Making Sense of Citizens’ Sense of Being Represented. A Novel Conceptualisation and Measure of Feeling Represented

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although many studies point to the decaying relationship between citizens and their representatives, a proper conceptualisation and empirical measure of citizens’ feeling of being represented is still missing from the literature. This study, first, offers a multidimensional conceptualisation of feeling represented, focused on feelings of being substantively represented. Specifically, a distinction is made between the representative behaviour that people might perceive (whether representatives listen, know, act or succeed) and between the representative actors performing this behaviour or not (some or most representatives). Second, a measure that takes into account these different aspects of feeling represented is developed and tested on two samples of Belgian citizens. Confirmatory factor analysis and correlations with citizens’ vote intention and other indicators of political discontent demonstrate the validity of the novel measure. Also, the results point to the added value of the measure: not only may the different aspects of feeling represented be measured independently, they also lead to more nuanced insights into the current ‘crisis of representation’ than the currently available measures do.