Representing unborn generations to more suitably include future interests in today's climate policymaking has sparked much interest in recent years. In this review we survey the main proposed instruments to achieve this effect, some of which have been attempted in polities such as Israel, Philippines, Wales, Finland, and Chile. We first review recent normative work on the idea of representing future people in climate governance: The grounds on which it has been advocated, and the main difficulties that traditional forms of (...) representation have encountered when applied to this particular case. We then survey existing institutional means to represent generations to come. We separate out representation in courts, in parliament, and by independent bodies, and review specific instruments including climate litigation, parliamentary commissions, future representatives, youth quotas, and independent offices for future generations. We examine the particular forms whereby each of these may suitably represent future people, including audience representation, surrogate representation, and indicative representation, and discuss the main challenges they encounter in so doing. (shrink)

How might discourse generate political change? So far, democratic theorists have focused largely on how deliberative exchanges might shift political opinion. Responding to empirical research that casts doubt on the generalizability of deliberative mechanisms outside of carefully designed forums, this essay seeks to broaden the scope of discourse theory by considering speech that addresses participants’ identities instead. More specifically, we ask what may be learned about identity-oriented discourse by examining the practice of religious preaching. As we demonstrate, scholars of homiletics—the (...) study of preaching—have identified three core features that support its focus on identity: its unconditionality, its appeal to authoritative texts and traditions, and its diffuse instrumentality. We then ask what each of these features might look like in more straightforwardly political contexts. Finally, we address several normative questions raised by this practice, as a way of exploring the promises and dangers accompanying identity-oriented discourse more generally. (shrink)

Informal political representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups. Such representation can give these groups some say, however mediate, partial, and imperfect, in how things go for them. Coeval with the political goods such representation offers these groups are its particular dangers to them. Mindful of these dangers, skeptics challenge the practice for being, inter alia, unaccountable, unauthorized, inegalitarian, and oppressive. These challenges provide strong pro tanto reasons to think the practice morally impermissible. This paper (...) considers the question: On what conditions is the informal political representation of oppressed and marginalized groups permissible? By responding to skeptics’ challenges, I develop a systematic account of moral constraints that, if adopted, would make such representation permissible. The account that emerges shows that informal political representatives (IPRs) must aim to fulfill two sets of sometimes conflicting duties to the represented: democracy within duties, which concern how the representative treats and relates to the represented, and justice without duties, which concern how the representative’s actions advance the aims of the representation. (shrink)

Abstract1 June 2018 marked a historic moment in Spanish politics, when the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) announced a cabinet with the largest proportion of female ministers in the world. This announcement received extensive coverage in the traditional media. The objective of this research was to measure whether the news had an equivalent impact on Twitter users. To this end, we analyzed the reaction to the appointments based on the popularity of the hashtags #GobiernoSanchez (“Sanchez Government”), (...) #GobiernoFeminista (“Feminist Government”) and #ConsejoMinistras (“Council of Female Ministers”). The most significant findings are that women had even less visibility than they were given in traditional media because of what is not retweeted does not exist, and that the extreme polarization of political life and the media in the public sphere appears to extend to the digital environment of Twitter. (shrink)

Current radical democratic politics is characterized by new participatory spaces for citizens’ engagement, which aim at facilitating the democratic ideals of freedom and equality. These spaces are, however, situated in the context of deep societal inequalities. Modes of discrimination are carried over into participatory interaction. The democratic subject is judged by its physically embodied appearance, which replicates external hierarchies and impedes the freedom of self-expression. To tackle this problem, this article seeks to identify ways to increase the freedom of the (...) subject to explore its multiple self. Understanding the self as inherently fugitive, the article investigates participatory, deliberative and agonistic concepts of self-transformation. As all of them appear limited, it introduces a transformative perspective in democratic thought. Enriching the transformative perspective with queer and gender theory, the article generates the concept of a politics of becoming, which, through radical democratic practices of disidentification, advances the freedom of the subject to change. (shrink)

