Representation

Political representation is a basic institution of Western modernity. Put simply, it exists so that those governed can govern indirectly. It thus creates a minimum level (considered to be the only realistic one) of self-government. Under the systems of modern representation, the governed choose those who will govern through elections and authorize them to do so in their name, thus [Page 2274]granting representatives a mandate to look after the interests of the governed.

In its original Latin form, the word representation covered a vast semantic field, and this has been further widened over time. To represent means to portray, describe, narrate, and duplicate—to make present something that is not and cannot be so. Hence, the problems begin with the very word, and circumscribing its significance by talking about “political” representation does little to resolve this.

Even if, officially, they do not bear this name, forms of representation—or, at least, institutionalized communication between the governed and the governing—can be seen even within those political regimes not commonly classified as representative. Further, theoretically, no collective body can exist without some form of (even symbolic) representation. A people, nation, political party, class, interest, or religious belief needs to be represented—and have its own spokespeople—so that it can be recognized by both its own members and everyone else. However, if representation is a constituting element of a collective body, this raises the key question of how the wishes of that body can be transmitted to its representatives.

Belying modernist rhetoric regarding the individual, a collective body in the real world of politics is effectively the aggregation of preexisting collective bodies. A plurality of collective bodies—territorial communities, associations, organized interests, political movements and parties, and so on—decides to constitute a unitary political body with representatives who lead them and act as their spokespeople. It is thus represented to the external world through these spokespeople, and a plurality of wills is thereby transformed into a collective will. We might ask, however, how can representatives perform this task? If the collective body consists of heterogeneous parts, willing or induced to cohabit, but possessing different and often conflicting desires, what will these representatives effectively represent?

Of course, no form of representation is ever a perfect replication of the original concept. To represent means to interpret, and interpretations are inevitably arbitrary and distorting. To represent something—and political representation is no different from literary, pictorial, photographic, cartographic, or any other form of representation—can also signify improving and embellishing it. However, this can never be a perfect replication, especially so in the case of a collective body. Here, to represent implies generalizing, abstracting, and, basically, manipulating, especially when the mandate is reduced to such a simplified and stylized act as voting—in other words, a mark on a ballot paper. Allegiance is therefore a constant, theoretical, and political obsession for political representation. What defines it and to what degree this mirrors the original is another fundamental issue of the debate.

Some theorists even deny the idea of a mandate conferred on representatives and/or of representation itself. Two illustrious authors—Hans Kelsen and Joseph A. Schumpeter—crudely define representation as being nothing more than a “fiction,” which, according to Kelsen, is useful for its legitimizing role since it convinces those governed that they are governing, while, in Schumpeter's view, this fiction is inevitably damaging because electoral mechanisms force those governing to be opportunistic rather than to pursue the collective good. Therefore, what is conventionally called a representative government is merely a device legitimizing the division of work between the governed and the governing, transforming electoral consensus—which is often fictitious given the workings of electoral systems—given by voters to a political party, a coalition, or a leader, into the will of the collective body. Rather than hereditary or other principles, representation is the mechanism that modern societies have adopted to validate their governors. This is not without its complications, beginning with the fact that representative regimes not only authorize the representatives of the majority party obtaining electoral success to govern but also give a voice, again through representatives, to the defeated minorities, thus enabling and encouraging them to interact with the representatives of the majority. It is then expected that everyday politics will establish in what way and to what degree this takes place.

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