Surrogate representation by parties: A cross-national perspective

Against the backdrop of declining public trust and engagement with political parties, citizens’ representation is often not limited to their party of choice. How do citizens perceive representation by parties they did not vote for? How do individual- and system-level factors shape this representation? And what are the implications for citizens’ democratic attitudes? Investigating these questions, we propose the concept of party surrogation – representation by a party one did not vote for. We utilize CSES module 3 (2006–2011) to establish cross-national and individual variations in party surrogation. We find more party surrogation in countries with a higher effective number of parties and less party surrogation among right-wing voters. We also find that voters with party surrogation have combinations of representing parties that vary in size, political ideology, and coalition status. These voters are more satisfied with democracy compared to unrepresented voters. We conclude with a discussion of citizens’ representation repertoire.