Abstract
The growing importance of non-state actors in politics, who are often included in networks with public actors, has led several scholars to challenge the idea that representation is limited to traditional representative institutions. Instead, representation is now understood as an ongoing process in which the content of representation is negotiated via interactions between representatives and their constituents. Rather than being a rigid product of elections, representation happens as elected and non-elected actors make claims to represent the interests of someone or something. Consequently, representation as a claim-making process devalues the democratic process of elections.
The position of understanding representation as a dynamic, interactive, and deliberative process in which elections no longer are the only route to democratic representation has received increasing theoretical acceptance. However, there is scarce empirical evidence on how this activity, especially among nonelected representatives in governance networks, plays out in practice in present-day democracies. To bridge this research gap in my thesis, I addressed the following overarching research question:
How does non-electoral representation play out as an interactive activity in governance networks in present-day democracies, and under which conditions is this form of representation democratic?
Governance networks are critical in studying democratic representation because they play a significant role in solving complex contemporary problems. In addition, non-elected representatives participating in institutionalised governance networks operate in spaces of power, which means that they, like elected representatives, should be subject to democratic standards.
Based on a mixed-methods approach that includes survey data, interviews, public documents and participant observation, this thesis demonstrates that in the governance networks of present-day democracies, representation plays out as an iterative process whereby most of what needs representation and what is represented develops through negotiations (or representatives explaining and justifying their actions to constituents) in response to constantly changing situations.
Defining democratic representation as constituents’ acceptance of representative claims (Saward, 2010), I explore the conditions that enable constituents to judge (i.e. accept or reject) representatives. This thesis shows that representatives emphasise authorisation, while constituents stress the deliberative aspects of accountability that promote the constituents’ judgements of the representatives. From the perspective of the constituents, defined as those judging democratic representation, deliberative accountability is essential in discussing the conditions under which non-electoral representation is democratic. The deliberative aspects of accountability entail regular interactions between representatives and constituents, allowing the former to explain the reasons for their actions and gain acceptance from the latter. Thus, I suggest that non-electoral representation is democratic under the condition of representatives forming, practising and maintaining an interactive, deliberative and discussion-based representative–constituent relationship.
Furthermore, this thesis argues that representatives’ commitment to engage with the deliberative aspects of accountability depends on the homogeneity of their constituents. This finding implies that an interactive and deliberative representative–constituent relationship cannot replace elections as a condition for democratic representation without the pre-existence of political equality among affected constituents. However, my findings show that the decision-making authority (i.e., the audience being the targets of representation) assess representatives’ authenticity, the information contained in representatives’ justification of claims and non-electoral authorisation to judge the representatives. Therefore, audiences’ judgements can supplement the interactive and deliberative representative– constituent relationship as part of democratic representation when constituents have unequal resources to accept representation.
Overall, these empirical findings demonstrate that governance networks as arenas that allow democratic non-elected representatives to establish a broader representation of diverse interests in politics can help democratise the way in which modern societies are governed.