From Styleto Direction: Political Representation in Congress and Regional Parliaments

Abstract

This research note aims to present the directionof the relationship between representatives and the represented as a new means of conceptualizing political representation. Traditional empirical models for the analysis of representation used the category of style, which is incompatible with the most recent contributions, both of Political Theory and empirical research that describe political representation as a bidirectional process. In the first part of this note, criticisms to the style category and the advantages of its replacement by directionare presented. In the second part, the CONREP-2012 database is used to analyze Spanish parliamentarians? preferences regarding the directionof representation to highlight the appropriateness of this new conceptualization.