Representation in Action: Canadian MPs in the Constituencies by Royce Koop, Heather Bastedo, and Kelly Blidook (review)

Today's voters are concerned that their politicians are not representing their interests. This book is timely for anyone interested in Canadian politics and how Canadian Members of Parliament represent their constituents. The first two chapters are primarily of interest to scholars considering conducting their own research on this topic, while the remaining chapters provide insights into the everyday representational activities undertaken by Canadian politicians.

The book is well organised and written in an easy-to-read format. The introduction and first chapter position this project within the current American and Canadian literature and provide the background which led to the development of the authors' 'Representational Connections Framework', which is used to evaluate the observed behaviours of 11 MPs. The observations are presented in Chapters 2–6, with a final chapter discussing their conclusion that 'however scholars conceive of representation in this country with all its democratic shortcomings' (p. 199) there is substantial diversity among how MPs represent their constituents unique to each MP and riding.

The authors' Framework establishes that personal goals/background, constituency context, and experiential learning influence how MPs represent their constituents. It also suggests that MPs connect with constituencies in one or more of four ways: via policy, service, symbolic, or party connections. This project's importance is that the information used to test their model is based on both participant observation (never before used in studies of Canadian politicians) and one-on-one interviews. An average of three days was spent with MPs in their constituencies and two days in Ottawa. From a list of 32 MPs, 11 were recruited, consideration given to party, region, urban/rural, gender, experience, and ethnicity differences. The authors acknowledge that this is not a representative sample, but are individual cases telling a story. Three of the MPs warrant their own chapter (almost half the book) where the authors outline, in great detail, their observations and analyse the MPs' activities using their Framework. The following chapter highlights, in less detail, three additional MPs while Chapter 6 looks at the activities of the final five MPs. Unfortunately, instead of its own stand-alone chapter, chapter six also includes a summary of the four themes about the practice of representation in Canada which seem to initially be based upon these last five participants, but which also includes information about the other MPs.

Although the authors are keen observers of Canadian politics, for former politicians or those who have worked for politicians, very little of this information is new and the authors' conclusion that there is a great diversity in representation styles is well known. The authors suggest that party discipline is an impediment to MPs' representation of constituency concerns and yet individual politicians find ways to influence party positions on matters important to their constituents. Although an excellent contribution to the study of Canadian politicians, future studies should include insiders as advisors or co-authors to further the study of representation in Canada.