Representational Style Across National and Constituency Contexts: Members of Parliament in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241257856
• Author: Kelly Blidook,Royce Koop
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 1046–1059

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129241257856

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Representational Style Across National and

Constituency Contexts: Members of

Parliament in Australia, Canada, New

Zealand and the United Kingdom

Kelly Blidook

1

and Royce Koop

2

Abstract

In this study, we ask how and why do Members of Parliament adopt different representational styles? Looking at MPs in four

Westminster-style democracies, we identify differences between MPs and inductively explore inf‌luenc es on repre-

sentational styles by f‌irst using participant observation to gain deep insights into the activities of a small sample of MPs and

then by using semi-structured interviews from a larger sample to elucidate f‌indings from the observations across states.

Our primary focus is the method of connection between representative and citizen, as fostered by the representative while

present in the constituency. Despite similar institutional and electoral contexts across countries, we f‌ind a signif‌icant

variation that is inf‌luenced by both country-level and constituency-level factors. Findings suggest a continuum from highly

service-oriented to highly symbolic-oriented styles, where MPs from the UK illustrate the former, and MPs from Canada

illustrate the latter, though with further variation at the constituency level that is based, in part, upon both geography and

demographics.

Keywords

representation, constituencies, Member of Parliament, representational styles, connections

Introduction

Representation as practiced by Members of Parliament

(MPs) is increasingly recognized by scholars as both

varied and multidimensional (e.g., Wolkenstein and

Wratil 2021), with MPs’“representational styles”—de-

f‌ined simply as the patterns of representational activities

MPs engage in—differing in myriad ways. This raises two

questions: how do MPs differ in the representational styles

they construct and why do they differ in these respects?

Scholars have previously addressed how MPs (and

other representatives) adapt their representational styles to

the characteristics of their geographic constituencies as

well as the perceived needs and preferences of their

constituents (e.g., Mayhew 1974). The result of these

individual decisions by MPs is dyadic representation, and

this is true even in Westminster systems where political

parties are strong (e.g., Blidook 2012;Hanretty,

Lauderdale, and Vivyan, 2017;Soroka, Penner, and

Blidook, 2009). But studies of such constituency ef-

fects often suffer from three shortcomings. First, they

typically focus on representatives from a single state,

potentially introducing bias as any national-level inf‌lu-

ences on representational style cannot be effectively ac-

counted for.

1

Second, these studies are typically deductive

in nature, with most employing surveys as a single data

source to explore the factors that shape representational

styles. This precludes the theory-generating or explana-

tory power of inductive and multi-method approaches.

Third, such studies tend to focus on responsiveness as the

primary measure of democratic quality (Disch 2012;Sabl

2015), eschewing the range of activities that link

1

Department of Political Science, Memorial University, St John’s, NL,

Canada

2

Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB,

Canada

Corresponding Author:

Kelly Blidook, Department of Political Science, Memorial University,

Prince Philip Drive, St John’s, NL A1B 3X8, Canada.

Email: kblidook@mun.ca