What Do Voters Think about the Descriptive Underrepresentation of the Working Class?
In most democracies, politicians tend to be vastly better off than the citizens they represent: They are wealthier, more educated, and less likely to come from working-class jobs (e.g., Best 2007; Best and Cotta 2000; Carnes and Lupu 2015; Matthews 1985). Scholars have recently taken a renewed interest in this longstanding phenomenon. Some have studied the symbolic or normative implications of the shortage of politicians from the working class (e.g., Arnesen and Peters 2018; Barnes and Saxton 2019; Mansbridge 2015). Others have focused on policy: Just as the shortage of female and racial minority politicians can affect policies related to gender and race (e.g., Bratton and Ray 2002; Franck and Rainer 2012; Pande 2003; Swers 2002), the shortage of working-class politicians – who tend to be more leftist on economic issues – seems to bias taxing and spending policies towards the more conservative positions affluent citizens tend to favor (Carnes and Lupu 2015; Kirkland 2018; Kraus and Callaghan 2014; Micozzi 2018; O’Grady 2019; Rosset 2016; Szakonyi 2016; 2019; but see Lloren, Rosset, and Wüest 2015).
