Representing group interests : A study on the substantive representation of women and minority groups in the Jordanian House of Representatives

Abstract: In the world today there is a tendency that women and minority groups are under-represented in political decision-making. In order to come to terms with the under-representation of women and minorities many countries are taking measures to increase the number of women and minority representatives. However,there is an ongoing debate on whether increased number of group representatives lead to increased representation of group interests. The question is if women and minority representatives are more responsive to their respective group’s interests compared to other representatives. In this study, I have conducted asurvey with members of the Jordanian House of Representatives in order to investigate whether women and minority representatives are more responsive to their respective group’s interests compared to other representatives. The survey has been designed to capture representatives’ priorities and attitudes towards certain policy areas and issues. The results from the survey show that women and minority representatives to a certain extent are more responsive to their respective group’s interests compared to other representatives, indicating that an increased number of women and minority representatives would lead to increased representation of women and minority interests. Furthermore,this study finds that female representatives are more responsive to women’s interests when it comes to priorities than when it comes to attitudes, whereas representatives from the Christian minority are more responsive to Christian issues when it comes to attitudes than when it comes to priorities. These results indicate that there are differences between different groups when it comes to the representation of their groups’ interests. Thus, research on one group might not be directly transferable to other groups.