In this chapter, we evaluate the politically generative dynamic of urban space. Notably, we put forward the notion of the ‘multiplier effect’ of the urban, referring to its ingrained tendency to multiply resistance to oppression and violence being exerted against subaltern groups and minorities and, in doing so, to turn this multiplied resistance into an active force of social change. We, therefore, look at the twofold valence of ‘resistance’: negative and affirmative. Resistance initially takes form as a defensive response to (...) oppression and violence. When this happens, the urban becomes the living platform for a multiplying dynamic of encounter and, potentially, of inter-group solidarity, thus laying the foundations for a cooperative – rather than competitive, as in neoliberal rationality, or inimical, as in national-populist reason – way of ‘being together’. After having developed this argument against the backdrop of the women’s movement in Tehran and the urban disobedience to anti-immigration policies in Italy, our chapter concludes by reflecting on the multiplier effect of urban resistance within the current context of national revanchism. (shrink)

This paper explores the impact of women’s representation in the lower house of the Malaysian Parliament. It is an attempt to see whether women representatives in the Dewan Rakyat are able to make any impact or difference in parliament, in the context of making policy output more women-friendly. Available studies conducted mainly in the West have shown that women legislators are more responsive to women’s interest than their male counterparts, developing distinctive sets of concerns and priorities and taking leading parts (...) in formulating policies that favour women. Through textual analysis of nine years of the Malaysian Parliament, this paper examines the issues that have been introduced and discussed by the women and the impact they made in parliament. It also reveals the critical actors initiating or introducing women-related issues. (shrink)

The case for gender equality on the bench wouldseem too uncontroversial to requirejustification. Yet the practical realities ofthe slow progress of women towards equality ofparticipation both quantitative and qualitativein the judiciary testifies to the continuingneed to argue the case for change. To date, theprimary rationale for promoting gender equalityhas been that women will bring a uniquecontribution to the bench as a result of theirdifferent life experiences, values andattitudes. Such arguments derived fromdifference theory have had a strong appealsince they appear to (...) give legitimacy to theundervalued attributes traditionally associatedas feminine while also promoting the meritprinciple by claiming to improve the quality ofjustice. However, this article argues thatdifference theory arguments are theoreticallyweak, empirically questionable andstrategically dangerous. Instead, it argues forthe adoption of a rationale for gender equalitybased on equity and legitimacy; that equalparticipation of men and women in the justicesystem is an inherent and essential feature ofa democracy without which the judiciary willlose public confidence. This approach, thoughless immediately appealing, is ultimately moresound. (shrink)

Helen Frowe has recently offered what she calls a “practical” account of self-defense. Her account is supposed to be practical by being subjectivist about permissibility and objectivist about liability. I shall argue here that Frowe first makes up a problem that does not exist and then fails to solve it. To wit, her claim that objectivist accounts of permissibility cannot be action-guiding is wrong; and her own account of permissibility actually retains an objectivist (in the relevant sense) element. In addition, (...) her attempt to restrict subjectivism primarily to “urgent” situations like self-defense contradicts her own point of departure and is either incoherent or futile. Finally, the only actual whole-heartedly objectivist account she criticizes is an easy target; while those objectivist accounts one finds in certain Western European jurisdictions are immune to her criticisms. Those accounts are also clearly superior to hers in terms of action-guidingness. (shrink)

In this article I analyse the structural and cultural conditions of low-caste women's political agency in urban north India. Whereas in Western feminist political theory, the sexual division of labour is considered to be a key constraint for women's political participation, I show how this has a secondary relevance in the context analysed. I argue that issues concerning the division of labour are intertwined with and subject to those of male consent and support for women's activities. I illustrate how it (...) is often the supposedly ‘oppressive’ household boundaries rather than alternative outer spaces that, under a series of enabling circumstances, initiate women's political activities. Against this backdrop, I show how Indian women activists’ political agency is shaped by men's role, and how agency's relational nature is embedded in women's lifecycles, everyday practices and cultural expectations; in essence, in overall gendered agency. Comparative analyses between Western and non-Western models of political participation and discourse have only just begun. In this respect, I contribute to this nascent field in the following directions: not only do the arguments I present in this article challenge the individualistic Western subject of political action, but they also complicate the idea of the resulting empowerment as a culturally constructed process whose understanding arises from the dialectics between insider and outsider values. (shrink)

