What Does “Representative Ecology” Do That “Deliberative Systems” Don’t?

• In Event: Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference III: Beyond the Principal-Agent Binary: New Approaches to Democratic Representation

Abstract

The so called “representative turn” in democratic theory has developed around two fundamental ideas: that representation should not be considered as a mere second-best option; and that representation should not be seen in opposition to the democratic ideals of participation and deliberation. In the last decade or so, the arguments for the “representative turn” have become mixed with two other theoretical developments. On the one hand a reassessment of the very fabric of political representation, considered from a more constructivist perspective; on the other, the emergence of what has been called the “third phase” of deliberative democracy (Mansbridge et al. 2012), where this is considered from a more systemic perspective.
This paper aims to bring together some of the key insights of these theoretical developments by exploring the analytic and normative advantages of looking at political representation in democratic society as an “ecology” capable of comprising within it, moments of democratic participation, deliberation, and collective identity construction. Although not all ecologies of representation are democratic, inclusive, and empowering – indeed, there are plenty of examples to the contrary; to think of political representation as an ecology gives us the tools to analyse the complex way in which it connects the processes of opinion formation and social identification to what it normally passes for democratic governance; as well as to assess the way in which such connection may acquire or deserve legitimacy.
As part of its argument, the paper aims to revert the relationship that is normally assumed between representation and the “deliberative systems”, where the former is being subsumed under the latter. On the contrary, by taking an enlarged and more ecological (and not merely institutional or mechanical) view of political representation in democracies, it is possible to make a stronger case for the passage from “communicative freedom to communicative power” (Bohman 2012) and for considering political representation as ‘an intrinsically modern way of intertwining participation [and] political judgment’ (Urbinati and Warren 2008).

Author

• Dario Castiglione, University of Exeter