This book uses Sweden as a test case to analyze how parliament and elected representatives function in a representative democracy. Despite the status of Scandinavian countries as perhaps the world’s most egalitarian societies, the book argues that the best summary characterization of Swedish representative democracy is an elitist system run from above. The book also argues that an individualist representational model is relevant to the Swedish setting and most likely, to other settings as well. Representative democracy is not just party-based democracy - not even in a country with strong and disciplined parties. The book takes a broad approach to the study of political representation. It integrates into a single analytical framework concepts and theories from neighbouring traditions such as legislative behaviour, opinion formation and interest organizations. The study is based on a comprehensive set of data, including three surveys of the Members of the Swedish Parliament, corresponding voter surveys and content analysis of mass media and parliamentary records.

A comparative analysis of why democratic institutions often produce dissonance between citizens' preferences and public policy in separation-of-powers regimes.

Very roughly speaking, representation theory studies symmetry in linear spaces. It is a beautiful mathematical subject which has many applications, ranging from number theory and combinatorics to geometry, probability theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum field theory. The goal of this book is to give a ``holistic'' introduction to representation theory, presenting it as a unified subject which studies representations of associative algebras and treating the representation theories of groups, Lie algebras, and quivers as special cases. Using this approach, the book covers a number of standard topics in the representation theories of these structures. Theoretical material in the book is supplemented by many problems and exercises which touch upon a lot of additional topics; the more difficult exercises are provided with hints. The book is designed as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. It should be accessible to students with a strong background in linear algebra and a basic knowledge of abstract algebra.

Draws from political science, history, political theory, economics, and anthropology to answer the most important questions about political representation.

Introducing finite-dimensional representations of Lie groups and Lie algebras, this example-oriented book works from representation theory of finite groups, through Lie groups and Lie algrbras to the finite dimensional representations of the classical groups.

Representation theory is an important part of modern mathematics, not only as a subject in its own right but also as a tool for many applications. It provides a means for exploiting symmetry, making it particularly useful in number theory, algebraic geometry, and differential geometry, as well as classical and modern physics. The goal of this book is to present, in a motivated manner, the basic formalism of representation theory as well as some important applications. The style is intended to allow the reader to gain access to the insights and ideas of representation theory--not only to verify that a certain result is true, but also to explain why it is important and why the proof is natural. The presentation emphasizes the fact that the ideas of representation theory appear, sometimes in slightly different ways, in many contexts. Thus the book discusses in some detail the fundamental notions of representation theory for arbitrary groups. It then considers the special case of complex representations of finite groups and discusses the representations of compact groups, in both cases with some important applications. There is a short introduction to algebraic groups as well as an introduction to unitary representations of some noncompact groups. The text includes many exercises and examples.

Offers an introduction to four different flavours of representation theory: representations of algebras, groups, Lie algebras, and Hopf algebras. A separate part of the book is devoted to each of these areas and they are all treated in sufficient depth to enable the reader to pursue research in representation theory.