A seat for every class? The representation of class-based work logic in European democracies

The underrepresentation of the working class in national parliaments remains a persistent challenge to achieving equitable political representation. While existing research has documented this disparity, it predominantly focuses on Western Europe and relies on traditional class measures that overlook the growing heterogeneity of modern labour markets. This interdisciplinary project, combining insights from sociology and political science, addresses these limitations by employing Oesch’s occupation-based class framework, which offers a more nuanced understanding of how distinct work logics – technical, organisational, and interpersonal – shape patterns of parliamentary representation. Additionally, it expands the geographical scope to include democracies in Southern and Eastern Europe. This project examines the parliamentary representation of different work-logic classes and their policy preferences. By employing machine learning techniques to analyse parliamentary interventions, it innovatively investigates the contested link between descriptive and substantive representation. In doing so, it deepens our understanding of whether the descriptive underrepresentation of certain work-logic classes translates into their substantive underrepresentation. The analysis draws on multiple data sources, including the European Social Survey (2002-2023), the Pathways to Power Project (1991 - 2010), and web-scraped parliamentary intervention data (2002-2023).