A mudanza climática representa un desafío urxente para as democracias modernas e para as formas de acción colectiva organizadas para loitar contra as consecuencias das alteracións climáticas. Ante isto, poden os sistemas democráticos evolucionar para enfrontar estes desafíos? O presente traballo deseña unha reformulación da democracia liberal baseada en dous principios xerais: a sostenibilidade e a democratización da democracia. Tendo en consideración que as consecuencias xeradas pola mudanza climática terán un impacto considerábel nas formas sociais de organización, analizarei o vencello (...) entre sostenibilidade e democracia; en primeiro lugar, para definir de que vou falar cando falo de sostenibilidade. En segundo lugar, para estudar como os novos riscos orixinados polas alteracións climáticas esixen dunha revisión das formas representativas de democracia. (shrink)

On the face of it, self-censorship is profoundly subversive of democracy, particularly in its talk-centric forms, and undermines the culture of openness and publicity on which it relies. This paper has two purposes. The first is to develop a conception of self-censorship that allows us to capture what is distinctive about the concept from a political perspective and which allows us to understand the democratic anxiety about self-censorship: if it is not obvious that biting our tongues is always wrong, we (...) need a fuller account of the moral sensibility that finds it so troubling and this is elaborated here. The second is to develop an argument to the effect that this sensibility should not have the last, or only, word, but instead that self-censorship should be viewed as an ‘ordinary vice’ of democratic societies. The grounds for tolerating it rest on the democratic values that critics believe it threatens. (shrink)

El artículo plantea algunas condiciones que permitan superar las dos posiciones en las que parece alternativamente preso el debate actual sobre la inmigración: la visión instrumental, torpemente pragmática, y la "humanitaria", anclada en la conmiseración o la piedad. Para alcanzar la dimensión política es preciso superar un análisis de los flujos migratorios erróneo, el que esta en la base de ambas posiciones. Y si se supera esa visión, se superaran los actuales instrumentos jurídicos de política de inmigración, que no son (...) acordes con el reconocimiento pleno y la garantía de los derechos humanos fundamentales, pero tampoco con el necesario reconocimiento de la condición de sujeto del espacio publico a los inmigrantes que residen establemente, es decir, con las exigencias de una democracia plural e inclusiva, que es el reto, pero también la oportunidad que nos ofrece otro análisis de la inmigración, que recupere la dimensión política profunda de este fenómeno, en el orden interno y en el internacional. (shrink)

This paper shows that the problem of treating people as equals in a world marked by deep-seated and, often, recalcitrant inequalities has implications for the way we approach the provision of security and justice. On the one hand, it means that racial profiling will generally be unjustified even when it might promote collective interests in security, on the other, it means that we should strive to create racially mixed juries, even in cases where defendant and alleged-victim are of the same (...) race. The paper examines a recent report on race and jury trials in the United Kingdom and concludes that, despite the author's claims that all-white juries are fair, the data shows the complex ways in which racial differences are translated into unjustified and arbitrary inequalities. Hence, it concludes, racially mixed juries are desirable, and sometimes necessary for justice, though probably not sufficient. (shrink)

