The Representation of Citizens by Political Authorities: Consequences for Regime Support

Representation is a matter of linkage. In this paper it is argued that a useful handle can be gained on the problem of identifying and measuring representational relationships empirically by viewing representation as a type of support linkage between members of political systems and the authorities. To conceive representation as a type of support linkage is to direct attention primarily to the represented rather than the representative. Representational relationships have functional significance for political systems particularly because they are linkages which involve members' satisfaction-dissatisfaction with the behavior of the political authorities—linkages which reflect the degree to which members feel that the performance of the authorities “stands for” or “re-presents” their own interests; and this performance satisfaction-dissatisfaction presumably makes a contribution to more general support for the political system. In contrast to legitimacy sentiments, which are independent of immediate outputs from political authorities, members' perceptions of representational linkages between themselves and the authorities depend on their affective responses to outputs, encompassing not only instrumental performance satisfactions, but (and most commonly among the membership in general) symbolic performance satisfactions as well. This paper reports an exploratory investigation of a construct for measuring sense of representation. The sample consists of a group of students enrolled at the University of Iowa—including, in order to ensure adequate variation on the support scales, a number of students arrested for participating in a protest demonstration against the presence of Marine recruiters on the University of Iowa campus.