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Representation
Representation is the foundational concept of modern politics. The search for a form of representative government suitable to advanced societies of the size, complexity, and diversity of modern states is definitive of modern politics itself.
The question of political representation played a critical role in the American and the French revolutions, which generated the first large-scale republics founded on a representative principle. For all their differences, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) and James Madison (1751–1836) believed that properly modern government was representative government, and representation was not a second-best form of government to democracy but an improvement on it. It was consistent with the principle of popular sovereignty, but free from the excesses of crude democratic politics. It derived from the consent of individuals, but elected representatives ...
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