative resource allocation. The theoretical model

suggests that district demand for legislative resources is determined by the dis-

trict’s relative deprivation of such resources and that legislators have an electoral

incentive to respond to district demand due to the credit-claiming opportunities

associated with doing so. These possibilities are tested with region-wide mass and

elite survey data from Latin America, and the results suggest that constituent

demand is not only a normatively but also an empirically important predictor of

district-focused legislative behavior.

Representative democracy is rooted in the relationship be-

tween constituents and their elected officials. According to per-

haps the most common vision of representative democ racy, those

elected are supposed to be responsiveto the concerns and prefer-

ences of constituents (Eulau and Karps 1977; Fenno 1978; Glazer

and Robbins 1985; Lax and Phillips 2009; McDonald and Budge

2005; Miller and Stokes 1963; Page and Shapiro 1983; Pitkin 1969;

Powell 2000; Wahlke 1971). A prominent line of research in this

area has focused on what motivates elected representatives to

focus attention on their districts and, more specifically, prioritize

and engage in the provision of public good s and resources to their

districts. Yet, most of this work has examined the ways in which

electoral and other pol itical institutions shape legislators’ d istrict-

focused behavior (Carey 2009; Carey and Shugart 1995; Chang

and Golden 2007; Crisp et al. 2004; Heitshusen, Young, and Wood

2005; Ingall and Crisp 2001; Morgenstern 2004; Stratmann and

Baur 2002) rather than considering the influence of constituent

preferences on legislators’ priorities and actions.

© 2018 Washington University in St. Louis

36 Mathias Wessel Tromborg and LeslieA. Schwindt-Bayer

We argue that if representation is rooted in representatives

being responsive to their constituents, then constituent demand

for district-focused legislative representation may be a critically

important, but often overlooked, explanation for that represen-

tation.1 Existing research has often implicitly assumed that de-

mand for district-focused leg islative behavior is constant, in other

words, that all constituents i n all electoral districts have the same

level of demand for district-focused representation. Yet, that is

unlikely to be t he case. Demand for different types of representa-

tion is likely to vary ac ross districts and have different imp acts on

representative behavior. Therefore, in this article, we bring con-

stituents to the forefront and articu late a demand-based theory of

district-focused legislative representation.

Our theory focuses specifically on one type of district-focused

representation—the allocation of legislative resources (money,

goods, and/or services) to districts.2 We begin with the obser vation

that individuals live in districts with varying levels of resources.

Some districts h ave lower levels of public and private re sources than

others, which can c reate feelings of relative deprivation among citi-

zens in those d istricts. This, in tur n, spurs citizens to demand more

public resource s from their elected represe ntatives to improve their

conditions. Legislators and parties recognize the credit-claiming

and vote-getting opportu nities that are generated by voter demand s

in their constituencies and thus have incentives to prioritize being

responsive to the needs of their districts through locally targeted

public goods and resourc es. As a result, district representatives are

more likely to prioritize district-targeted resource allocation when

their constituents are relatively deprived of such resources.

We test this theory with a region-wide analysis in Latin

America, using data from the Latinobarómetro mass survey and

the Parliamentar y Elites of Latin America ( PELA) elite survey. We

find empirical support for all parts of the theory. First, we find

that rural citizens are more dissatisfied with their local services

and more likely to contact their elected leg islators about the prob-

lems in their communities than urban citizens. Then, focusing on

a subset of data where we can aggregate to the district level, we

show that this occurs at the district level as well. We then provide

evidence that legislators who represent more rural districts are

more likely to prioritize the provision of public resources to their

districts, and we show with a two-stage least-squares model that

the likely mechanism linking district urbanization and this leg-

islative behavior is voter demand. Overall, these findings suggest