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Aristotle's NE X claim that the best human life is one devoted to contemplation (theoria) seems in tension with his emphasis elsewhere on our essentially political nature, and more specifically, his claim that friendship is necessary for our flourishing. For, if our good can be in principle realized apart from the human community, there seems little reason to suggest we 'need' friends, as he clearly does in NE VIII & IX. I argue that central to Aristotle's NE X discussion of contemplation is the claim that our chief good accords with whatever is 'most divine' in us, viz. our rational nature (NE 1177b2-18). Thus, the best human life involves the excellent exercise of our rational capacities. I distinguish two ways in which human beings flourish through exercising their rationality. The first is in the activity of theoria. The second, I argue, can be found in the virtuous activity of complete friendship (teleia philia). For Aristotle the truest form of friendship is an expression of rationality. It is characterized not merely by our living together, but conversing, and sharing one another's thoughts (NE 1170b12-14). Examining Aristotle's notion of a friend as 'another self (alios autos), I argue that through friendship human beings come to better know themselves and the world in which they live. Complete friendship involves a (uniquely human) second-order awareness of oneself in another, and through this awareness our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live is enriched, confirmed, and enjoyed through the presence of other minds. Thus, the highest form of Aristotelian friendship is an intellectual activity through which we attain an analogue of the divine contemplation of the unmoved mover, thereby living with respect to what is most divine in us, but doing so in accordance with our uniquely rational-political nature.

La théorie de la bureaucratie représentative repose sur le postulat que la représentation passive conduit à une représentation active des groupes minoritaires. Dans le présent article, nous nous intéressons à la représentation passive des femmes agents de police qui occupent des postes d'encadrement et à la représentation active des femmes par rapport aux taux d'arrestation pour violence sexiste au Royaume-Uni. Une grande partie des recherches existantes sur la bureaucratie représentative portent sur les bureaucrates de proximité et indiquent que le pouvoir discrétionnaire des bureaucrates minoritaires peut conduire à une représentation active. Notre article porte sur les échelons supérieurs d'une bureaucratie publique. Les recherches empiriques menées dans ce cadre s'appuient sur un ensemble de données recueillies au moyen d'un panel de femmes policières, qui représentent la variable indépendante, et sur les taux d'arrestation pour cause de violence sexiste, la variable dépendante. L'analyse révèle qu'il ne semble guère y avoir de représentation active des femmes par les femmes cadres supérieurs dans la police. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens Dans notre recherche, les praticiens dans le domaine des politiques et de la fonction publique trouveront des données empiriques qui indiquent que la représentation des minorités passe par des effets organisationnels dans les bureaucraties publiques.

Representative bureaucracy theory postulates that passive representation leads to active representation of minority groups. This article investigates the passive representation of female police officers at leadership levels and the active representation of women vis-a-vis gender-based violence arrest rates in the UK. Much of the extant research on representative bureaucracy is located at street level, with evidence showing that discretionary power of minority bureaucrats can lead to active representation. This article is focused on leadership levels of a public bureaucracy. The empirical research is based upon a panel dataset of female police officers as an independent variable and gender-based violence arrest rates as a dependent variable. The analysis reveals that there is little evidence of active representation of women by female police leadership.Points for practitionersThe research offers policy and public service practitioners with empirical evidence to suggest that representation of minorities is mediated by organizational effects in public bureaucracies.