Nature and outcome of representation: political parties and party voters

The present PhD project, which constitutes of a summary paper and three peer-reviewed papers, sheds light on whether and how the nature of representation affects the outcome representation. The nature of representation is classified as the extent to which the partisan, the trustee of the delegate styles are emphasised within parties, which are about how to represent. The outcome of representation relates to how it manifests, and is classified as a objective outcome in terms of policy-congruence between parties and party-voters, and as a subjective outcome in terms of party voters' evaluations of democratic performance. It is also undertaken in this project to examine what factors contribute to the variety in the nature of representation. The main findings show that characteristics of parties and party voters are important factors explaining the variety in nature of representation emphasised within parties, and that this variety explains differences in both objective and subjective outcome of representation. There is a systematic difference in the extent to which the partisan, trustee or delegate styles are emphasised within parties, depending on characteristics of parties and party voters, such as in the more control the party leaderships have over nomination the higher is the proportion of partisans within parties. For the outcomes of representation, the main result highlighted here is that the higher the proportion of trustee styles within parties, the more policy-congruence there is between parties and their voters, and their voters evaluate the performance of democracy more positively when compared to voters of other parties