Most punishment theories acknowledge neither the full extent of the harms which punishment risks, nor the caring practices which punishment entails. Consequently, I shall argue, punishment in most of its current conceptualizations is inconsistent with treating offenders as equals qua persons. The nature of criminal punishment, and of our interactions with offenders in punishment decision-making and delivery, risks causing harm to offenders. Harm is normalized when central to definitions of punishment, desensitizing us to unintended harms and obscuring caring practices. Offenders (...) may be partially silenced and excluded by mainstream criminal justice practices which limit interaction between offenders and practitioners. When we ignore significant harms, or silence and exclude, we treat others as passive non-subjects. This partially objectifies offenders, and is inconsistent with treatment as equals. Penal theories employing harm-centred and harm-normalizing definitions of punishment can provide few resources to help practitioners either avoid, or recognize and respond to, harms. Care ethics, by contrast, motivates the avoidance of harm, ongoing inclusive engagement, and respectful interaction with others. I argue that defining punishment without presupposing harm facilitates the identification of morally problematic harms, and recognition of caring practices. I offer a principled argument, and political and pragmatic supplementary arguments, for responding to offenders without intentional harm and with care. Principles drawn from care ethics can help to strengthen mainstream criminal practices by structuring decision-making and action. Bottom-up alternative criminal justice practices share some values with these proposed guiding principles, allowing a partial test of the principles. I consider examples of restorative justice practices, therapeutic jurisprudence, community justice and other problem-solving court practices, in addition to considering how well mainstream punishment practices measure up to these principles. My analysis illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the principles, and how they might contribute to securing treatment as equals for offenders in mainstream practices. (shrink)

This work studies the issue of political representation from the perspective of a specific legal culture, the exercise of political rights in the context of the occidental democratic system, a concept that has undergone a profound evolution to the present day. The essential aspects for an analysis of this progression are voting, decision making, and the relationship between representatives and their constituents. Overall, the phenomena making up the crisis of representation have been explained as a result of changes that have (...) affected the operation and structure of modern states constituted as representative democracies. The idea is that a well-functioning representative system comes primarily from the form of government and electoral system in which it develops. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es defender el valor normativo de un principio de igualdad de oportunidades para influir políticamente en contra de un principio que las distribuya de manera desigual pero beneficiando a los peor situados. Para ello, se muestra que la influencia política es un bien de un tipo especial que permite rechazar la objeción de la nivelación hacia abajo y que la igualdad política, aunque pueda ser derrotada por consideraciones epistémicas, es absolutamente necesaria para criticar aspectos inequitativos (...) de una distribución desigual. The main objective of this article is to defend the normative value of a principle of equal opportunities to politically influence against a principle which distributes them unequally but improving the least advantaged position. In order to do that, the article argues that political influence is a special kind of good which is able to reject the leveling down objection and that political equality, although it could be defeated by epistemic considerations, preserves a prima facie value. (shrink)

This paper draws on nearly two decades of research on health consumer and patients’ organizations in the United Kingdom. In particular, it addresses questions of representation and legitimacy in the health policy process. HCPOs claim to represent the collective interests of patients and others such as relatives and carers. At times they also make claims to represent the wider public interest. Employing Pitkin’s classic typology of formalistic, descriptive, symbolic, and substantive representation, the paper explores how and in what sense HCPOs (...) represent their constituencies. We found that policymakers themselves are less concerned with formal mechanisms adopted by groups and are more concerned with credibility, in particular whether HCPOs carry the confidence of their constituents. While some concerns about legitimacy remain, particularly in relation to funding from commercial interests, we argue that HCPOs bring a unique perspective to the policy process and to focus purely on formalistic representation provides only a partial understanding of their representative role and a constrained view of their collective moral claims. (shrink)

This paper addresses how states improve their responsiveness to violence against women in developing countries with little political will and few resources to do so. One key to engendering justice and improving responsiveness is building specialized institutions within the state that facilitate the implementation of laws addressing violence against women. Why and how do states engage in institution-building to protect marginalized populations in these contexts? I propose that developing countries are more likely to create and maintain specialized institutions when domestic (...) and international political and legal frameworks make the state more vulnerable to women’s demands, and when civil society coordinates with the state and/or international organizations to take advantage of this political opportunity. This coordination brings necessary pressure and resources that would be difficult, if not impossible, to deliver otherwise. This inter-institutional coordination is necessary for building and maintaining new state institutions and programs that help to monitor the implementation of laws, develop public policies, provide services for victims, and improve responsiveness of the justice system. This fills an important lacuna in the literature, which focuses on women’s state institutions as an important catalyst for responsiveness to violence against women, but does not explain how these institutions are initially constructed. (shrink)

