Conceptions of democracy and styles of representation among legislators in the United States and Germany

Abstract

Who do elected representatives represent? They are often expected to represent the whole society as well as their party and their constituency, but how do they decide where interests and preferences conflict? There is a wide amount of research on styles of representation among representatives, distinguishing between trustees, party delegates and voter delegates, but most studies focus on system, party and career variables as determinants while individual normative convictions towards democracy are rarely included. Like citizens, representatives can have different understandings of democracy that can be expected to affect their behaviour as democratic actors. Thus, this paper explores how conceptions of democracy – focusing on liberal elitist and populist majoritarian attitudes – affect representatives’ styles of representation. The analyses are based on novel data from a survey of legislators in Germany and the United States. Indeed, the results show that the conceptions of democracy play a key role in both cases. While liberal elitist conceptions are associated with the trustee style, populist majoritarian conceptions are associated with the voter delegate style.