Trustees,delegates and responsiveness: An interpretive case study of Chinese New Zealanders’ participation in representative politics

Studies of Chinese New Zealanders’ participation in representative politics

The settlement history of Chinese New Zealanders dates back to the 1800s. Most came from Canton province in mainland China and worked as gold miners (Ip, 2005). At that time, they faced severe discrimination. The poll tax (an entry tax) was the most notorious policy in the long list of anti-Chinese discriminatory policies. Additionally, Chinese New Zealanders had no right to apply for citizenship until 1952. New Zealand has witnessed another wave of Chinese immigrants since the 1980s (Ip, 2005). The 1987 Immigration Act is a primary pull factor attracting skilled and business Chinese immigrants to New Zealand. The domestic upheavals in Mainland China and Hong Kong at that time is the primary push factor. The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the British government’s handover of Hong Kong to Mainland China in 1997 made people from these places feel insecure and uncertain about their future. Therefore, many people from these two places immigrated to New Zealand (Ip, 2005).

Given their long settlement history in New Zealand, a few studies have explored their participation in New Zealand’s representative politics. It was observed that Taiwanese New Zealanders often invited MPs from districts with sizeable Chinese residents to attend Chinese cultural events. These events served as a platform where Taiwanese New Zealanders could communicate with MPs and raise their demands. Additionally, Taiwanese associations mobilized their members to vote during general and local elections by organizing public lectures to explain how to enroll and vote (Du, 2022).

Park (2006) surveyed 1,000 Chinese New Zealanders from all over New Zealand to investigate their electoral participation. She found that Hong Kong New Zealanders had the highest turnout (89.1 percent), while Taiwanese New Zealanders ranked second (84.4 percent) and Mainlander Chinese New Zealanders had the lowest turnout (80.1 percent). She explained that Hong Kong New Zealanders had better English language skills and were more familiar with the British political system than the other two cohorts (Park, 2006: 49). Those advantages made them more active in voting.

The above studies all targeted Chinese New Zealanders as a whole group rather than specifically tackling first-generation Chinese New Zealanders. However, empirical studies have demonstrated that first-generation immigrants often have different patterns of political participation from their descendants (Bilodeau, 2014). The 2018 Census shows that over 70 percent of Chinese New Zealanders were born overseas (StatsNZ, n.d). Recent studies on first-generation Chinese New Zealanders’ political participation have proven that political socialization significantly affects their voting behaviors (Du, 2022; Huang, 2023), yet they did not analyze their assessments of elected representatives’ performance. On the one hand, studies on Chinese New Zealanders’ political participation cannot accurately reflect first-generation Chinese New Zealanders’ participation in representative politics. On the other hand, understanding how Chinese New Zealanders assess representatives’ responsiveness reflects New Zealand’s capacity to handle diversity and its regime’s democratic legitimacy. This research fills the gap by asking how first-generation Chinese New Zealanders conceive their relationships with elected representatives and assess representatives’ responsiveness.

Data collection and analysis

This research is a qualitative case study. I conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 38 Chinese New Zealanders in Auckland, New Zealand, from 2020 to 2021. I designed this research as an interpretive case study. Although interpretive case studies have shortcomings of limited validity and weak generalizability (Yin, 2012), they are good at revealing nuances of how participants conceived their relationships with elected representatives and how they assessed these representatives’ responsiveness. Therefore, an interpretive case study based on in-depth interviews was suitable for this research.

Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are the top three sources of Chinese immigrants’ intake (StatsNZ, n.d). Therefore, I narrowed the target group of first-generation Chinese New Zealanders from these three places. First-generation Chinese immigrants are diverse according to age, socioeconomic status and length of residence in New Zealand. Therefore, I used a purposive sampling strategy (Tongco, 2007) to achieve information richness.

Two additional criteria guided participant recruitment: (1) immigrants currently living in Auckland and (2) immigrants aged 18 years and above. Potential participants were approached by posting recruitment advertisements on social media, sending invitation emails to Chinese associations, and asking respondents to invite their families and friends to join the research.

All interviewees read the Information Sheet and were fully aware of their rights as participants before the interviews. They agreed to be recorded. I interviewed 17 females and 21 males, ranging from 28 to 86 years old. Their length of residence in New Zealand ranges from six to 63 years. They came from different walks of life, such as self-employers, retired people, professional researchers, construction workers and lawyers. Table 1 presents their detailed information. I transcribed and translated these interviews into English because most (37 out of 38) were in Mandarin. The average length of interviews was 76 minutes.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Information regarding interviewees.

