Do politicians’ preferences correspond to those of the voters? An investigation of political representation

Hanna Ågren, Matz Dahlberg () and Eva Mörk ()

Public Choice, 2007, vol. 130, issue 1, 137-162

Abstract: This paper investigates political representation by exploring the relationship between citizens' preferences and the preferences of their elected representatives. Using Swedish survey data, the empirical analysis shows that voters and politicians have significantly different preferences for local welfare services, implying that voters do not elect representatives with the same preferences as their own. The results show that when comparing a politician of a certain age, gender, educational level and marital status, with a voter with identical characteristics, the politician still has preferences for a significantly higher level of spending on the locally provided services. Hence, our results indicate that the representation of different socio-economic groups does not necessarily lead to a larger degree of representation of these groups' agendas. Moreover, we find the observed difference to be largest for the least salient expenditure item. We do, however, not find any evidence for differences in preferences between the two groups being associated with a decline in trust for politicians among voters. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007

Keywords: Political representation; Local public services; Survey data; Voters’ and politicians' preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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Working Paper: Do Politicians’ Preferences Correspond to those of the Voters? An Investigation of Political Representation (2004)
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-006-9077-1

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