Fair Isn't Always Equal: Constituency Population and the Quality of Representation in Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract.Is there a conflict between the principles of representation by population and the representation of communities of interest? In Canada, the legal requirement to design electoral districts based on pre-existing regions and communities of interest has produced large discrepancies in district populations. Several authors claim that this situation has a deleterious effect on the representational experiences of those citizens living in more populous districts. This paper examines whether the population of an electoral district affects the quality of political representation in that district. We first present survey data characterizing the relationship between constituency population and citizens' reported satisfaction with democracy and contact with politicians and parties. We then present audit experimental evidence from Canada demonstrating that the helpfulness of politicians towards citizens is not conditioned on constituency population. Our data indicate that constituency population has no clear impact on the quality of representational experiences in Canada, suggesting that it is possible to ensure the effective representation of communities of interest without harming the overall quality of Canadian democracy. Résumé.Y a-t-il un conflit entre les principes de représentation par personne et de représentation de communautés d'intérêts? Au Canada, des écarts importants entre la population de certaines circonscriptions électorales résultent de l'obligation légale de les délimiter en tenant compte des régions et des communautés d'intérêts préexistantes. Plusieurs auteurs soutiennent que cette situation entraîne des effets néfastes sur la représentation vécue par les citoyens qui habitent les circonscriptions les plus populeuses. Dans cet article, nous vérifions si la taille de la population influence la qualité de la représentation politique dans une circonscription électorale. Nous présentons d'abord des données d'enquête sur la relation entre la taille de la population d'une circonscription et (i) la satisfaction des citoyens à l'égard de la démocratie, (ii) leurs contacts avec les politiciens et (iii) les communications qu'ils reçoivent des politiciens et des partis. Puis, nous présentons des données d'une expérience menée au Canada qui indiquent que la propension des politiciens à aider les citoyens n'est pas influencée par la taille de la population de leur circonscription. Nos résultats indiquent que la taille de la population d'une circonscription n'a pas d'effet clair sur la qualité de la représentation au Canada, suggérant ainsi qu'il est possible d'assurer la représentation efficace des communautés d'intérêts sans nécessairement nuire à la qualité globale de la démocratie canadienne.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".