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Much of a representative’s job centers on policy and takes place inside congress, but representatives also participate in activities in their electoral district that emphasize securing support for their political future, often referred to as a legislator’s “home style.” Using data from the survey of legislators, this chapter examines the amount of time that male and female legislators spend in their district (allocation of resources), their constituency service (presentation of self), and frequency with which they seek publicity of that work by making public presentations or speaking with the media (explaining activity). In Argentina, Colombia, and Costa Rica, female legislators do these activities more often than do male legislators when they relate specifically to female constituents or women’s groups. Gender has little effect on other forms of home style, however. Women are substantively representing women, and at the same time, are not being marginalized in their home-style behavior.

The Irish state inherited many features of the Westminster parliamentary system, but with some important divergences: a written constitution protected by a Supreme Court, a proportional representation electoral system with a single transferable vote, and a directly elected President as Head of State. Irish political parties are cohesive, disciplined, and centralized under the direction of the party leaderships. The electoral system allows the electorate to vote directly for individual candidates in multimember constituencies, which increases the individual accountability of legislators and helps to contain agency loss. Irish governments have not been heavily constrained or monitored by other institutions or agents, including Parliament.

Members of the Canadian Parliament today are well-paid political professionals. Still, the most attractive goal of a national political career in Canada is a seat at the cabinet table, because only here members can influence public policy, assure their reelection, and control the parliamentary party. However, as the opportunity to serve in national cabinet is limited, most members of the Canadian political class spend their careers engaged in constituency service or remain at the provincial level. Reform efforts have for the most part been focussed on increasing MPs' input into policy making and greater freedom of voting, but the backbenchers have been reticent to challenge the general executive-centred nature of Canada's parliamentary system.

Chapter 4 offers a theoretical explanation for why we should expect to see constituency service in patronage democracies, despite existing expectations to the contrary. It discusses in greater detail the book’s argument for why constituency service constitutes a key element of distributive politics, alongside forms of locally brokered clientelism and contingent allocation of group-oriented goods. The chapter elaborates the sources of demand for, and supply of, constituency service in a patronage democracy. It then considers the limitations of more widely studied forms of distributive politics and outlines the ways in which constituency service offers a compelling alternative to politicians for pursuing their desired electoral ends. This discussion suggests a number of empirical implications, laid out in detail at the end of the chapter, which guide the analyses in subsequent chapters.

Chapter 12 addresses the broader implications of the book’s findings for our view of representative democracy in many parts of the world. It posits that the form of representation present in these contexts is characterized by “constrained accountability.” High-level politicians in patronage democracies are substantially more accountable to their individual constituents than posited in existing literature. However, this accountability remains limited, in multiple ways outlined in the chapter. In providing this form of limited accountability, constituency service also serves to support the functioning of democracy in patronage contexts. While the targeted nature of clientelist and partisan distribution excludes a large portion of voters from the significant resources of the state, constituency service by high-level politicians offers those same voters a potential resource for accessing benefits. This responsiveness makes the state’s resources available to a much wider swath of voters than would otherwise be the case and, in doing so, contributes to the functioning, and persistence, of patronage democracy.

Chapter 3 focuses on the representational role of elected politicians in India—how they work, and whom they try to work for. It starts with an account of the daily work-routines of Indian politicians, describing how SC politicians differ from their non-SC colleagues in their political work. Turning to how SC politicians describe their representational role, the chapter shows how they respond to the incentives of the electoral system and pressures from their political parties, noting that they generally see their role as acting as representatives of their parties, not as agents for the interests of their specific group. The chapter ends by examining which political parties have been elected in SC-reserved constituencies, finding that SC politicians have been elected for a similar set of parties as other politicians, and that parties running on a specifically SC-focused platform have not done particularly well in SC-reserved constituencies.

Chapter 10 evaluates the conditions under which politicians will allocate benefits in a contingent, versus noncontingent, manner. It shows that citizens living in areas that offered strong support to a politician in the last election are much more likely to receive spending from that politician’s constituency development fund (CDF). Drawing on data from the experiment, it then compares the behavior of politicians spending their CDF funds with responses to the experimental audit of responsiveness. This shows that, while patterns of electoral support predict behavior with regard to partisan targeting, they offer less explanatory value for understanding patterns of constituency service. Thus, the same factors cannot explain both partisan bias and constituency service, and the same individuals who engage in noncontingent individual assistance may also target group-based benefits in a largely partisan manner.

This chapter presents a discussion of service provision in India, to set the context for an analysis of distributive politics and, in particular, constituency service, in a patronage democracy. It lays out the features of India’s political economy that continue to lead us to describe it as a patronage democracy. It then outlines the characteristics of India’s primary political, bureaucratic, and social institutions, considering the formal roles and responsibilities of key actors at all levels of government with regard to distributive politics and their informal powers over distribution, at the national, state, and local levels. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the potential for constituency service in India from the perspective of prevailing theories, considering in particular the character of political institutions, the nature of electoral and party politics, and the dynamics that may—or may not—encourage politicians to build personal reputations for responsiveness.

Chapter 9 expands on analyses of the field experiment to explore additional variation in the characteristics of politicians’ responsiveness. First, it investigates the degree to which politicians’ responses reflect state- and individual-level characteristics that may be associated with incentives to cultivate a personal vote. These analyses highlight, in particular, that—consistent with the theoretical discussion in Chapter 4 and existing work on the personal vote—electoral politics play a key role in affecting the degree to which politicians attempt to build their individual reputations via provision of assistance to individual constituents. Chapters 8 and 9 therefore collectively explore the conditions under which constituency service does and does not occur.