Citizenship is both a contentious and contested struggle about the creation of rights, duties, and opportunities. Feminist practices and debates can clarify the meaning of citizenship. This is because the form of feminist practices, characterized by an ongoing struggle, and the content of feminist debates, focusing on gender and other inequalities, recognition of different voices, and critiques of the public and private dichotomy, are particularly suited for dealing with the challenges of contentious and contested processes of citizenship. We argue more (...) specifically that feminist debates and practices provide fruitful contributions for the citizenship challenges that the European Union must face. (shrink)

This article explores feminist arguments for group representation and suggests that there are three distinct theoretical frameworks on which these arguments are based: an equality perspective leading to a strategy of inclusion, a difference perspective leading to a strategy of reversal and a diversity perspective leading to a strategy of displacement. I focus in particular on the defence of group representation developed by Iris Marion Young, because this is made from a diversity perspective, which offers the most theoretically satisfying account (...) of subjectivity but is (perhaps because of this) least likely to endorse group representation. Young’s thought is particularly interesting because it attempts to resolve some long-standing dilemmas in feminist political thought. In particular, Young aims to combine a deconstructive strategy of displacement with a model of group representation by developing a relational (rather than interest or identity-based) conception of social groups, by using theories of deliberative democracy. To do so she develops a second conception of objective judgement, which displaces the apparent dichotomy between impartiality and particularity. Although the concept of social groups is compelling, the concept of objective judgement is less so and further work could usefully be done to establish whether a diversity perspective can successfully displace the dichotomy between impartiality and partiality, and so offer a coherent defence of group representation. (shrink)

Schumpeter took a dim view of the deliberative capacities of the average voter who, he believed, could not be relied upon to make responsible judgements about distant and rather abstract matters of...

Understanding the spread of national public policies to increase the percentage of women on boards is often presented using different types of institutional theory logic. However, the importance of the political games influencing these decisions has not received the same attention. In this article, we look beyond the institutional setting by focusing on the role of actors. We explore processes that include who the critical actors that drive and determine these policies are, and what motivates them to push for change. (...) We employ a processual design approach using a longitudinal country-comparative case study exploring the case of Norway, England, Germany and Italy. We map the political games, both inside and outside legislative areas, including the micro-politics among various actors and groups of actors in the selected countries. Data are collected through participation observations, interviews and text analyses. The study contributes by filling important gaps in the literature by embedding the discussion about women on boards in politicking and national public policies and by introducing dynamic perspectives. Finally, by using a processual design approach, we capture the reality of the women on board debates at different points of time and in different actor and motivational contexts. The study has consequences for how policy-makers and businesses may follow up and act, based on the debates. (shrink)

The Representative Claim is set to transform our core assumptions about what representation is and can be. At a time when political representation is widely believed to be in crisis, the book provides a timely and critical corrective to conventional wisdom on the present and potential future of representative democracy.

