Boost or Backlash? The Heterogeneous Effects of Parliamentary Representation on Satisfaction with Democracy

Does parliamentary representation affect satisfaction with democracy (SWD)? This question is ever more pressing given the central role of parliaments in liberal democracies and their increasing fragmentation in the West. Nonetheless, while extensive evidence confirms that winning an election increases SWD, whether obtaining parliamentary representation matters for voters’ democratic evaluations remains unclear. This paper departs from the expectation that having parliamentary representation will boost SWD. However, it may have unintended consequences that cause a backlash among dissatisfied voters. Specifically, it is theorized that anti-establishment radical party voters will experience an SWD decrease because obtaining representation will increase the saliency of the establishment win. Two studies test these expectations. The first one leverages the as-if-random seats’ assignment around legally fixed electoral thresholds to identify the effect of parliamentary representation on SWD with a regression-discontinuity design (RDD). Consistent with the theory, the RDD identifies an average (non-significant) positive effect of parliamentary representation that becomes (significant) negative and substantially large for radical party voters. The second study focuses on the case of the radical party AfD after entering the Bundestag in the 2017 German Federal election. It uses a panel survey’s pre and post-electoral waves to confirm that AfD voters become less satisfied with democracy after the election. Furthermore, it shows that the negative change is driven by AfD voters with strong anti-establishment attitudes, in line with the hypothesized mechanism. These findings pose concerning implications for theories of representation and democratic legitimacy. For most voters, the promise of representation barely enhances their system evaluations. For those more alienated, it even backlashes and worsens them.