Between local and national interests: The impact of how constituents are perceived on legislators' representational styles in Lebanon and Jordan

The American model of representation has been researched and debated extensively in the United States. After long academic debate, the concept of representation has evolved into a mixture of the underlying components of authority, accountability, and responsiveness (Pitkin 1969, Eulau and Karps 1977, Bernard 1997, Eulau 1967, and Birch 1972).;This dissertation found that legislators in the "favors legislators" category only represented their district constituents, while legislators in the "national legislators" category only represented their nation and their parliamentary bloc/party/political movement. "Hybrid legislators" represented their nation, parliamentary bloc/party/political movement, and their district-level constituents. Different types of constituencies pressured legislators to respond in different ways to their respective demands and needs. "Favors legislators" responded to constituents primarily through casework, while "hybrid legislators" used casework, pork-barrel projects, and policies to respond to their complex constituencies. Finally, "national legislators" responded primarily through policies.;These assumptions and debates were applied in this study of legislators in Jordan and Lebanon in an effort to understand how legislators perceive their constituents, how they behave in the face of constituents' demands and needs, and what implications arise from these behaviors. The data gathered in Jordan and Lebanon present a picture that is concurrent with the view advanced by the American model of representation. In this study, Jordanian and Lebanese legislators were sorted into different categories based on how they perceived their constituencies, and legislators responded to each of their constituencies in a different way.