From Presence to Meaning: Lived Experience and the Limits of Substantive Representation

This study moves beyond the question of whether descriptive representation leads to substantive outcomes, and instead examines how lived experience is interpreted, framed, and translated into political articulation by elected representatives. Based on in-depth interviews with former Members of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) from historically marginalised and dominant Jewish ethnic backgrounds, it aims to explore the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation by focusing on interpretation and meaning, rather than solely on policy outcomes or numerical presence. The analysis identifies a systematic divergence between experiential proximity to social hardship and its political interpretation. Legislators from historically marginalised and disadvantaged communities recount vivid, emotionally charged experiences of childhood deprivation and exclusion. Although legislators across groups express a shared commitment to addressing social hardship, their understandings of poverty, responsibility, and injustice differ markedly. Notably, when discussions turn to ethnicity and inequality, these lived experiences are often reframed in individualistic terms that emphasise self-reliance and personal mobility, while collective patterns of disadvantage are minimised or attributed to others. By foregrounding these accounts, the study advances a narrative-centred perspective on minority representation, revealing the limits of personal experience as a foundation for collective political worldviews and underscoring implications that extend beyond the Israeli case.