A major puzzle in contemporary political theory is how to extend notions of justice to the environment. With environmental entities unable to communicate in ways that are traditionally recognised within the political sphere, their interests have largely been recognised instrumentally: only important as they contribute to human interests. In response to the multispecies justice project's call to reimagine our concepts of justice to include other-than-human beings and entities, we offer a novel reading of Edmund Burke's account of political representation that, (...) we argue, can be applied to the environment. Burke claimed that interests are ‘unattached’ to any actual class or group, and that it is the duty of the representative to represent these unattached interests. Beyond providing an original application of Burke's work, the paper offers an alternative to the ‘allure’ of authoritarian environmentalism, an alternative which conservative thinkers may use as an entryway into debates on environmental justice. (shrink)

When we participate in political debate or protests, we are judged by how we look, which clothes we wear, by our skin colour, gender and body language. This results in exclusions and limits our freedom of expression. The Politics of Becoming explores radical democratic acts of disidentification to counter this problem. Anonymity in masked protest, graffiti, and online de-bate interrupts our everyday identities. This allows us to live our multiple selves. In the digital age, anonymity becomes an inherent part of (...) everyday communication. Through our smart devices we express our selves differently. As cyborgs, our identities are disrupted and reassembled. We curate self-representations on social media, create avatars, share selfies and choose the skin colour of our emojis. The Politics of Becoming encourages us to engage in a revolution of the self. Democratic pluralism is not only a matter of institutional design but also about how we express our identities. Inner revolutions change our personal realities and plant a seed for democratic futures. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of the phrase ‘acting on behalf of another.’ To do this, acting on behalf is first distinguished from ‘acting for the sake of another,’ the latter being a matter of other-directed motivation, the former of what we call ‘normative other-directedness’—i.e., acting on the claims and duties of the other. Second, we provide a distinction between two kinds of acting on behalf of another: representation as other-directedness plus normative replacement, and normative support as other-directedness without normative (...) replacement. Third, the paper offers conditions of appropriateness for both types of acting on behalf. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show that Bernard Williams’ approach to legitimacy falls short of its aspirations in ways that cast doubt on its fitness for guiding the practice of future realist political theory. More precisely, the paper focuses on the shortcomings of Williams’ realism in establishing a connection to (the practices of) politics, and on how to redeem those shortcomings in a way that would render them suitable for guiding future realist political theory. The first substantive section of the paper (...) considers how compatible Williams’ commitments to diagnosis and interpretation are, with how he spells out his realist thought. The second section argues that making good on Williams’ commitments requires realist political theorists to rethink the sources of their insights and the basis of their claims, and sketches pragmatist and ethnographic approaches as promising examples of how realists could match theoretical commitments in practice. (shrink)

In recent decades, theories of representation have undergone a constructivist turn, as many theorists no longer view the represented subject as prior to but rather as an effect of representation. Whereas some critics have claimed that lacking an ontologically pre-given subject undermines the theory of representation, many democratic theorists have sought to reconceptualize representation and its democratic possibilities by turning away from ontological questions altogether. By focusing instead on how representatives come to know the public interest, many scholars now contend (...) that an epistemological account best explains how political representation can foster democratic participation. Yet, theorists of representation have not assessed whether this turn to epistemology has overcome the ontological problems that initially motivated it. This article tracks epistemological defenses of representation to outline two models of political representation that attempt to tackle the epistemological problem of constituent interest without positing a foundational ontology of the subject. I argue that both theoretical tendencies ultimately remain caught in the problems of ontology, thereby undercutting their normative aspirations to foster political participation. Turning to Hannah Arendt’s comments on public interest and her writings on council democracy, the article retheorizes the concept of political representation to avoid the ontological problems that beset current accounts. (shrink)

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)

This article sheds light upon the role of the audience in the construction and amendment of populist representative claims that in themselves strengthen representative-represented relationships and simultaneously strengthen ties between the represented who belong to different constituencies. I argue that changes in populist representative claims can be explained by studying the discursive relationship between a populist representative and the audience as a conversation in which both poles give and receive something. From this perspective, populist representative claims, I also argue, can (...) be understood as acts of bonding with the intended effect of constituting ‘the people,’ and inputs from the audience can be seen as conversational exercitives. Populist appeals therefore may change when the audience enacts new permissibility facts and signals to populist representatives that there is another way to strengthen relationships between several individuals belonging to otherwise-different constituencies. (shrink)

