From Popular Majorities to Policy: Making a Connection without Conceptual Shortcuts.

We confront two obstacles that have been blocking passageways to understanding democratic representation. One is ambiguity in trying to read popular majority policy positions from elections. The other is identifying representative acts of governance as voice rather than policy. Our arguments and analysis show that when the two are addressed simultaneously we gain important insights into how democracies govern from the middle, near a position of a supposed median voter, while responding to non-centrist tendencies of a plurality-vote winning party. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]