How should local councillors fulfil their representative role? A qualitative exploration of citizens’ and councillors’ expectations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54195/plc.24388Keywords:
Representation, Local democracy, Styles of representation, Local councillorsAbstract
There is limited research on the way local councillors are expected to act as elected representatives, according to citizens and local councillors themselves. In addition, research is often quantitative and (mis?)guided by conceptualisations developed a long time ago with national politics in mind. This article presents the findings from secondary analysis of qualitative research with foremost open questions on local councillors’ representative roles among citizens (n=123) and local councillors (n=88) in Dutch municipalities. Citizens had no or low expectations, or preferred local councillors to listen, to be visible, and to keep promises. Local councillors’ expectations reflected the old roles of trustee and party delegate, and the new roles of democratic watchdog and ombuds politician, roles that they often combined. This latter finding underlines the need to explore the conceptual underpinnings of these concepts (for instance, combining elitist and participatory elements), to be careful with research in which these representative roles are presented as mutually exclusive, and to find out when and why local councillors switch from one to another role.
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The current data, interviews with local councillors and citizens, are not accessible openly, due to GDPR restrictions.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Hans Vollaard, Marianne van Bochove, Hans Moors, Marjolein Teunissen, Barbara Vis (Author)
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