Rise of populist politics in the 21s century calls scholars and politicians alike to reflect upon the question of how politics and democracy have been understood. Drawing on the theory of hegemony, this article establishes a distinction between democracy and ‘demography’ as a key line of conceptualization in politics. It highlights a central misunderstanding at the core of the demonization of populism: For radical democratic theory, ‘the people’ is not a demographic, socio-economic, or historically sedimented category tied to some characteristics, (...) but a performative process of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ ‘the people’ as a self-consciously enacted polity. This statement challenges the taken-for-granted status of subjectivities of political struggle and links this approach to other contemporary discussions of politics, democracy, and populism. After discussing how anti, neo and post-foundational theoretical accounts on populism reveal a dimension of politics and representation, this article emphasizes action and performativity over static categories and models characteristic of political realism and political system approaches. (shrink)

This article analogises political representation to legal interpretation. It then applies the analogy to the hitherto neglected question of what political representation means for deliberative constitutionalism. The upshot is a conception of deliberative constitutionalism that, while uncompromisingly grounded in the reasoned expression of the preferences of a polity's constituents through deliberative democratic institutional innovations, mandates representatives to translate those preferences into general and abstract constitutional law. It thus enhances the deliberative contribution of citizens in the determination of constitutional meaning, while (...) preserving the value of representative institutions. (shrink)

Democratic theorists often place deliberative innovations such as citizen's panels, consensus conferences, planning cells, and deliberative polls at the center of their hopes for deliberative democratization. In light of experience to date, the authors chart the ways in which such mini-publics may have an impact in the “macro” world of politics. Impact may come in the form of actually making policy, being taken up in the policy process, informing public debates, market-testing of proposals, legitimation of public policies, building confidence and (...) constituencies for policies, popular oversight, and resisting co-option. Exposing problems and failures is all too easy. The authors highlight cases of success on each of these dimensions. (shrink)

After elaborating the idea of liminality and briefing defending an understanding of representation as practice, the chapter will focus on four distinctions often deployed to divide up and map conceptually the field of political representation. Representation’s liminal character presses us to question the neatness and the realism of many such distinctions. For each of the four distinctions I focus on the transitional or intermediate nature of representation, and the consequences that follow for theoretical analysis. Finally, I show how these four (...) contribute to a larger and more encompassing distinction between representative democracy and democratic representation, arguing that the former –often the sole focus of debates on representation –is one part of the latter. (shrink)

What gives representation its democratic essence? The recent democratic theory literature, particularly spearheaded by Nadia Urbinati, defends representative mediation as a facilitator of ongoing democratic contestation and revision. While I agree with this agonistic defence, I take issue with how Urbinati construes it. For her, representative contestation works in the teleological sense of testing opinions over time and sublimating them into ideological forms as a safeguard against the threat of immediacy. This article locates the traces of such presentism within Urbinati’s (...) own teleological framework, which I see as compromising her commitment to the agonistic vein in representative politics. When our relationship to the future is imagined from such a teleological angle, I argue, the scope of our representative options becomes significantly narrowed down and the possibility of beginning anew looks quite slim. I develop this critique by tapping into Jacques Derrida’s affirmation of untimeliness. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the advantages of a theory of political representation for a prag- matist theory of (global) democracy. I first outline Dewey’s disregard for political rep- resentation by analyzing the political, epistemological and aesthetic underpinnings of his criticism of the Enlightenment ideal of democracy and its trust in the power of the detached gaze. I then show that a theory of political representation is not only com- patible with a pragmatist Deweyan-pragmatist perspective on democratic politics but also (...) that Dewey’s concept of “publics”, if applied to contemporary circumstances of globalized politics, requires such a theory. I suggest a pragmatic theory of political rep- resentation that combines elements of Dewey’s aesthetics, particularly his own theory of vision, with Michael Saward’s conception of representative claim-making into the notion of aesthetic democratic representation. (shrink)