Conceptions of citizenship which rest on an abstract and universal notion of the individual founder on their inability to recognize the political relevance of gender. Such conceptions, because their ‘gender-neutrality’ has the effect of excluding women, are not helpful to the project of promoting the full citizenship of women. The question of citizenship is often reduced to either political citizenship, in terms of an instrumental notion of political participation, or social citizenship, in terms of an instrumental notion of economic (in)dependence. (...) The paper argues for the recognition of citizenship as gendered, and as an ethical, that is non-instrumental, social status which is distinct from both political participation and economic (in)dependence. What unites us as citizens, in our equal membership of the political community, need not rely on a conception of us as ‘neutral’ (abstract, universalized, genderless) individuals undertaking one specific activity located in the public realm, but can take account of the diverse ways in which we engage in ethically-grounded activities on the basis of our different genders, ethnic and cultural backgrounds and other differences, in both the public and private realms. A convincing feminist conception of citizenship necessarily involves a radical redefinition of the public/private distinction to accommodate the recognition of citizenship practices in the private realm. The paper builds on the observation that the concept of ‘citizenship’ is broader than the concept of ‘the political’ (or ‘the social/economic’), and contends that feminism provides us with the emancipatory potential of gendered subjectivity, which applies to both men and women. The recognition of gendered subjectivity opens the way to the recognition of the diversity of citizenship practices. It is not that women need to be liberated from the private realm, in order to take part in the public realm as equal citizens, but that women – and men – already undertake responsibilities of citizenship in both the public and the private realms. (shrink)

Las sociedades de la Unión Europea están descubriéndose a sí mismas, con gran dificultad, como sociedades multiculturales.

Austerity politics, war in the Middle East and at other borders of the European Union, the rise of nationalisms, the emergence of populist parties and politicians, Islamophobia and the refugee crisis are amongst the recent developments suggesting the need for discussions about the theories and concepts that academic disciplines provide for making sense of societal, cultural and political transformations. In this article, we focus on the capacities of feminist political theories to undertake this task. By assessing different feminist approaches to (...) political analysis that range from focusing on women and men, to analysing gender, to doing intersectionality and to adopting post-structural and new materialist approaches, we explore the contributions and the limitations of each framework. This allows us to consider where feminist theoretical debates on gender and politics currently are, to assess old and new developments and to address lacunae in the debate. Our argument is that dominant approaches in political science influence the emergence and marginalisation of particular feminist frameworks for political analysis, but also that feminist theorising of gender and politics, in striving for recognition within mainstream political science, reproduces its own hegemonies and marginalisations. (shrink)

Citizenship can be represented as both a status and a practice, reflecting the liberal/social rights and civic republican traditions but also moving beyond them in a critical synthesis. A key challenge for contemporary feminist and radical citizenship theory is how to move beyond the bogus universalism that underpinned both of these traditions, as well as that implied by the category `woman', so as to accommodate citizenship's universalist promise to the demands of diversity and difference. The article suggests how citizenship as (...) both a status and a practice can be rethought so as to respond to this challenge. Drawing on a range of social and political theorists, it offers the concept of a `differentiated universalism' as a means of encapsulating the creative tension between the universal and the particular that lies at the heart of this approach to citizenship. (shrink)

Drawing on gender-role theories and considering the potential new media environments brought to the dynamics of strategic political communication, this study explores the nature of US Midwestern congresswomen’s strategic online self-presentations in comparison to those of congressmen. The discourse analysis presented in this study shows that in their official online biographies, that is, as given on websites provided by the US government, congresswomen devoted more space to describing their own personal traits than did congressmen. In particular, women tended to stress (...) the masculine aspects of their personalities by using so-called masculine words such as tough and fighter much more than their male counterparts did. Such masculine terminology was scarcely evident in the biographies of male House members in the same states and committees as the female members. These findings imply that female politicians are more active in strategically presenting themselves as tough leaders in what appears to be a self-conscious effort to counteract detrimental gender stereotypes. (shrink)

Gender quotas have been a crucial part of Swedish film policy since 2006 and have resulted in an increasing number of films with women directors, producers and screenwriters. However, films with women directors are still likely to have smaller budgets and less money for marketing and distribution than films with men directors. This article suggests that, in the context of film governance, gender quotas are discursively constructed in ways that circumscribe the opportunities to change current gender relations. Nevertheless, gender quotas (...) have been used as a springboard for more radical interpretations to improve women’s conditions and challenge the foundation of the governance regime. The article also explores the idea that bottom-up representational claims are necessary to ensure that quotas and the inclusion of women result in women’s voices being heard. Such measures require the governance regime to be sensitive to voices that deviate from the norm. (shrink)