	Age	Gender	Place of origin	Length of residence (in years)	Occupation	Immigrant identity
1	83	Female	Hong Kong	61	Retired business manager	NZ Citizen
2	72	Male	Taiwan	50	Retired professor	NZ Citizen
3	70	Male	Taiwan	47	Retired civil servant	NZ Citizen
4	76	Male	Hong Kong	51	Retired engineer	NZ Citizen
5	45	Male	Taiwan	30	Self-employed	PR
6	46	Male	PRC	8	Lawyer	PR
7	42	Female	PRC	8	Homemaker	PR
8	45	Male	PRC	11	NGO worker	PR
9	30	Female	PRC	4	Engineer	PR
10	39	Male	PRC	10	Self-employed	PR
11	48	Female	Taiwan	26	Manager	PR
12	36	Female	PRC	18	Homemaker	PR
13	79	Male	PRC	6	Retired worker	PR
14	73	Male	PRC	5	Painter	PR
15	32	Male	Hong Kong	13	Self-employed	PR
16	28	Female	Taiwan	10	White collar	PR
17	67	Female	PRC	5	Retired teacher	PR
18	40	Male	Taiwan	18	Co-founder of a company	PR
19	36	Female	PRC	10	White collar	PR
20	31	Male	PRC	10	Chef	PR
21	34	Male	Taiwan	7	Real estate agent	PR
22	33	Male	PRC	12	Co-founder of a company	PR
23	35	Female	PRC	14	Homemaker	PR
24	39	Female	Hong Kong	8	Manager	PR
25	46	Female	PRC	15	Research fellow	PR
26	37	Female	PRC	7	Homemaker	PR
27	30	Male	PRC	6	Civil servant	PR
28	32	Female	PRC	6	Immigration agent	PR
29	46	Female	Taiwan	19	Homemaker	PR
30	38	Male	Taiwan	8	Businessman	PR
31	38	Female	PRC	6	Homemaker	PR
32	32	Female	PRC	7	Self-employed	PR
33	34	Male	PRC	7	Carpenter	PR
34	58	Male	Hong Kong	27	Artist	PR
35	86	Female	PRC	63	Retired engineer	PR
36	39	Male	Hong Kong	13	NGO worker	PR
37	42	Male	PRC	18	NGO worker	PR
38	37	Male	Hong Kong	10	Manager	PR

Interviews consisted of two sections. Firstly, I investigated how interviewees understood their relationships with elected representatives. I assumed that interviewees conceived representatives as trustees or delegates. Therefore, I explained the meaning of the two models by reading cue cards and then asked interviewees how they viewed their relationships with representatives. I ensured that my explanations of the two models to all interviewees remained consistent. However, I noticed that interviewees might conceive the role of representatives differently from the two models. Therefore, I encouraged them to describe other possible relationships they wanted to develop with representatives. As anticipated, some interviewees offered alternative ways to construct their relationships with representatives. I invited them to describe their conceived alternative relationships in detail. Secondly, I investigated how interviewees assessed representatives’ responsiveness. I asked whether they had interacted with elected representatives before, including members of local boards and MPs. If so, (1) what factors motivated their interactions with these representatives, (2) were their concerns resolved and (3) how did they assess these representatives’ responsiveness? If not, (1) what prevented their interactions and (2) how did they evaluate these representatives’ responsiveness? Noticing the possible influence of (ir)rationality, I examined whether interviewees used their conceived relationships with representatives to assess representatives’ responsiveness. If they were rational, they would use their conceived relationships with representatives to assess representatives’ responsiveness. When interviewees’ responses suggested the same and repeated themes, I stopped interviewing new people according to the data saturation principle (Charmaz, 2014).

I used reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to process the data collected. The data analysis consisted of three stages. First, I listened to interview recordings and closely read interview transcripts while taking notes and reflecting on their responses. I explored the Chinese and English transcripts line-by-line to construct initial codes that I believed were relevant to my research questions. This initial coding stage helped me generally understand how they viewed their relationships with elected representatives and assessed representatives’ responsiveness. After developing the initial codes, I transformed them into themes. I attempted to abstract the long descriptive codes into a higher level of concise and abstract themes under the guidance of the principal-agent theory. The materials I analyzed at this stage were the initial codes generated at the first stage. The supplementary materials were relevant literature on two representation models and representatives’ responsiveness. I found concrete answers helpful in addressing the two research questions at this stage. The last stage explored the relationship between interviewees’ perceptions of their relations with elected representatives and their assessment of representatives’ responsiveness.

