Japanese Prime Minister Abe is known for his efforts to advance gender equality through womenomics. This seems to put Japan in line with other countries where conservative leaders have embraced gender equality to win back young and female voters and to modernise the image of conservative parties. While electoral calculation drives feminisation in the majority of cases, we argue that this is not the case in Japan. Instead, economic and international pressures are more important drivers than electoral calculations.

The electoral system chosen by Danish parties and politicians appears to create strong incentives for parliamentarians to undertake activities that can be labelled constituency service. In offering parties the option of running open lists—which most do—the MPs are encouraged to cultivate a personal vote to get elected. High party unity, moreover, might also be thought to be conducive towards a strong constituency focus, in that MPs will feel less party-constrained on their ‘home patch’. This article explores whether this is the case, using both survey data and interviews with MPs. Danish legislators do not neglect their constituency, promoting and protecting its interests in a variety of ways. Yet, in light of the voting system incentives, it is surprising perhaps that they do not do more in the way of constituency service. There is some care but little surgery. It seems ‘party service’ and the attendant career gains take precedence over constituency service although the equation varies from one MP to the next.

The Finnish open list electoral system provides strong incentives for MPs to cultivate ties with their constituents. There is arguably more competition for seats within than between parties, with election campaigns revolving around individual candidates. Examining how Finnish parliamentarians carry out constituency service, this article argues that such contacts are increasingly non-partisan and geared either towards the ‘home turf’ or specific policy interests. Cross-partisan cooperation among MPs from the same electoral district is institutionalised in the Eduskunta. There is surprisingly little variation between the 200 MPs regarding the level and types of constituency service, irrespective of district magnitude, the safety of the seat or parliamentary experience. Constituency service is clearly a key element of MPs’ work and forms an essential part of their re-election strategies.

In the Introduction to this symposium, we posed three inter-related questions. First, what do Nordic parliamentarians do to serve the needs and represent the interests of their constituents? Second...

In recent decades, many jurisdictions have extended access to various forms of convenience voting, especially early voting. Research on these changes in electoral procedures has often focused on the effects on turnout and electorate composition. However, procedural changes can also have indirect informational and social effects on voters and on campaign activities [Gronke, Paul, Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum, Peter A. Miller and Daniel Toffey. 2008. Convenience voting. Annual Review of Political Science 11: 437–55]. This article provides a systematic review of secondary sources that examine the indirect effects of changes in voting procedures on the intensity or focus of voter mobilisation. The article concludes that there is sufficient evidence of indirect or secondary effects and that these should be more explicitly recognised by scholars and policymakers when evaluating electoral innovations aimed at increasing turnout. From this a continuum of the influence of these secondary effects on the mobilisation environment is constructed to inform policy debate and to help structure future research.

Women have historically participated in political activities such as speaking at public meetings and contributing to candidates at lower rates than men. One explanation for this phenomenon is women’s underrepresentation in political institutions, which compromises their sense of political efficacy. In support of this explanation, as the number of women in government has increased, gender gaps in participation have narrowed in most industrialised democracies. However, the United States lags behind much of the western world in terms of both women’s representation and political participation. We, thus, examine whether contextual factors, in this case so-called ‘women-friendly districts’, improve American women’s political participation [Palmer, Barbara and Dennis Simon. 2008. Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women and Congressional Elections. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge]. We find that in women-friendly districts, American women’s political participation is statistically indistinguishable from men’s participation. However, outside of these districts, women generally demonstrate lower levels of political activity than men. Counterintuitively, however, these gains are not the result of increasing female participation, but rather decreasing male engagement.

Drawing on recent criticisms of victim representation in the International Criminal Court (ICC), I examine the challenges of claim-making in a particular institutional context. I use this case study to make three points about Michael Saward’s general theory of representation. First, I argue that Saward’s general criteria need to be modified in light of an institution’s particular norms, capacities, and directives. Second, I show that retrospective claim-reception is insufficient for guaranteeing that the appropriate constituencies will have the “ultimate say” in claim-reception. Third, I illustrate how the quality of the relationship between the representative and represented can adversely impact the managerial function of representatives. In this way, I show how an institution’s features can importantly condition the representative claim.

This chapter argues that there is a central idea common to the various senses of the term "representation." The distinction between representation and substitution intuitively appears to be of the greatest importance for a sound theory of democracy: It suggests alternative ways of regarding expertness in government, elections, and the like. Before the force of the distinction can be fully estimated, however, something needs to be said about the relation between representation of interests, and representation of opinion and will. Moreover, the general analysis of practical representation needs to be supplemented by an analysis of its special forms, including delineation of the conditions in which a special form is particularly appropriate and defensible. A general analysis of practical representation can be expected to reveal only the most general normative guidelines governing its special forms. However, it should be positively helpful not only in clarifying some fundamental issues but also in locating alternative special forms.

The chapter shows that parts of the government other than elected representatives (members of the legislature) serve representative functions and that the concept of representation then links or relates to each other these various carriers of representative roles. It explores that even the personnel more specifically thought of as "representatives," i.e., members of an elective legislature, have various roles from which frequently emerge conflicting directives that can be reconciled only by reference to some superior set of norms. The chapter suggests that, in some measure, the concept of representation, considered in the specific contexts in which it is applied, provides this superior set of norms. In Britain, Parliament (including its "Government") is the only vehicle for representation in the legislative process. Moreover, the bureaucracy, and an informal but effective additional form of representation, that of organized groups, provide other avenues of representation.

Finding myself in agreement with much of Professor Diggs' paper, I shall indicate only briefly what few bones I think one might pick with him, and then accept his invitation to apply his findings to a further problem about political representation.