Abstract
This chapter analyzes the way MPs conceive their representative role at parliaments and it is compared to citizens’ opinion and preferences about the representative political function. It applies the analytical model put forward by Rehfeld (2009, 2011), which distinguishes three dimensions—aims of legislation, source of judgments and responsiveness to sanctions—for empirically observing the normative antithesis between delegate and independent representation. This chapter confirms the existence among the Spanish MPs of four main modes of understanding the political representation: the “Burkean trustees”, the “bureaucrats”, the “volunteers” and the “Madisonian legislators”. The MP’s political party, rather than the parliament where she works, appears as the main determinant of the type of parliamentary representation. This finding is important in order to understand the discrepancy between MPs and the general public as regard the understanding of the representative link.
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Notes
- 1.
In particular the movement “Democracia Real Ya” (Real Democracy Now).
- 2.
This concept alludes fundamentally to the fact that democratic citizens are distanced from their institutions and mechanisms of political representation, with all this entails, in theory, for the legitimacy and stability of democracy (Mota 2006, pp. 231–232).
- 3.
Indeed, 54% of the sample of MPs stated that they represent citizens from their own autonomous community, an option not presented to citizens, and which also did not emerge in their spontaneous responses. Furthermore, although the percentage of MPs who express this opinion is higher among samples of regional MPs (62%) than in the Cortes Generales, Spain’s two parliamentary chambers (38%), in both cases this was the most frequently given response.
- 4.
Although the wording of the response categories is not identical, it is reasonable to assume that the reference is practically the same.
- 5.
The interviewees who chose the response that MPs represent specific groups in society were asked to specify which groups.
- 6.
See in this regard Chapter 13.
- 7.
From the perspective of studying legislative behaviour, the objectives of representation would correspond to the purposive role of MPs, in other words, with the “purposive or functional conception of the ultimate objective of their activities” (Wahlke et al. 1962, pp. 11–12).
- 8.
This second type of decision corresponds to the representational role of the MP, understood as a set of rules that deal with the method or process of making decisions that the individual deems to be appropriate in order to pursue substantive objectives (Wahlke et al. 1962, pp. 11–12).
- 9.
This 2% must be considered in the category of “politico” representatives as opposed to the alternative of “delegate” and “trustee”.
- 10.
The full results can be found in Mota (2016, pp. 157–158).
- 11.
The statistical correlation between the variables on the ideological scale (with values ranging from 1 to 10, where 1 represents the extreme left and 10 the extreme right) and the representative’s source of judgement (with the following values: 1 dependent; 2 both; 3 independent) yields a weak Spearman’s Rho coefficient (−0, 180), but nonetheless statistically significant with a confidence level of 99%.
- 12.
The problem of a typology that only distinguishes between sanctions from the party and those of the electorate is that it does not reveal complete independence from either type of sanction. However, experience in Spain’s democracy seems to indicate that when an MP makes decisions based on their responsibility to the electorate rather than party discipline , this circumstance concludes either in the formation of a new political force or in the shifting of the MP’s party affiliation.
- 13.
To cite just one example, the conflict between self-governing regions with regard to hydrographical authority has on a fair number of occasions given such a dilemma to MPs from within the same political group.
- 14.
The full results can be found in Mota (2016, pp. 160–161).
- 15.
One relatively recent example can be found in Catalonia’s Parliament (see for example, the newspaper El País, 16 January 2014), in which three PSC MPs voted against their party’s proposal to reject the request made of Congress regarding regional competency to hold a referendum on independence.
- 16.
A more complete and detailed analysis of this variable is presented in Chap. 7.
- 17.
For example, party loyalty is an important issue in the recruitment of PNV candidates in relation with other peripheral parties. In this regard, see Chapter 14.
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Mota, F. (2018). Parliamentary Political Representation. In: Coller, X., Jaime-Castillo, A., Mota, F. (eds) Political Power in Spain. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63826-3_8
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