Limitations

The research has some limitations. First, all interviewees were Aucklanders. I lived in Auckland during the COVID-19 pandemic when the government announced travel restrictions. I tried to conduct online and phone interviews, allowing me to interview participants outside Auckland. However, after three online interviews, I found that participants were more willing to share their participatory experiences face-to-face rather than online. It was probably because political participation was a sensitive topic for Chinese New Zealanders and interviewees would trust me more when communicating in person. The geographic restriction may generate bias in my findings. Chinese New Zealanders also live in other cities, such as Wellington (eight percent) and Canterbury (eight percent) (StatsNZ, n.d), and those living in different cities had various political participation activities from their Aucklander counterparts (Huang, 2023). However, nearly 70 percent of Chinese New Zealanders work and live in Auckland (StatsNZ, n.d). Auckland is also the gateway city for most Chinese immigrants (StatsNZ, n.d). Therefore, my findings, to some extent, reflect how Chinese New Zealanders understand their relationships with elected representatives and how they assess representatives’ responsiveness.

Second, political socialization affects people’s political activities and their understanding of the principle-agent relationship when interacting with representatives (Bilodeau, 2014). Studies targeting first-generation Chinese New Zealanders from other places might have more diverse findings than this research based on interviewees from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan due to varied political socialization experiences. Last, I used neutral language to explain the trustee and delegate models. I also emphasized that I did not favor either representation model and that there was no right or wrong for interviewees’ preferred representation model. Nevertheless, interviewees might infer a subjective sense of my preferred model from my description. They might give corresponding answers based on their wrong guess of my preferences. It may also generate a bias in my findings.

People’s perceptions of their relationships with elected representatives

Interviewees conceived their relationships with elected representatives differently. Seventeen considered representatives as their trustees, and eight perceived representatives as their delegates. Surprisingly, more interviewees preferred the trustee model since the existing studies have often found that ethnic minorities preferred the delegate model due to their politically marginalized statuses (Barker and Carman, 2012; Schildkraut, 2013).

Interviewees preferred the trustee model primarily for two reasons. First, five interviewees were not interested in politics. They rarely participated in other political activities except for voting in general and local elections. Nor did they actively join political discussions in their daily lives. Therefore, they preferred the trustee model. The other 12 interviewees conceived representatives as trustees because they thought they were incompetent to make “proper political decisions,” even though they had varied interpretations of what “proper political decisions” meant. Eleven interviewees explained that “proper decisions” required familiarity with New Zealand’s political system and acknowledged that they lacked sufficient political knowledge. Interviewee 15 said, “I am unfamiliar with how New Zealand’s political system operates, even though I have been here for seven years. My lack of political knowledge discourages me from offering suggestions to representatives, not to mention asking them to adopt my suggestions.” Nine interviewees highlighted that “proper decisions” required decision-makers to consider the interests of all involved parties equally. However, they said they either could not comprehensively understand all involved parties’ interests or failed to be completely neutral in allocating limited resources to different groups. Interviewee 2 said, “If you ask me to make public decisions, I will prioritize my interests, my family’s and friends’ interests, and the Chinese community’s interests. However, politics is doing good for the public. Politicians are better at developing an overall plan.”

Although these interviewees preferred the trustee model, it did not necessarily mean they completely trusted these representatives. Only three interviewees explicitly expressed their trust in representatives, particularly in Chinese MPs. Others explained that they preferred the trustee model because they thought representatives could do better than themselves in making public decisions. Their trust or mistrust in representatives depended on how representatives performed and responded to their demands.

Among those who preferred the delegate model, five thought it was the best way to address people’s concerns because representatives had limited knowledge of what the Chinese community truly wanted. Interviewee 4 explained, “Representatives, particularly non-Chinese representatives, tend not to know our special concerns because they do not often visit us and collect our problems. Meanwhile, most of us rarely approach representatives to raise our concerns. Due to the bilateral blocked communication channel, I prefer the delegate representation model.”

Seven preferred the delegate model because they were intensely interested in politics. They regularly followed social and political news and actively joined online political discussions on different WeChat groups. They were confident about their capacity to propose suggestions to representatives and hoped the representatives would act according to their suggestions. This finding echoes Bowler’s (2017) assumption that people interested in politics tend to conceive representatives as their delegates.

However, interviewees’ intense interest in politics did not necessarily equalize their acquisition of sufficient political knowledge. Many were interested in particular aspects of politics, such as migration policy, employment, economic development and the Sino-New Zealand relationship. Few precisely knew how New Zealand’s political system operated and could distinguish the responsibilities of electorate MPs and list MPs. Nor did they ever mention the varied responsibilities and power between Ministers and backbenchers. Only two young interviewees pointed out that MPs from different political parties (the ruling vs the opposition) had varied political power in making political decisions. One majored in Political Science for his university studies, while the other volunteered for party candidates during the election campaigns. Interviewees’ unawareness of distinguishing the roles of different types of MPs partially explains their unrealistic expectations of elected representatives, further leading to their unfair assessments of representatives’ responsiveness.