Chapter 11 considers the extent to which we should expect to observe similar dynamics of distributive politics in other parts of the world. It draws on a range of cross-national data to show that the contextual characteristics supporting constituency service—the dynamics of patronage democracy, difficulty in access to public benefits, and partisan allocation of benefits at local levels, accompanied by the presence of high-level representatives with little ability to monitor individual electoral behavior—coexist across a range of democracies around the world. It offers evidence to suggest that high-level politicians in countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America also engage in individual-level distribution to build a personal vote, rather than support for their party, and that highly partisan distribution by local operatives may ironically heighten their incentives to assist constituents in a nonpartisan manner. Thus, India is an exemplar of a common trend, rather than a global outlier.

Chapter 3 draws on a field experimental audit of politicians with a near census of Indian state and national legislators to show that, on the whole, politicians do not take indicators of partisanship into account when responding to individual-level requests. Specifically, this national field experiment shows that for India’s high-level politicians, information on electoral preferences does not affect the willingness of representatives to respond to an individual’s request for assistance. In addition, indications of shared ethnicity, e.g., caste, which may be closely tied to political preferences, do not result in preferential treatment. Overall, these findings offer strong evidence that the aid high-level politicians offer to individuals requiring assistance navigating the state is often noncontingent in nature, taking the form of constituency service.

Chapter 8 tests observable implications of the book’s theory on constituency service’s supply, using the field experiment introduced in Chapter 3 to assess politicians’ motivations to respond to petitions. It shows that indicators of a personal vote—that the petitioner has voted for the politician in the past—can have a small positive effect on the quality of a politician’s response, if not the baseline response rate. This chapter also investigates whether information on local blocking affects politicians’ willingness to respond. It shows that, in states with a long history of local elections, politicians interpret information about a failure to receive assistance locally as an indicator of local partisan blocking and, combined with information on electoral history, an indication that the petitioner is a supporter or persuadable voter. Consistent with qualitative evidence from politician shadowing, this experimental evidence substantiates the argument that politicians use constituency service to reach potential supporters.

In conclusion, incumbents' reelection efforts appear not to have been negatively impacted by Hurricane Andrew. Apparent effects are positive, if minimal. Time and distance reduced the hurricane's effects, but voters in the most severely impacted areas remembered their benefactors even two years later in statewide races. Anecdotal evidence indicates that strong disaster responses from elected officials can improve an incumbent's reelection chances while weak responses can predict failure. Future studies should focus on the interaction of five factors: event characteristics; resources; constituency service and surrogate campaigning; regular campaigning; and incumbent acuity to assess whether the Hurricane Andrew impacts are typical or are outliers.

Florida City and Homestead were entirely within the severe damage zone of Hurricane Andrew--the hurricane's eye wall. Devastation from the hurricane is most clearly associated with this area of the county. Initially, incumbent elected officials worked to help relieve the post-Andrew chaos and suffering. Insurance, FEMA, and other forms of assistance that poured into the area later provided incumbents with a “leadership” rationale for electoral support and with an explanation for the funding limitations that prevented local officials from fulfilling expectations and completing initiated projects. Success in subsequent elections related to incumbents' activity in their jurisdictions and their perceived closeness to the electorate.

Chapter 6 presents the first set of empirical analyses focused on politics at the local level. Drawing on close-range qualitative shadowing of local council presidents and surveys of both presidents and citizens, it documents the close relationships these elected officials have with their constituents. This analysis suggests considerable responsiveness of local politicians to citizens, often highlighting a form of local constituency service that has not been sufficiently described in many prior accounts. However, it also underlines the partisan nature of local politics and the ways in which partisanship is emphasized, especially by those presidents who share the party of the more senior state legislator in their area. The chapter documents the implications of this partisanship for contingent distribution, showing that individuals who do not share partisan ties with their village council president tend to be locally blocked—in particular, they are less likely to receive benefits from the local council.

Florida's legislators, elected from small districts, were well into the 1992 election cycle when Andrew struck. Primary races had focused on the September 1 election scheduled for eight days after the hurricane. In the wake of hurricane, campaigns ended and official activities, often non-partisan, increased, focusing on constituent service and relief for victims. Post-Andrew conditions improved slightly as the November general elections approached but, with substantial population shifts and tremendous recovery needs, campaigning was limited. Subsequent elections returned to normal in northern districts, but recovery issues remained prevalent in South Dade where damage was worst. Constituent service increased, because officials and their staffs experienced and understood the severity of the problems. Legislators worked to bring resources into their districts and bolster the state's disaster response infrastructure, demonstrating their leadership abilities and effectiveness.

As announced in chapter 4, three cabinet members, the governor, and the lieutenant governor were in office and about to seek reelection when Andrew struck. In the wake of the hurricane, incumbent campaigns adjusted for the continuing recovery efforts in South Dade. The significant responses of these officials after Hurricane Andrew, their success at bringing substantial resources into South Dade to help with the initial relief and with longer term recovery efforts, improved their images among South Dade voters. To a large extent, they became heroes to that part of their constituencies. Similarly, the 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot, who had provided substantial financial and rhetorical support for the Salvation Army's hurricane relief efforts in South Dade, earned greater vote share in South Dade than further north in the county.