The actual “crisis of care” in western societies highlights the limits of a sex/gender based citizenship and the persistence of the subordination of women. The fact that women are responsible for the provision of care in domestic units has never been a matter of difference but a matter of subordination against which we have developed legal strategies, such as anti-discrimination law, and political strategies, such as increasing the presence of women in decision-making. The paper shows some of these strategies and (...) their limits and argues that we need to resignify citizenship in a way that includes human dependency and the webs of relationships, both local and global, this dependency creates. (shrink)

This article brings into conversation two important literatures in contemporary political theory that have, for the most part, failed to engage one another: work spanning more than two decades on multiculturalism and identity politics, and neo-republican work on nondomination. The authors take as their starting-point two widely endorsed claims: that identities are constructs and that state actors play a crucial role in their construction. Their question is how democratic states should shape identity, and their central claim is that states should (...) do so in ways that promote what they call democratic nondomination. This ideal, they stress, is multifaceted. It has both an action-level and a system-level component. In addition, it has both an inter-agentive and an impersonal dimension. Attending to democratic nondomination in its complexity is crucial to the project of evaluating alternative possible forms of state identity construction. (shrink)

Although the gender composition of assemblies is slowly changing in order to include more women, very little is known about citizens’ attitudes towards women’s descriptive representation. Using data from a representative sample of the Portuguese population, this article aims to offer an explanation of citizens’ attitudes towards women in parliament. It demonstrates that the Portuguese population is willing to see the presence of women in political power increase, but only up to a certain point: although most people support an increase (...) in the number of female MPs, only a minority wish a substantial increase. This article makes a valuable contribution to the literature by demonstrating that, more than party identification or gender stereotypes, issues surrounding concerns with women’s interests and with the quality of democracy are strongly related to a desire for a gender equilibrated political environment. (shrink)

Classic pragmatism laid the foundations for a practice-based notion of citizenship that views democracy as a fragile accomplishment in need of constant self-actualisation. This article revisits this heritage to explore different notions of pluralism and democratic participation developed over the last century. Drawing on James and Dewey, the article interrogates how different understandings of democracy deal with pluralism and the meaning of democratic life. The focus is on three prominent models in contemporary democratic theory and practice, namely: representative, participatory and (...) deliberative. The purpose is to review different ways of thinking and enacting citizen participation and explore key distinctions, overlaps and productive tensions. The conclusion argues that a vibrant democratic ecology requires combining the practices that underpin these models in order to develop deeper, and more sustainable, forms of citizenship and democratic life. (shrink)

This article examines the role of mainstream political participation in the quest for gender equitable citizenship as a measure of the attainment of democracy. Citizenship stands here as the appropriate measure for the implementation of women's rights as human rights. The article examines citizenship status through the prism of representation in mainstream politics in the context of democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to European Union accession negotiations, gender was marginal on the political agenda in most countries in the (...) region. Indeed, what counts as 'political' had been narrowed to denote formal party and legislative politics alone. The contradiction between this definition and the discursive validation of civil society involvement is explored, both within the region and by international donor agencies and supranational governments such as the European Union. Some empirical evidence of the barriers hindering women's access to the public sphere of the polity is presented. Finally, strategies such as the introduction of quotas that are designed to overcome the factors curtailing women's capacity to become active citizens in the public sphere of politics are discussed. (shrink)

Mientras Carole Pateman (1988) afirma que «para las feministas la democracia no ha existido jamás», Julieta Kirkwood (1986) sostiene que «no hay democracia sin feminismo». Ambas aluden a la deuda del ideal democrático con la emancipación de las mujeres, e incluso a la función estructural de la exclusión de las mujeres en la democracia liberal. A partir de los encuentros y desencuentros entre democracia y feminismo, el presente artículo pretende ofrecer una definición de la democracia feminista que vaya más allá (...) de la inclusión a través de la acción afirmativa, abordando las tensiones que esta genera en el debate feminista de las últimas décadas y los nuevos desafíos en torno a las políticas de redistribución y de reconocimiento. ¿Es posible superar la opresión y la dominación a partir de políticas centradas en el interés de grupo? ¿Cómo se define ese interés sin esencializar la diferencia? Responder a estas preguntas resulta clave para plantear un concepto eficaz de democracia feminista. (shrink)