Since many interviewees claimed they did not have sufficient political knowledge, I wondered to what extent they felt confident in offering suggestions to representatives and whether it would change their preferences for the delegate model. The interviewees’ answers varied. Some hesitated about their choices of the delegate model, while others insisted on their choices. Interviewee 22 said, “I still prefer representatives to be the listeners, even though I may not offer what politicians think to be the most appropriate suggestions. If representatives listen to my suggestions and the results are undesirable, I take that risk. However, if representatives do not listen to my suggestions and the results are not desirable, I refuse to take that price because it is not my decision.” Interviewee 22’s feedback suggests that a lack of political knowledge sometimes does not motivate people to choose the trustee model.

Thirteen interviewees did not have a stable preference for the representation model. They expected representatives to behave differently case by case. Their preferences for the representation model were contextualized. I categorized this group as preferring a dynamic model of representation. They preferred representatives to act differently according to different situations. When facing issues closely related to the Chinese community, they wanted representatives to be the listeners. They thought the representatives might not accurately know Chinese New Zealanders’ genuine concerns, and they were able to offer helpful suggestions. Therefore, they preferred the delegate model in this situation. When facing issues related to society’s development or welfare, they thought the representatives would be more competent than themselves in making decisions. Therefore, interviewees allowed the representatives to act based on their judgments. Interviewees of this ilk also gave their trust or distrust to representatives based on their political performances and achievements.

A noticeable homeland-based difference existed among interviewees regarding their preferences for the representation model, echoing empirical studies’ findings (Schildkraut, 2013). Most Mainlanders, particularly those in old and middle-aged cohorts, preferred the trustee model. Older people trusted politicians more to make political decisions due to their lack of sufficient political knowledge. Middle-aged people preferred the trustee model because they were busy with work and households. They believed representatives would make more professional political decisions than themselves. Additionally, both older and middle-aged people admitted they were still learning and adapting to democratic politics. They acknowledged that they were used to letting government officials decide public policies and follow their orders, which was how politics operated in authoritarian Mainland China. Those from Hong Kong and Taiwan preferred the delegate or dynamic model. Their choices primarily result from their previous experiences of participating in democratic politics. Most young Mainlanders who received education in New Zealand preferred the delegate model. They cherished their precious political rights, expressed intense interest in politics, and were enthusiastic about communicating with representatives. The differences between how Mainlanders from different age cohorts conceived their relationships with representatives demonstrate that political socialization influences people’s choices of representation model.

To conclude, interviewees conceived their relationships with representatives in three ways. Those preferring the trustee model thought politics was complicated and doubted their competence in offering professional and neutral suggestions to representatives. Those wanting representatives to be delegates were often interested in politics, even though they might be incompetent in making professional political decisions. Others expected representatives to behave differently based on concrete situations.

People’s assessments of representatives’ responsiveness

All interviewees valued representatives’ responsiveness, irrespective of which type of representation model they preferred. However, they interpreted the meaning of “responsiveness” differently according to their preferred model. Those preferring the delegate model understood “responsiveness” as representatives strictly following their suggestions and proposing policies to address their concerns. Interviewees who perceived representatives as their trustees granted certain autonomy to representatives regarding making political decisions and implementing policies. However, they emphasized the significance of transparency and relied on it to assess responsiveness. Those preferring the dynamic model thought timely deliberation with representatives was the core criterion to assess responsiveness. Interviewees’ varied interpretations of “responsiveness” correspond to the criteria mentioned above of “listening,” “informing” and “deliberating” (Jacobs and Shapiro, 2000; Mansbridge, 2003; Powell, 2004).

Interviewees who wanted the delegate model were more dissatisfied with representatives’ responsiveness than the other two groups. Interviewee 17 said, “Although representatives were approachable and appeared willing to listen to our suggestions, they rarely acted as we wanted or resolved our concerns.” Interviewee 13 recalled that she attended candidate meetings of both the National and the Labor parties in the Chinese communities several times during the 2020 election campaign. Although attendees always raised their concerns about the increasing racial discrimination against the Chinese after the pandemic and asked political parties to propose concert policies to address the problem, she did not see either party offering corresponding policies. She commented, “Those candidates expressed sincere sympathy toward us but rarely took actions to solve the problems. I feel like their collection of our concerns was more likely a political show, symbolically representing their care for the Chinese community. But the fact was they did not.”

