Geographic Representation in Party‐Dominated Legislatures: A Quantitative Text Analysis of Parliamentary Questions in the German Bundestag

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12238
• Author: Thomas Zittel,Dominic Nyhuis,Markus Baumann
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Date: 01 November 2019

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 44, 4, November 2019

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12238

THOMAS ZITTEL

Goethe -University Frankfurt

DOMI NIC N YHUIS

Leibniz University Hannover

MARKUS BAUMANN

Heidel berg University

Geographic Representation in

Party-Dominated Legislatures:

A Quantitative Text Analysis of

Parliamentary Questions in the

German Bundestag 

Political representation in European democracies is widely considered

partisan and collectivist. This article, however, stresses that there is more to the

representative process in European democracies than just its textbook version. It

emphasizes the role of geographic representation as a complementary strategy in

party-dominated legislatures that is characterized by two distinct features. First,

legislators employ distinct opportunities to participate in legislative contexts

to signal attention to geographic constituents without disrupting party unity.

Second, these activities are motivated by individual- and district-level character-

istics that supplement electoral-system-level sources of geographic representa-

tion. We empirically test and corroborate this argument for the German case on

the basis of a content analysis of parliamentary questions in the 17th German

Bundestag (2009–13). In this analysis, we show that higher levels of localness

among legislators and higher levels of electoral volatility in districts result in in-

creased geographic representation.

Two Models of Representation

How legislators define the ir constituents shape s both the

input and the output side of politics (Bish in 2000, 2009; Rehfeld

2005). Their represe ntational foci affect opportunities for politi-

cal partic ipation since they prescribe what k inds of demands gain

© 2019 Washington University in St. L ouis

682 Thomas Zittel, Dominic Nyhuis, and Markus Baumann

access to p olitics and to whom voters pay attention (e.g., Däubler,

Bräuninger, and Brun ner 2016). Legislators’ representational foci

also inf luence the nature of the issues that shape the pro cess of

authoritative decisionma king, speci fically the extent to which

these involve local or, rather, national concerns (e.g., Ferejohn

1974).

Theories of politi cal representation distingu ish between two

ideal typical models that differ with regard to legislators’ foci of

representation and th at are considered antithetic al to each other

(Curtice and Shively 2009; Esa iasson and Holmberg 1996; Powell

2004; Uslaner and Zittel 2006). The first model of part isan rep-

resentation portr ays legislators as members of tea ms that col-

lectively represe nt socially cohesive national c oalitions of voters.

The second model of dyadi c representation depict s legislators as

individual agents a ccountable to local and thus geographically

defined c onstituencies. Even though these models are framed i n

abstract ways, they result from sp ecific i nstitutional contexts.

Whereas Western European legislators are con sidered to join

teams (pa rties) and to collectively repr esent the policies and ide-

ological convictions of th ese teams, U.S.-American leg islators

are viewed as repre senting geographic d istricts in i ndividualiz ed

ways.

This arti cle advances from recent observations in the elec-

toral studies literature that theoretica lly challenge the as sumed

predominanc e of collectivist forms of repres entation in European

contexts. This obse rvation concerns t he proliferation of candi-

date-ce ntered electoral rules in European democracies and re -

sulting incentive s to cultivate personal votes (Carey and Shugar t

1995; Colomer 2011; Karvonen 2010; Renwick and Pilet 2015). It

provides reasons to ask about the b ehavioral implications of th is

in otherwis e party-centered contexts and how par ties and legisla-

tors reconcile the confl icting incentives t hat flow from it. This is

the question this ar ticle is concer ned with addressing.

We address the resear ch question raised by arg uing that

geographic repre sentation matters in Wester n European parlia-

ments as a supplement to par tisan representation in twofold ways.

First, we envision legislators to d evelop the motivation to cater to

local constituents contingent upon individual- a nd district-level

factors, supplementing the role of electoral-system-level sources.

Particularly, we envision legislators’ localness and the p artisan

nature of local voter markets to matt er most. This suggest s to

perceive geograph ic representation either a s a last resort for