Skip to main content

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message

You are using a web browser we do not support. To improve your experience please try one of the following options:

Close unsupported browser message
Cancel
×
×
Home
  • Home
Article
  • Cited by 13
  • Cited by
    Crossref Citations
    Crossref logo
    This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by CrossRef.
    Chalmers, Damian 2017. Brexit and the renaissance of parliamentary authority. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 19, Issue. 4, p. 663.
    Dienstag, Joshua Foa 2016. On Political Theory, the Humanities, and the Social Sciences. Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 14, Issue. 04, p. 1083.
    Kölln, Ann-Kristin 2015. The value of political parties to representative democracy. European Political Science Review, Vol. 7, Issue. 04, p. 593.
    Grossmann, Matt and Hopkins, David A. 2015. Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats: The Asymmetry of American Party Politics. Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 13, Issue. 01, p. 119.
    James, Michael Rabinder 2015. Two Concepts of Constituency. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 77, Issue. 2, p. 381.
    Enns, Peter K. 2015. Relative Policy Support and Coincidental Representation. Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 13, Issue. 04, p. 1053.
    Sabl, Andrew 2015. The Two Cultures of Democratic Theory: Responsiveness, Democratic Quality, and the Empirical-Normative Divide. Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 13, Issue. 02, p. 345.
    James, Michael Rabinder 2015. Constituency Deliberation. Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 68, Issue. 3, p. 552.
    Druckman, James N. 2014. Pathologies of Studying Public Opinion, Political Communication, and Democratic Responsiveness. Political Communication, Vol. 31, Issue. 3, p. 467.
    2014. The U.S.Congressional Recordas a technology of representation: Toward a materialist theory of institutional argumentation. Journal of Argumentation in Context, Vol. 3, Issue. 1, p. 57.
    Cowell-Meyers, Kimberly B. 2014. The Social Movement as Political Party: The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition and the Campaign for Inclusion. Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 12, Issue. 01, p. 61.
    Manion, Melanie 2014. Authoritarian Parochialism: Local Congressional Representation in China. The China Quarterly, Vol. 218, Issue. , p. 311.
    Jacobs, Lawrence R. 2013. The Public Presidency and Disciplinary Presumptions. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 43, Issue. 1, p. 16.
    ×
  • Get access
    Add to cart €23.00
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    Log in Register Recommend to librarian

Democratic Representation and the Constituency Paradox

  • Lisa Disch (a1)
Abstract

That acts of democratic representation participate in creating the interests for which legislators and other officials purport merely to stand gives rise to the “constituency paradox.” I elucidate this paradox through a critical reading of Hanna Pitkin's The Concept of Representation, together with her classic study of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein and Justice. Pitkin's core insight into democratic representation is that democratic representation is “quasi-performative”: an activity that mobilizes constituencies by the interests it claims in their name. I develop this insight together with its implications for contemporary scholarship on the political effects of economic equality. I conclude by arguing that the fundamental democratic deficiency of the US political system goes much deeper than its disproportionate responsiveness to wealthy interests; it is a matter of system biases that foster the formation and expression of those interests, while mitigating against mobilization by those Americans who want inequality to be reduced.