Research on women's political representation in postsocialist Europe has highlighted the role of cultural and political factors in obstructing women's access to legislative power, such as the prevalence of traditional gender stereotypes, electoral systems, and the absence of a feminist movement. Yet, the role of women political elites in enhancing or hindering women's access to political power in the region has so far remained uncharted. This article seeks to fill some of the existing gaps in this literature by examining the (...) views of women politicians with regard to women's political underrepresentation and their assessments of strategies for redressing this imbalance. Findings from the analysis reveal that although women politicians recognize gender inequalities in representation as a problem requiring intervention, how the problem is perceived, and the preferred measures to deal with it, is largely shaped by the social and cultural context in which these actors are embedded. (shrink)

Simply counting the numbers of women present in politics is an inadequate basis for theorizing the difference they might make. Drawing on research on British MPs Act), this article shows how insights gained from empirical research can inform and improve our theorizing. It suggests that the relationship between women’s descriptive and substantive representation is better conceived as complicated rather than straightforward.

The question this paper will address is that of the role of ideas in the development of the social and political institutions of women's citizenship, historically and in the future. It considers the distinction made by Anne Phillips in The Politics of Presence between a conventional "politics of ideas", in which political representation is taken to involve the representation of party policies and voter preferences and beliefs, and a "politics of presence" in which democratic procedures are held to require the (...) physical presence of members of social groups. For Phillips, the latter is preferable because while political equality entails both the inclusion of voices previously excluded from the political process, it also involves an informed judgement of the probable outcome of that process, and she believes that the presence of women could contribute positively to the development of social rights for women as women. In this paper I will take issue with Phillips' view by way of a discussion of feminist theories of the relation between liberal political ideology and women's citizenship. On the basis of this discussion I will suggest that the theory of hegemony developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe is the best way of understanding this relation and that the rather different politics of ideas it proposes is at least as important to feminist strategies to end the secondary status of women's citizenship as Phillips' "politics of presence". (shrink)

Political and economic internationalization and globalization, the rise of sub-national self-governing regions and spheres, governance replacing government and many related processes change the role and context of the nation-state, the protector of mass democracy. The concept of representation, representation as ‘acting for,’ can help develop answers to the threat that this ‘loss of polity’ poses to equal and universal access to decision-making, i.e., the ideals behind mass democracy. Examining the reasons why the two most prominent conceptions of representation – substantive (...) and descriptive – would be valuable, I argue that we can only make an uncontroversial case for substantive representation. I show that currently popular cures for ‘loss of polity’ cannot be construed as new versions of or alternatives for mass democracy. Finally, I discuss two ideal-types of more reasonable interpretations of the ideals behind mass democracy. (shrink)

¿Cómo pensar el sorteo con eficacia? Mi propuesta es construir una teoría general del sorteo, abordándolo de forma comparativa, para averiguar cuáles son las constantes teóricas entre la gran diversidad empírica de sus usos particulares. En primer lugar, comparo el sorteo a los otros tres modos de selección: elección, nombramiento o cooptación y certificación. En segundo lugar, analizo los marcos deliberativos, es decir, “quién decide qué y cómo”. Tercero, distingo cuatro principios democráticos del sorteo: igualdad, imparcialidad, representatividad y legitimidad. Mi (...) primera hipótesis es que el sorteo amplía considerablemente la igualdad, imparcialidad y representatividad. La segunda de mis hipótesis radica en que el sorteo es el único método de selección con una forma específica de humildad-legitimidad, mientras que los tres restantes modos de selección producen una superioridad-legitimidad que declara superior al representante por encima del representado a través del proceso de selección. (shrink)