The Concept of Individual Representation: Approaching Political Representation Differently

This paper presents a new conceptualization and measure of political representation to complement existing approaches. Individual representation scores approach political representation from a different direction than the conventional dyadic and collective representation. By placing the individual at the centre, individual representation scores provide an answer to the question of how well an individual in society is represented by the legislature in place. This contrasts with the starting point of existing approaches, where the representative or a group of representatives are examined foremost. As other approaches to political representation, individual representation assumes that representation is “better” where Euclidean distances between the individual and the representative are smaller. Individual representation scores are calculated by comparing on the one hand the position of the individual vis-à-vis other citizens, and on the other hand the position of the individual vis-à-vis the legislature. The paper includes an empirical example to illustrate how the concept can be applied.