The Unenfranchised: Political exclusion and the parliamentary representation of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK parliament.

This project aims to understand how and to what extent politically vulnerable groups, specifically refugees and asylum seekers, are represented in the UK parliamentary system. Utilising a mixed methods approach, this research will advance knowledge of democratic theory and practice in the UK by providing an empirical assessment of the parliamentary representation of refugees. This project will apply conceptual debates about representation and democracy framed around an inquiry into the political representation of refugees in the UK using advanced empirical methods such as content analysis, social network analysis (SNA) and semi-structured interviews; a series of mixed methods approaches enables this project to contribute to our understanding of parliamentary representation.

This project challenges the implicit assumption in much political theory that only those with the right to vote can be represented in parliamentary democracies. This project assess how effective political representation is when a part of the 'represented' remain unenfranchised. Through the critical analysis of parliamentary speeches, texts and a wider dataset, I will seek to understand the representation of a vulnerable unenfranchised group, refugees and asylum seekers. The UK has been chosen for this study because of its long established tradition of representative parliamentary democracy and the salience of parliamentary debates about refugees in recent years.

This project situates itself in the surrogate representation theory (SRT) literature by focussing on the question of representation where there is no electoral relationship between representatives and constituents. With previous studies focusing on the representation of voter issues that are not limited by constituencies; this project aims to plug a gap in the literature by applying the concept to within-district SRT, that is those who are not eligible to vote but who reside within a parliamentary district. This study will expand our understanding of representation theoretically and empirically and effectively evaluate the capacity of the representative parliamentary system to be inclusive of vulnerable minorities. My research builds on SRT by emphasising that when we think of constituents as voters we miss the importance of representing constituents who cannot vote.

My proposed research will critically evaluate how MPs as formally elected representatives substantively represent refugees in comparison to other non-parliamentary methods of representing refugees, such as through political advocacy by NGOs. This project will therefore contribute to the existing scholarly debate by creating a measure of representation in parliament to mean active consideration of issues that affect refugees. This will be measured and defined as things such as MPs asking questions; proposing early day motions; being a member of a relevant APPG. These measures are aimed at quantifying MP representation in order to gain a fuller picture of the extent to which refugees are represented adequately in absentia.

This will be complemented by methods such as SNA which is useful for building complex pictures of interactions that affect the way in which an MP represents refugees to be visualised. Multivariate regression analysis will be conducted following on from the content analysis to build a measure of representation, this is important to aid understanding and analysis. This will be quantified by coding parliamentary behaviour in order to generate MP level metrics for regression analysis. MP interviews will be conducted so a comparison can be drawn between the quantitative data analysed about the extent to which MPs represent refugee issues, and the narrative that MPs articulate in their role as a representative.

Research objectives:

1.To understand how the unenfranchised are represented in a parliamentary democracy.

2. To evaluate if refugees are adequately represented in the UK parliament drawing o