Transnational Representation in EU National Parliaments: Concept, Case Study, Research Agenda
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321719848565 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2019
Article
Political Studies
2020, Vol. 68(2) 370 –388
Transnational Representation
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321719848565
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Concept, Case Study,
Research Agenda
Lucy Kinski1 and Ben Crum2
Abstract
This article introduces the notion of ‘transnational representation’ to refer to claims by national
parliamentarians on behalf of citizens of other national constituencies. Thus defined, transnational
representation combines insights from the constructivist turn in the theory of democratic
representation with a renewed focus on national parliaments as the prime institutional sites
of representation. A focus on transnational representation advances the debate on democratic
representation in an age of internationalisation in two ways. First, it allows for a systematic
and comparative analysis of how representation in parliaments responds to internationalisation.
Second, it suggests a new perspective on the possible alignment of political representation with
the range of affected interests. We illustrate these two claims with a case study of transnational
representation in parliamentary debates on the European Financial Stability Facility and by
outlining an agenda for further research.
Keywords
transnational representation, national parliaments, European Union, representative claims
analysis, internationalisation
Accepted: 15 April 2019
Introduction
Late September 2011, the question whether to expand the European Financial Stability
Facility (EFSF), which was established to bailout Eurozone countries unable to service
their debt, was put before the Austrian Lower House. Michael Schickhofer, parliamentar-
ian for the Social Democrats, contributed to this debate with the observation that:
1Political Science, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
2Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
Corresponding author:
Lucy Kinski, Political Science, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf,
Germany.
Email: kinski@hhu.de
Kinski and Crum
371
I quite frankly admit that this decision to agree to this rescue package is not easy, but we should
briefly consider how the people in Greece are doing. There, too, are employees who have
worked for many years, paid into the pension system and are now confronted with the fact that
20 percent of the pensions are to be reduced. There are civil servants who have always remained
in their country and who have been there for the people and are now being confronted with the
idea that 30,000 to 40,000 jobs are to be cut […] (Michael Schickhofer, Social Democratic Party
of Austria, Austria, EFSF Expansion, 30 September 2011).1
Based on these considerations, Schickhofer asserted that this decision ‘cannot be just
about our own interests’ (emphasis in original) and eventually concluded: ‘I stand by the
Austrian interests, but we must also think in terms of Europe and the people of Greece’.
This argumentation exemplifies how ‘standard accounts’ (Castiglione and Warren,
2013; Urbinati and Warren, 2008) of political representation have come under pressure
in an increasingly interdependent world as political representatives face a structural mis-
match between their electoral constituency and the people whose interests are affected
by their decisions. Schickhofer’s statement contradicts the rationalistic conception in
which political representatives vie for re-election by exclusively representing the
national interest. Instead, he acknowledges a wider European collective interest, which
includes the Austrian interest he has been elected to serve. What is more, he directly
inserts the plight of the foreign citizens of Greece into the considerations that bear on the
political position he adopts.
This article introduces the notion of ‘transnational representation’ to denote claims by
national parliamentarians on behalf of citizens of other national constituencies. As illus-
trated by Schickhofer’s statement, transnational representation exploits the wedge between
the constituency that formally authorises political representatives and the constituency
whose interests these representatives may invoke. Our conceptualisation of transnational
representation contributes to the empirical and theoretical literature on democratic repre-
sentation in an internationalising world and, in particular, seeks to reconnect the empirical
analysis of parliamentary debates with recent theories of political representation.
Empirically, we submit that the concept of transnational representation allows us to iden-
tify and demonstrate that national parliamentarians adopt this mode of representation and,
in a more exploratory take, to suggest certain meaningful patterns in the way that they do
so. Conceptually, we suggest that, by building on the dynamic and constructed nature of
representation as an act (cf. Saward, 2010), the notion of transnational representation
points to a distinctive conception of democratic representation in an ever more interde-
pendent world; one that does not rely on the establishment of overarching representative
institutions but rather on networks of representative claims across national parliaments.
To achieve these aims, the article is structured as follows. The next section develops
the concept of transnational representation, both in the context of recent constructivist
theories of representation and in the specific context of democratic representation in the
multilevel polity of the European Union (EU). In the section “Operationalising
Transnational Representation and its Alternatives,” we develop an operationalisation that
serves to identify transnational representation in parliamentary debates and distinguishes
it from alternative modes of representation. Then, the section “Case Study and
Expectations” presents the outlines of a case study in which we empirically investigate
transnational representation as well as a set of expectations regarding its manifestation.
The findings of this case study are presented in the section “Observing Transnational
Representation during the Eurozone Crisis”. The final section reflects upon these findings
and uses them to sketch a broader research agenda.
372
Political Studies 68(2)
Concept: Positioning Transnational Representation
Transnational representation involves national parliamentarians raising claims on behalf
of citizens of other national constituencies. Defined as such, the concept contributes to
three related, yet different debates in political science and political theory: representation
theory, international democratic theory and democratic representation in the EU. First of
all, transnational representation builds upon the constructivist turn in representation the-
ory. This turn highlights that political representation is a generative relationship that
reflects the dynamic and open-ended nature of political decision-making (Disch, 2011;
Urbinati, 2006). Thus, it fundamentally challenges the ‘standard account’ of representa-
tion (Castiglione and Warren, 2013; Urbinati and Warren, 2008), which focusses on the
relationship between a constituency and a parliamentarian, who acquires the position of
representative by being elected into office on the basis of a well-specified programme,
and whose actions are driven by the prospect of re-election. As the most notable scholar
of the constructivist turn, Michael Saward (2010) reframes representation as a ‘claim’ to
underline how representation always remains contestable and depends on others to iden-
tify with it and to recognise its legitimacy – even if the claim does not speak for them.
One of the major merits of a constructivist approach to representation is that it does not
fix the constituency that is being represented but allows for multiple and shifting constitu-
encies. This feature is essential to our notion of transnational representation as it relies on
a distinction between two constituencies: one domestic that formally authorises the par-
liamentarians and holds them to account, and one potentially ‘foreign’ that the parliamen-
tarians invoke. This echoes Saward’s (2010) distinction between the ‘referent’ actor, on
whose behalf a representative claim is put forward, and the ‘audience’ on which the claim
is to have an effect. Even closer to our purpose, Laura Montanaro (2018) distinguishes
between the ‘authorising’ and the ‘affected’ constituency. The authorising and affected
constituency may coincide – and in traditional conceptions of representation, they often
do – but this is not necessarily the case. Not only may one be bigger than the other, but
also they can actually refer to different populations (Saward, 2010: 49–50). Coming back
to the example from the introduction, while the Austrian electorate serves as Michael
Schickhofer’s authorising constituency, the Greek people are prominently included in the
affected constituency of his deliberations and vote.
This brings us to the second debate to which transnational representation speaks,
namely the one on international or global democracy. Indeed, the constructivist approach
is particularly fruitful outside the safe boundaries of the established practices of...
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