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How should we theorize and normatively assess those individual and collective actors who claim to represent others for political purposes, but do so without the electoral authorization and accountability usually thought to be at the heart of democratic representation? In this article, I offer conceptual tools for assessing the democratic legitimacy of such “self-appointed” representatives. I argue that these kinds of political actors bring two constituencies into being: the authorizing—that group empowered by the claim to exercise authorization and demand accountability—and the affected—that group affected, or potentially affected, by collective decisions. Self-appointed representation provides democratically legitimate representation when it provides political presence for affected constituencies and is authorized by and held accountable to them. I develop the critical tools to assess the democratic credentials of self-appointed representatives by identifying nonelectoral mechanisms of authorization and accountability that may empower affected constituencies to exercise authorization and demand accountability.

Little is known about the American public’s policy preferences at the level of Congressional districts, state legislative districts, and local municipalities. In this article, we overcome the limited sample sizes that have hindered previous research by jointly scaling the policy preferences of 275,000 Americans based on their responses to policy questions. We combine this large dataset of Americans’ policy preferences with recent advances in opinion estimation to estimate the preferences of every state, congressional district, state legislative district, and large city. We show that our estimates outperform previous measures of citizens’ policy preferences. These new estimates enable scholars to examine representation at a variety of geographic levels. We demonstrate the utility of these estimates through applications of our measures to examine representation in state legislatures and city governments.

Political justification figures prominently in contemporary political theory, notably in models of deliberative democracy. This article articulates and defends the essential role of partisanship in this process. Four dimensions of justification are examined in detail: the constituency to which political justifications are offered, the circumstances in which they are developed, the ways in which they are made inclusive, and the ways in which they are made persuasive. In each case, the role of partisanship is probed and affirmed. Partisanship, we conclude, is indispensable to the kind of political justification needed to make the exercise of collective authority responsive to normative concerns.

We examine the link between the threat of violence and democratization in the context of the Great Reform Act passed by the British Parliament in 1832. We georeference the so-called Swing riots, which occurred between the 1830 and 1831 parliamentary elections, and compute the number of these riots that happened within a 10 km radius of the 244 English constituencies. Our empirical analysis relates this constituency-specific measure of the threat perceptions held by the 344,000 voters in the Unreformed Parliament to the share of seats won in each constituency by pro-reform politicians in 1831. We find that the Swing riots induced voters to vote for pro-reform politicians after experiencing first-hand the violence of the riots.

In this study, we assess the causal impact of stakeholder orientation on innovation. To obtain exogenous variation in stakeholder orientation, we exploit the enactment of state-level constituency statutes, which allow directors to consider stakeholders’ interests when making business decisions. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we find that the enactment of constituency statutes leads to a significant increase in the number of patents and citations per patent. We further argue and provide evidence suggesting that stakeholder orientation sparks innovation by encouraging experimentation and enhancing employees’ innovative productivity. Finally, we find that the positive effect of stakeholder orientation on innovation is larger in consumer-focused and less eco-friendly industries. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2229 . This paper was accepted by Lee Fleming, entrepreneurship and innovation .

Political parties' issue ownership—their perceived competence in handling issues and problems—is a major ingredient explaining voting behavior. Yet, our understanding of the sources of issue ownership is limited. This study is the first to bring together and evaluate four different explanations of voters' perceptions of parties' issue ownership: partisanship, attitudes, perceived real-world developments, and constituency-based ownership. Using novel measures implemented in a national survey, we show that all four sources exert independent, if varying, influences on voters' issue ownership perceptions. Even though voters' partisanship tends to dominate issue ownership perceptions, attitudes and performance evaluations also matter. Moreover, the hitherto mostly neglected constituency based component of ownership has a substantial, independent influence on ownership perceptions. These findings indicate that issue ownership is more than merely an expression of partisanship and attitudes.

Do citizens hold their representatives accountable for policy decisions, as commonly assumed in theories of legislative politics? Previous research has failed to yield clear evidence on this question for two reasons: measurement error arising from noncomparable indicators of legislators' and constituents' preferences and potential simultaneity between constituents' beliefs about and approval of their representatives. Two new national surveys address the measurement problem directly by asking respondents how they would vote and how they think their representatives voted on key roll-call votes. Using the actual votes, we can, in turn, construct instrumental variables that correct for simultaneity. We find that the American electorate responds strongly to substantive representation. (1) Nearly all respondents have preferences over important bills before Congress. (2) Most constituents hold beliefs about their legislators' roll-call votes that reflect both the legislators' actual behavior and the parties' policy reputations. (3) Constituents use those beliefs to hold their legislators accountable.

Major international surveys and reports have considerably altered the expectations andoutlooks of national policymakers in education over the last three decades. Througha comparative content analysis of bibliographies in policy documents, this article exploresthe intermediary bodies that facilitate salient interconnections between international organi-zations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) andnational policymakers and experts who prepare comprehensive school reforms in threeNordic countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. This article builds on a large Nordic researchproject that studied the transfer and translation of international policies in a Nordic reformcontext. It extends the study by examining the role of publishers as intermediary policybrokers that legitimize the usage of OECD knowledge as significant members of instrumentconstituencies. This study enhances our understanding of the variations in citation patternsacross policy documents from three Nordic countries. It also investigates the extent to whichdifferences in instrumental constituencies arise from institutional arrangements and theideational foundations underpinning reform trajectories. Additionally, it examines the topicsaddressed by these reforms and the governments’ affiliations with new policy brokerssupported by both public and private publishers.

Despite its centrality to urban politics, economies and life, learning remains a neglected and undertheorised domain in urban geography. In this paper, I address this by exploring a politics of learning through two key sites: tactical learning and urban learning forums. I offer a conception of learning based on three processes: translation, or the relational distributions through which learning is produced as a sociomaterial epistemology of displacement and change; coordination, or the construction of functional systems that enable learning as a means of linking different forms of knowledge, coping with complexity and facilitating adaptation; and dwelling, or the education of attention through which learning operates as a way of seeing and inhabiting the world. I then consider this conception of learning in relation to tactical learning, i.e. the resources marginal groups use to cope with, negotiate and resist in the city, and urban learning forums, i.e. the possibilities for progressive forms of learning between different constituencies in the city. I conclude with an outline of a critical urbanism of learning.

Civil society organizations have played a significant role in the development of democratic capacities in Serbia, but they operate in increasingly unfavorable political circumstances with growing distrust of citizens in their effectiveness and legitimacy. Citizens of Serbia are characterized by high distrust in institutions (including those from the civil sector) and socio-political engagement, but recently civic activism has been on the rise, especially in local communities. The questions that animate this research are: Can civil society organizations connect more closely with this growing appetite for bottom-up social activism? What are the best practices for connecting civil society organizations with social actors such as local citizens, (local) media, scientific experts, business entities, etc.? The text approaches these questions from the perspective of constituency building, and analyzes existing practices among formal and informal organizations in Serbia. The analysis is based on qualitative empirical research conducted among twentyfive civil society organizations in the period March-May 2024.