Michael Rose’s Zukünftige Generationen in der heutigen Demokratie: Theorie und Praxis der Proxy-Repräsentation (Future Generations in Today’s Democracy: Theory and Practice of Proxy Representation) is an ambitious and fascinating work. It provides a new conceptualisation of the representation of future generations and it also delivers the most extensive empirical study of institutions for the representation of future generations available to date. The book is based on Rose’s PhD thesis at the Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany, and is 516 pages long (...) (excluding an extensive bibliography, list of sources and appendices). A third of the thesis is devoted to short case studies of a total of 29 institutions which are presented in a catalogue format, allowing this section to be used as an encyclopaedia. The book is written concisely and is well documented throughout. (shrink)

In many countries patient involvement is high on the healthcare policy agenda, which includes patient representation in collective decision-making. Patient organizations are generally considered to be important representatives of patients. Other actors also claim to represent patients in decision-making, such as politicians, healthcare professionals, and client advisory councils. In this paper we take a broad view of patient representation, examining all the actors claiming to represent patients in the Dutch debate on the decentralization of care. We conclude that variety in (...) forms of representation could help do justice to the variety of patient preferences. In addition we conclude that in order to ensure the democratic quality of patient representation, actors making representative claims have to reflect on how their claims relate to each other and how they can ensure authorization and accountability in the representative relationship with those they claim to represent. (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)

The recently rising field of Critical Data Studies is still facing fundamental questions. Among these is the enigma of digital subjectivation. Who are the subjects of Big Data? A field where this question is particularly pressing is finance. Since the 1990s traders have been steadily integrated into computerized data assemblages, which calls for an ontology that eliminates the distinction between human sovereign subjects and non-human instrumental objects. The latter subjectivize traders in pre-conscious ways, because human consciousness runs too slow to (...) follow the volatility of the market. In response to this conundrum Social Studies of Finance has drawn on Actor-Network Theory to interpret financial markets as technically constructed networks of human and non-human actors. I argue that in order to develop an explicitly critical data study it might be advantageous to refer to Maurizio Lazzarato’s theory of machinic subjugation instead. Although both accounts describe financial digital subjectivation similarly, Lazzarato has the advantage of coupling his description to a clear critique of and resistance to finance. (shrink)

This article argues that the standard model of political representation mischaracterises the structure of representation. After surveying the classical types of representation and their application to non-humans, the basic nature of representation is shown to have been unduly centred on interests, responsiveness and unidirectional protocols. It proposes a different structure by drawing inspiration from recent scholarship and developments in political philosophy, as well as the representation of non-human actors. It proposes an ontological grounding of representation in ‘irreducible multiplicity’, and a (...) structural analysis based on the concepts of claim and relation. This abstract form of representation can take into account both human and non-human cases, and works to ground different typologies. The relational structure of representation creates interests and preferences, subjects and actors, power dynamics and seemingly immutable identities. (shrink)

This essay presents a new way of conceptualizing the problem of political obligation. On the traditional ‘normativist’ framing of the issue, the primary task for theory is to secure the content and justification of political obligations, providing practically applicable moral knowledge. This paper develops an alternative, ‘pragmatist’ framing of the issue, by rehabilitating a frequently misunderstood essay by Hanna Pitkin and by recasting her argument in terms of the ‘pragmatic turn’ in recent philosophy, as articulated by Robert Brandom. From this (...) perspective, the content and justification of political obligations cannot be determined in a way that is in principle separable from their application. This casts ‘political obligation’ not as a problem to be philosophically resolved, but as a political predicament that calls for a kind of practical engagement. The merit of this perspective is to draw our attention toward the conditions under which the problem appears as a lived predicament. (shrink)

