Why Casework? Reimagining Political Representation Through Proactive Service

This dissertation reconceptualizes constituent service as a central mechanism of democratic representation rather than a peripheral or purely electoral activity. I develop a new theoretical framework, Administrative Representation, that defines casework as procedural intercession between individuals and bureaucracies shaping access to public benefits, policy implementation, and perceptions of government responsiveness. By casework as representation, I identify the inherent inequalities of the Reactive Casework Model, and explore how the consequences of requiring the constituent to act as first mover shape access to AR. Building on this framework, I introduce Proactive Casework Theory, which challenges the dominant reactive service tradition by arguing that representative-initiated outreach can reduce inequalities in access to government services. The project combines historical analysis, original data on the public-facing service infrastructure of casework and qualitative evidence on bureaucratic interactions to demonstrate that the practice is a constitutive component of modern representation with meaningful distributional and institutional consequences.