The representative system

ABSTRACT

There are two ways to approach political representation. We can view each type of representation or each site of representation – namely a representative actor or institution – on an individual basis and study its internal dynamics. Alternatively, we can look at how different forms of representation and representative actors and institutions interact in a system of representation. In this article, I develop the second view. I make three contributions to the theory of representation from systemic thinking. Methodologically, I explain the contours of a systemic approach to political representation. Descriptively, I propose a definition of a system of representation that captures representative pluralism, distribution of representative work and different levels of representation. Normatively, I set criteria for judging the system of representation and its individual components with systemic criteria.

KEYWORDS:

• Political representation
• representative government
• systems theory
• democratic theory
• Jane Mansbridge

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to Jenny Mansbridge, José Luis Martí, Indira Latorre, and Philip Pettit for their continued support in the different stages of this work. I have also benefited from the written or oral comments of Victoria Camps, Greg Conti, Carlos Escobar, Susan Frekko, Roberto Gargarella, Iñigo González, Pablo Magaña, Victoria McGueer, José Juan Moreso, Claudio López-Guerra, and Annie Stilz. I also want to thank Richard Bellamy and two anonymous reviewers of CRISPP, and participants in the Seminar of the Law and Philosophy Group of the Pompeu Fabra University, the Seminar of Political Philosophy of the University of Barcelona, the General Conference of the ECPR in Hamburg, the Joint Colloquium of Political Philosophy in Princeton, and the Seminar of the Global Democracy Project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A long tradition that began with Schumpeter and Downs and has recently been reinvigorated by Achen and Bartels denies a strong connotation of self-government. In their view, people do not rule, they can only choose the people who will rule them (Achen & Bartels, 2016). It is a weak version of self-government because electing the rulers is a way of ruling. Other democratic theorists have supported a stronger sense of self-government (Pettit, 2012; Pitkin, 1972). They argue that, given some desirable attributes relating to a mixed constitution and a contestatory citizenry, the people can impose a desired direction on the government. I support this second assumption. If the people have multiple and diverse channels of representation (both in government and to challenge government), freedoms of expression and association to constitute new informal representations, the power to directly authorize the main components of the system, and the means to authorize a distribution of work among these different actors to carry out joint tasks, then the people, I believe, will be capable of ruling their collective life.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Felipe Rey

Felipe Rey is an Assistant Professor at Universidad El Bosque in Bogotá, Colombia. He has a PhD in Law from Pompeu Fabra University. His main areas of interest are democratic theory, the theory of political representation, democratic innovations, and constitutional law.