In this article we address the question of individual identity and its place – or rather omission – in contemporary discussions about the cosmopolitan extension of liberalism as the dominant political theory. The article is divided into two parts. In the first part we show that if we consistently emphasise the complementarity of the “inner” and “outer” identity of a person, which is essential to liberalism from its very beginnings, then a fundamental flaw in the liberal cosmopolitan project becomes apparent. (...) This is the underestimation of the indispensability of an unambiguously determined public framework which will fix and enforce liberal principles and values in a comprehensible way. Such a framework for liberalism was always the political community and then, above all, the modern state, in which the liberal identity could then be realised. The discussion in this part of the article prepares the ground for an examination, in the second part, of a dilemma which cosmopolitan liberalism must face. In the second part we argue that the attempt to tackle the given problem presents liberals with the following dilemma: either it is necessary to plead for the institution of a global political authority (a “world state”), or to give up the belief that fundamental liberal principles and values can be realised to a global extent. We show, at the same time, that because of the character and ambitions of the cosmopolitan project, the promise of plural identities and multi­centred law cannot be relied upon. By way of conclusion we then ask what is the price of the realisation of cosmopolitan liberal ideals. -/- NOTE: This is a two-part article (in Czech). For download here is the first part; please see the link below for the second part as well. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore the changes that representative democracy is experiencing as a result of the transformation of communication channels. In particular, it focuses on non-electoral representation in the form of movements that emerged throughout the 2010s and that were defined by a strong social media presence (e.g. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Yellow Vests). Despite not attempting to gain political power via elections, these movements, through online and offline activities, nonetheless managed to shape the realm of (...) politics. The paper thus analyzes the movements’ inner representative dynamics and the ways they reshape representative democracy. It engages with a critical reading of Hanna Pitkin’s concept of symbolic representation and draws on Michael Saward’s framework of the representative claim to reevaluate Bernard Manin’s notion of “audience” democracy as today’s form of representative government. The argument is that, as digital development provides citizens with less demanding modes of political participation and platforms of representative claim-making, it enhances the sphere of opinion formation and the role of non-electoral representation. This sphere entails a tendency towards a re-depersonalization of politics, thus leading towards the transformation of “audience” democracy. (shrink)

(OPEN ACCESS) This paper establishes moral duties for intermediaries of political advertising in election campaigns. First, I argue for a collective duty to maintain the democratic quality of elections which entails a duty to contain some forms of political polarization. Second, I show that the focus of campaign ethics on candidates, parties and voters—ignoring the mediators of campaigns—yields mistaken conclusions about how the burdens of the latter collective duty should be distributed. Third, I show why it is fair to require (...) intermediaries to contribute to fulfilling this duty: they have an ultimate filtering position in the campaign communication process and typically benefit from political advertising and polarization. Finally, I argue that a transparency-based ethics of campaign advertising cannot properly accommodate a concern with objectionable polarization. By contrast, I outline the polarization-containing implications of my account, including a prohibition on online targeted advertising, and intermediaries’ duties to block hateful political advertising. (shrink)

In light of the recent revival of the debate on radical democracy, this paper seeks to show how a critical reappropriation of Chantal Mouffe’s theory of agonistic politics can explain the structure of a conflict-based understanding of democratic orders. In explicit convergence with Mouffe, I argue that a radical democratic project by no means needs to abandon—as many absolute democracy and multitude theorists claim—the modern political paradigm. I also show, diverging from her account, that Mouffe’s defence of a radical democratic (...) project based on pluralism and agonism would have been better served by a critical reception of Arendt’s thinking rather than that of Schmitt. The relevance of this alternative strategy—so I will argue—lies in the fact that it delivers an apt design for a politico-legal order which permits true and proper conflicts, on the one hand, while simultaneously allowing that they be dealt with democratically, on the other. (shrink)

Abstract:The straightforward normative importance of emergencies suggests that empirically engaged political theorists and philosophers should study them. Indeed, many have done so. In this essay, however, I argue that scholars interested in the political and/or moral dimensions of large-scale emergencies should shift their focus from emergencies to emergency claims. Building on Michael Saward’s model of a “representative claim,” I develop an account of an emergency claim as a claim that a particular (kind of) situation is an emergency, made by particular (...) actors against particular background conditions to particular audiences, which in turn accept, ignore, or reject that claim. Emergency politics, in turn, consists of many different actors making and not making, accepting, and rejecting, a wide range of overlapping and competing emergency claims. I argue that scholars should shift their focus to emergency claims because doing so helps us see the fraught implications of emergency politics for marginalized groups. I examine three such implications: emergency claims are often “Janus-faced,” meaning that they function simultaneously as “weapons of the weak” and weapons of the strong; they are often regressive, including by discriminating against victims of chronic bad situations, and they often perpetuate and exacerbate existing social hierarchies. Noticing these troubling features of emergency politics raises a question that I do not address here: What might plausible alternatives to emergency politics look like? (shrink)

