Dormant Delegation: Evidence on the Conflicting Findings of Research on Legislative Representation

Abstract

Empirical studies of legislative representation often reach conflicting conclusions about the degree to which legislators reflect the voters' preferences. Given the importance of representation as a keystone of democracy, these results demand explanation. I argue that these conflicting results stem from scholars' failure to adequately account for the complexity of the representation process. Specifically, scholars generally account for neither the indirect influences on legislator behavior nor control for obvious rival hypotheses when evaluating the efficacy of the representation process. The results demonstrate that personal, party and constituent preferences all influence legislators' decisions either directly or indirectly.