Suchergebnisse

This article asks the question: how to build a normative criterion fits the turn of constructivist theories of representation? To answer this question, I take support on empirical research conducted in the United States policy on the feedback that expands the thinking about the democratic legitimacy. Rather than question the nature of the relationship between representatives and the represented (is it adequate concretely, deliberative, reactive enough, etc?), This work focuses directly on the 'effects of subjectivation' created by acts of representation, on the way in which they form, strengthen or weaken certain political groups. Adapted from the source document.

That acts of democratic representation participate in creating the interests for which legislators and other officials purport merely to stand gives rise to the "constituency paradox." I elucidate this paradox through a critical reading of Hanna Pitkin'sThe Concept of Representation,together with her classic study of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,Wittgenstein and Justice. Pitkin's core insight into democratic representation is that democratic representation is "quasi-performative": an activity that mobilizes constituencies by the interests it claims in their name. I develop this insight together with its implications for contemporary scholarship on the political effects of economic equality. I conclude by arguing that the fundamental democratic deficiency of the US political system goes much deeper than its disproportionate responsiveness to wealthy interests; it is a matter of system biases that foster the formation and expression of those interests, while mitigating against mobilization by those Americans who want inequality to be reduced.