Constituency service and representation in Chile: The effects of remoteness and social deprivation

This note examines and tests the determinants of constituency service in the Chilean Chamber of Deputies. We argue that socio-demographic factors lead towards differences in the provision of constituency service. We use a new data set of meetings between legislators, constituents, and groups to provide evidence for two main hypotheses. First, Chilean deputies from more remote districts devote a higher proportion of their meetings to addressing local or personal issues from constituents (Centre-Periphery Hypothesis). Second, deputies from districts in worse socio-economic situations also provide relatively more constituency services of this type (Social Deprivation Hypothesis).

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the journal Representation: Journal of Representative Democracy on 23 July 2023, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2023.2237028.