The notion of ideology and its critique have taken a remarkable about-turn in recent decades. While in classical Marxism, ideology used to be understood in terms of a distorted representation of real social divisions, recent authors such as Claude Lefort and Ernesto Laclau have argued that there is no standpoint outside language or representation, and they consider those representations as ideological that remain blind to their own political effects. However, a dimension that was crucial in the classical Marxist tradition has (...) been downplayed in their work, namely the importance of ideology critique for the process of emancipation or of a particular subject becoming political. To reintroduce this dimension in the recent debate on ideology, this article takes recourse to a selective and creative reading of Carl Schmitt. Schmitt, it is argued, understands ideology critique as a crucial precondition for the process through which a subject becomes political. From a Schmittian perspective, ideology critique aims at unmasking depoliticisation and thus at making visible an intersubjective space of conflict, which is the inevitable condition for every democratic or emancipatory struggle. (shrink)

Past interpretations of the debate between Confucian meritocrats and Confucian democrats tend to center around abstract discussions of meritocratic versus democratic values. Yet, given the difficulties involved in settling on a common definition of “democracy” or “meritocracy,” such abstract discussions often end up talking past each other. In this article, I seek to offer a more precise framing of the debate by surveying the preferred institutional arrangement of one Confucian democrat, Sungmoon Kim, and that of two Confucian meritocrats, Daniel Bell (...) and Tongdong Bai. What I find is that contrary to the claim made by Kim’s theory of pragmatic Confucian democracy, the electoral representative government he favors does not enjoy a legitimacy premium over the kind of hybrid regime envisioned by Bell or Bai under pluralistic societal circumstances. I further demonstrate that it is also difficult for Confucian democrats to justify electoral representative government through either the Confucian ideal of political relationship marked by the public’s willing endorsement of their rulers, or a notion of political equality reconstructed from Mencius’s inclusionary ideal of sagehood. (shrink)

Despite the transformation it introduced in theories of democratic representation, the so-called ‘constructivist turn’ left unchallenged the epistemology that had characterised traditional accounts: the questions at stake in current debates on representation are still mostly elicited by a ‘passive’ image of representation as ultimately the phenomenon of being represented by others. Nowhere has the focus explicitly been placed on the experience of representing others. This article proposes a recalibration of current constructivist accounts of representation by introducing what I term the (...) representative standpoint, an epistemological perspective which discloses neglected aspects of the nature and the value of democratic representation. In particular, I suggest that from the representative standpoint, we are able to configure representation as the periodic motion between two spaces: the square, where the representative meets with their constituents, and the circle, where the representative meets with the representatives of other constituencies. The essence of democratic representation lies precisely in the constant moving back and forth between these two spaces. I finally suggest that, configured in these terms, representation may be acknowledged and valued also for providing liberal democracies with an in-built device for a kind of civic education, the beneficiaries of which are the representatives themselves. (shrink)

We argue that a reinvention of the plebeian tribunate should play a key role in addressing the challenges stemming from increasing concentrations of, and inequalities in, social, political, economic, and cultural power in liberal democracies. Addressing these challenges, which negatively affect parliamentary representation, requires a form of institutional innovation that gives voice to non-elites who are ruled but do not rule. We propose revisions of the composition and tasks of the tribunate that are tailored to these current challenges. Our fully (...) randomly selected tribunate emerges as a vehicle not only for contesting concentrated power but also for articulating lines of conflict, disruptive agenda-setting, and political experimentation. Our proposal contributes to developing realist democratic theory. We argue that the reinvented tribunate not only meets realist commitments to avoiding moralization and idealization but also demonstrates the underexploited capacity of realism to inform institutional innovation and thus contribute to substantial political analysis. (shrink)

