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Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy

Online ISBN:
9780226842806
Print ISBN:
9780226842783
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy

Published online:
21 March 2013
Published in print:
1 October 2006
Online ISBN:
9780226842806
Print ISBN:
9780226842783
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

It is usually held that representative government is not strictly democratic, since it does not allow the people themselves to directly make decisions. But here, taking as its guide Thomas Paine's subversive view that “Athens, by representation, would have surpassed her own democracy,” this book challenges this accepted wisdom, arguing that political representation deserves to be regarded as a fully legitimate mode of democratic decision making—and not just a pragmatic second choice when direct democracy is not possible. As the author shows, the idea that representation is incompatible with democracy stems from our modern concept of sovereignty, which identifies politics with a decision maker's direct physical presence and the immediate act of the will. The author goes on to contend that a democratic theory of representation can and should go beyond these identifications. Political representation, she demonstrates, is ultimately grounded in a continuum of influence and power created by political judgment, as well as the way presence through ideas and speech links society with representative institutions. Integrating the ideas of such thinkers as Rousseau, Kant, Paine, and the Marquis de Condorcet with her own, the author constructs an alternative vision of democracy.

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