Although all interviewees who chose the delegate model were dissatisfied with representatives’ responsiveness, a few could accurately explain why they thought this phenomenon happened. Interviewees’ frequently mentioned answers were representatives sacrificing people’s interests for their political ambitions, which echoes the existing findings (Borowiak, 2011). However, it is impossible to verify interviewees’ assumptions before we understand how representatives respond to people’s accusations against them. Additionally, interviewees rarely mentioned reasons such as the delegation chain and being constrained by party principles that weaken representatives’ capacities to respond to voters’ suggestions (Powell, 2004).

Those who preferred the trustee model allowed representatives to act according to their understanding of what was best for the Chinese community. Their assessment of representatives’ responsiveness did not depend on whether or not representatives followed their instructions. However, most emphasized the significance of making information transparent and available for them to review. They could evaluate whether or not representatives abused their power by regularly reviewing the needed information. Additionally, they pointed out that, in reality, it was impossible to ask representatives to do exactly as people wished. The delegation chain characterizes that multiple agents, including representatives, heads of different government departments and civil servants, are involved in policy-implementing processes (Gilardi and Braun, 2006). Interviewee 9 explained, “Sometimes I feel it is unfair to blame MPs for their unresponsiveness. If you watch Yes Minister, you will understand how complicated it is to implement policies from the top to the down.” Therefore, they did not prioritize “adopting” but chose “listening” and “informing” as criteria to assess representatives’ responsiveness.

However, 13 interviewees complained about the difficulty of obtaining timely information in Chinese to understand how public policies were made and implemented. They attributed their weak capacities in assessing representatives’ responsiveness to a lack of necessary resources. This finding echoes Du’s (2022) report of a lack of sufficient channels for Chinese New Zealanders to collect political knowledge in Chinese. Five interviewees who felt comfortable reading English also complained that they did not know where to find relevant information in English. It shows that the language barrier was not the sole reason for Chinese New Zealanders’ lack of political knowledge. Therefore, being unfamiliar with New Zealand’s political system and the existing immature information mechanisms that ignore the importance of delivering information in ethnic languages undermined the interviewees’ capacities to assess representatives’ responsiveness accurately.

Former Labor MP Naisi Chen noticed the necessity of opening channels for Chinese New Zealanders to help them understand how public policies were made and implemented. She ran her official WeChat account to explain laws and policies, particularly those closely relevant to the Chinese community. Additionally, she organized live chats on WeChat, inviting people to ask her questions regarding specific policies. ³ Three interviewees praised her effort and said her WeChat account helped them understand policy implementation. Therefore, not all interviewees who perceived representatives as their trustees were dissatisfied with the representatives’ performance. Additionally, Naisi Chen’s actions demonstrate that social media helps ethnic minorities obtain the political information they need (Jacobs and Schillemans, 2016).

Generalizing how interviewees who chose the dynamic model assessed representatives’ responsiveness was difficult because they wanted representatives to act differently in different contexts. However, compared with those who insisted on the delegate model, they granted representatives certain freedom to act. If representatives did not act as they expected, most were willing to listen to representatives’ explanations. They would further assess representatives’ performance based on the latter’s explanations. Eleven interviewees emphasized the significance of deliberation in assessing representatives’ responsiveness, which echoes Mansbridge’s (2003) criterion. Some conveyed eagerness to join the deliberation, where they could express their viewpoints during decision-making processes. Others said they wanted deliberation available, even though they might not participate. In this aspect, these interviewees treasured the availability of political opportunities. Interviewee 27 explained, “Democracy means participation, and I want to participate in decision-making. It is my freedom to choose whether to participate in the deliberation, but platforms must be available. Unfortunately, at least my friends and I do not find these platforms open to Chinese New Zealanders.” Interviewee 26 also made a similar complaint regarding the lack of deliberation platforms.

People’s unstable political interests often make it difficult for representatives to respond to their demands adequately. Deliberation is a helpful method to address this problem. As Borowiak (2011) maintains, deliberative exchanges between representatives and voters help both sides generate new understandings of the discussed issues. Therefore, the emphasis of interviewees who preferred the dynamic model on using deliberation to assess representatives’ responsiveness was reasonable and fair.

To conclude, all interviewees treasured responsiveness, but their assessment criteria differed. Those who preferred the delegate model assessed representatives’ responsiveness by examining whether representatives acted as they asked or solved their concerns. They were strongly dissatisfied with the representatives’ responsiveness. Interviewees who perceived representatives as trustees valued information transparency and availability when assessing responsiveness. Interviewees who adopted a dynamic model emphasized deliberation when assessing representatives’ responsiveness. These two groups of people had internal disagreements regarding the representatives’ responsiveness.