Opposition to corporate legal rights has become more visible in recent years. Activists seek ways to address the influence of corporations on the state and its ancillary institutions. The most well-known tactics range from Occupy's embrace of anarchic, leaderless horizontalism to the Mayday PAC raising money to elect representatives who support a campaign finance amendment to the US Constitution. The spectrum of political efforts between these two approaches speaks to how the problem of corporate power resonates with many people in (...) the United States. It also, however, demonstrates how "democracy," as the ostensible opposition to corporate politics, can be interpreted as everything from... (shrink)

In the quest for a workable ideal of democracy, the systems approach has recently shifted its perspective on deliberative democratic theory. Instead of enquiring how institutionalized decision-making might mirror an ‘ideal deliberative procedure’, it asks how democracy might be construed as a ‘deliberative system’. This leads it to recommend de-emphasizing the role of parliament and focusing instead on non-institutionalized actors and communications. Though this increased emphasis is undoubtedly warranted, the importance of parliament must not be downplayed. In the debate about (...) transnational democracy – and about EU democratization in particular – it is widely held that making democracy safe for transnational politics entails finding new, non-parliamentary ways of organizing it. Here, the deliberative systems perspective may be misunderstood as offering an alternative, non-parliamentary route to transnational democracy. This article argues that a deliberative system without a parliamentary legislature is tantamount to deliberation without democracy and that an elected parliamentary legislature is constitutive of democracy as a deliberative system – national or transnational. To substantiate this claim, the article suggests looking at Habermas’ discourse theory in a new light, as a sociological-reconstructive approach that aims to explicate the cognitive dimension of modern democratic decision-making. Acknowledgement of discourse theory’s sociological intent enhances our understanding of democracy as a deliberative system in two important ways. First, it helps elucidate the epistemic meaning of democracy differently from the accounts given in alternative theories. Discourse theory holds that what generates democratic legitimacy in modern democracies is a particular epistemic quality which the democratic process lends to decisions by enabling citizens to view the latter as valid outcomes of a cooperative practice of collective problem-solving among equals. From this pragmatist understanding it follows, second, that the presence of a parliamentary legislature is crucial to the establishment and operation of democracy as a deliberative system. (shrink)

In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in history to grant constitutional rights to nature. What is termed the indigenous symbol played a significant role in this event. The rights of nature are used as an occasion to interrogate the indigenous symbol in order to reveal what it does, as opposed to what it says. The account of the rights of nature originating in indigenous sensibilities is presented, and subsequently critiqued. The argument makes use of the notion of representative claim (...) to show the strategic construction of indigeneity as ecologically harmonious. An alternative genesis of the rights of nature is presented. It is further showed that the indigenous symbol is employed as a veneer of moral authority hiding the strategic machinations of representative politics. (shrink)

This paper argues that Amartya Sen’s comparative approach to justice requires a politics that is attentive to the agency of the other. Rethinking representation as a relational, rather than a sovereign, concept captures the relationship between agency and justice that is emerging in global politics today. It is increasingly common that non-governmental actors engage with communities through practices of trust and responsibility without appeal to political authority. Relational representation helps clarify the dynamics of these relationships and provides a way to (...) think about their purpose. That purpose is to effect changes that ameliorate suffering and injustice, working to re-present the represented persons as more capable persons, more free to use their agency. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly inviting patient organizations to participate in healthcare policymaking. By inviting POs that claim to represent patients, representation comes into being. However, little is known about the circumstances under which governments accept POs as patient representatives. Based on the analysis of relevant legislation, this article investigates the criteria that self-help organizations, a special type of PO, must fulfil in order to be accepted as patient representatives by governments in Austria and Germany. Thereby, it aims to contribute to the (...) discussion on the role of governments in steering SHOs. There are different degrees of regulation. Governments in both countries not only formulate explicit criteria for SHOs with respect to patient representation but also guide SHOs representing patients through implicit criteria for associations. We discuss the findings against concepts of responsiveness, authorization, and accountability. Our findings indicate that governmental steering is not negative per se as indicated by previous research but—depending on legislative criteria—can promote transparency and democratic quality in patient representation. (shrink)

