Mechanisms for Value Representation in American Politics

• In Event: Accountability, Representation, and Responsiveness in the Congress

Abstract

Existing work on dyadic representation focuses on the relationship between voters’ policy preferences and politicians’ issue stances. However, citizens may not possess complete or fully informed preferences on many policy issues or hold consistently left-right views. I instead examine whether voters’ values are represented by their members of Congress. I find evidence of a positive relationship between voters’ values and politicians’ value actions across four different sources—newsletters, floor speeches, bill cosponsorships, and roll call votes—from 2003 to 2020. Next, I test three mechanisms by which we achieve value representation: voters select politicians who share voters’ values, politicians adapt their value actions to reflect voters’ values, or voters sanction politicians who fail to adhere to the constituency’s values. This project provides evidence for a previously unexplored style of representation—through values—and contributes to our understanding of why politicians act in a value-congruent manner.

Author

• Arjun Vishwanath, Vanderbilt University