The ‘constructivist turn’ in political representation literature has clarified that representation is crucial in forging identities – through the creation of ideological and symbolic representations that mobilize and coalesce otherwise scattered and undefined social forces – and thus also why it is essentially an interpretative and performative activity. In this article I argue that, as a consequence of this emphasis on interpretation and performativity, this approach makes clear why the ethos of representatives is important in representation. To prove this, I (...) employ some insights from rhetoric. Rhetorical persuasion and democratic representation, indeed, call for a similar kind of judgment, as they both need to mediate between opposing exigencies: rhetoric between attentiveness to the specificity of the audience and the creation of new beliefs, and representation between being responsive to specific interests and giving them a new articulation. Mediating this tension requires an exercise of judgment that, being directed toward the future, inevitably introduces uncertainty into the relation. This is why both in rhetoric and representation the ethos is an essential element. However, as I argue in the conclusion, the personal qualities that should be considered relevant here are above political qualities, rather than technical or moral ones. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly inviting patient organizations to participate in healthcare policymaking. By inviting POs that claim to represent patients, representation comes into being. However, little is known about the circumstances under which governments accept POs as patient representatives. Based on the analysis of relevant legislation, this article investigates the criteria that self-help organizations, a special type of PO, must fulfil in order to be accepted as patient representatives by governments in Austria and Germany. Thereby, it aims to contribute to the (...) discussion on the role of governments in steering SHOs. There are different degrees of regulation. Governments in both countries not only formulate explicit criteria for SHOs with respect to patient representation but also guide SHOs representing patients through implicit criteria for associations. We discuss the findings against concepts of responsiveness, authorization, and accountability. Our findings indicate that governmental steering is not negative per se as indicated by previous research but—depending on legislative criteria—can promote transparency and democratic quality in patient representation. (shrink)

Several authors have recently stressed the constitutive and ubiquitous nature of representation, which, as a result, can no longer be conceived as a relation between pre-existing entities. This has important consequences for democratic representation, traditionally thought in terms of authorization, accountability or representativity. This article argues that Jacques Rancière’s political philosophy makes a fruitful contribution to the necessary rethinking of democratic representation. Although Rancière never systematically developed a theory of representation, this concept is shown to constitute a red thread throughout (...) his political writings. His main contribution consists in shifting the focus from the relation between representative and represented to the relation between the distribution of the sensible as a space of representability and its disruption or contestation. This makes it possible to recast a critique of representative government, and to reconceive of democratic representation, which is about making the contingent equality underlying each order visible. (shrink)

Commercial companies are increasingly being recognized as agents of societal governance operating alongside the public authorities in their traditional role as governance bodies. In addition, companies are claiming to be ‘corporate citizens’ in the way they deal with their environmental, employment and social/ethical responsibilities. Given the fact that large corporations are now heavily internationalized in their operational characteristics – with branches, subsidiaries, affiliates and extended supply chains operating in multiple jurisdictions – can such organizations be brought into a democratic register? (...) Citizenship and democracy are conventionally associated with a territorial state, national sovereignty and jurisdictional independence. So, how can internationalized companies be subject to democratic forms of governance? An added problem arises with platform companies and blockchain organized digital currency providers whose operations transcend national borders from the start. This contribution discusses the issues of and provides a way for considering corporate democracy afresh in these rapidly evolving contexts. (shrink)

The article argues that the theory of plebiscitary leader democracy, originally developed by Max Weber, is in its somewhat rejuvenated version a helpful framework in interpreting longer-term and more recent empirical trends in contemporary democracies, such as the growing personalization of politics, the emergence of populist leaders, rising levels of polarization, and the growing importance of social media. However, to realize the potential of the theory, it should be detached from Jeffrey Green’s most original, yet insufficiently realistic elaboration of plebiscitary (...) democracy that he made a decade ago. The article argues that instead of a passive and unifiable entity, the citizenry should be thought of as reactive and deeply divided, a setting which can be characterized by the metaphor of the infamous Byzantine chariot races rather than that of the theater, implicit in Green’s theory. Plebiscitary democracy should be thought of as representational, where popular control is manifested as the veto power of the popular voice. Additionally, despite its realist minimalism, the theory we propose may still have some critical potential, because it adopts the refurbished ideal of competition. The article closes by identifying further avenues of theoretization leading towards a more elaborate view of PLD. (shrink)