Copyright
COPYRIGHT: © American Political Science Association 2012
References
Hide All
Achen, Christopher H. 1975. “Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response.” American Political Science Review 69(4): 1218–31.
American Political Science Association Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy. 2004. “American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality.” Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.
Austin, J.L. 1979 [1961]. Philosophical Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bachrach, Peter, and Baratz, Morton S.. 1962. “Two Faces of Power.” American Political Science Review 56(4): 947–52.
Bartels, Larry M. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. New York and Princeton: Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press.
Block, Fred, and Piven, Frances Fox. 2010. “‘Déjà vu All Over Again’: A Comment on Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's ‘Winner-Take-All Politics.’” Politics and Society 38(2): 205–11.
Brandolini, Andrea. 2010. “Political Economy and the Mechanics of Politics.” Politics and Society 38(2): 212–26.
Brennan, Geoffrey, and Hamlin, Alan. 1999. “On Political Representation.” British Journal of Political Science 29(1): 109–27.
Brown, Mark. 2009. Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institutions, and Representation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Campbell, Andrea. 2005. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Campbell, Andrea. 2010. “The Public's Role in Winner-Take-All Politics.” Politics and Society 38(2): 227–32.
Chong, Dennis, and Druckman, James R.. 2007. “Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies.” American Political Science Review 101(4): 637–55.
Cohen, Robert. 2009. Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, Robert, and Zelnick, Reginald, eds. 2002. The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Connolly, William E. 1969. The Bias of Pluralism. NY: Atherton Press.
Derrida, Jacques. 1973 [1967]. Speech and Phenomena. Trans. Allison, David B.. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Derrida, Jacques. 1982. Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Bass, Alan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dionne, E.J. 1991. Why Americans Hate Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Druckman, James N. 2010. “What's It All About? Framing in Political Science.” In Perspectives on Framing, ed. Keren, Gideon. NewYork: Psychology Press/Taylor and Francis.
Edsall, Thomas B., Edsall, with Mary D.. 1991. Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights and Taxes on American Politics. New York: Norton.
Euben, Peter. 1970. “Political Science and Political Silence.” In Power and Community: Dissenting Essays in Political Science, ed. Green, Philip and Levinson, Sanford. New York: Pantheon Books.
Eulau, Heinz. 1967. “Changing Views of Representation.” In Contemporary Political Science: Toward Empirical Theory, ed. Pool, Ithiel de Sola. New York: McGraw Hill.
Eulau, Heinz, and Karps, Paul D.. 1977. “The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 2(3): 233–54.
Eulau, Heinz, Wahlke, John C., Buchanan, William, and Ferguson, Leroy C.. 1959. “The Role of the Representative: Some Empirical Observations on the Theory of Edmund Burke.” American Political Science Review 53(3): 742–56.
Farr, James, and Seidelman, Raymond, eds. 1993. Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Fiorina, Morris. 1974. Representatives, Roll Calls, and Constituencies. Lexington: Heath.
Frank, Thomas. 2004. What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. New York: Metropolitan books.
Gilens, Martin. 2005. “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69(5): 778–96.
Gunnell, John G. 1993. The Descent of Political Theory: The Genealogy of an American Vocation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hacker, Jacob. 2004. “Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United States.” American Political Science Review 98(2): 243–60.
Hacker, Jacob S., and Pierson, Paul. 2010. “Winner-Take-All Politics: Public Policy, Political Organizations, and the Precipitous Rise of Top Incomes in the United States.” Politics & Society 38(2): 152–204.
Hansen, Susan B. 1975. “Participation, Political Structure, and Concurrence.” American Political Science Review 69(4): 1181–99.
Isaac, Jeffrey C. 1987. “Beyond the Three Faces of Power: A Realist Critique.” Polity 20(1): 4–31.
Jacobs, Lawrence R. 2010. “Democracy and Capitalism: Structure, Agency, and Organized Combat.” Politics and Society 38(2): 243–54.
Jacobs, Lawrence R., and King, Desmond. 2009. The Unsustainable American State. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Page, Benjamin I.. 2005. “Who Influences US Foreign Policy?” American Political Science Review 99(1): 107–23.
Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Skocpol, Theda, eds. 2005. Inequality and American Democracy: What We Know and What We Need to Learn. New York: Russell Sage.
Jewell, Malcolm. 1983. “Legislator–Constituency Relations and the Representative Process.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 8(3): 303–37.
Kenworthy, Lance, and Pontusson, Jonas. 2005. “Rising Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Affluent Countries.” Perspectives on Politics 3(3): 449–71.
Kitchell, Mark. 1990. “Berkeley in the Sixties.” Documentary. Director and producer M. Kitchell, cinematographer Stephen Lighthill, editor Veronica Selver. Kitchell Films and POV Theatrical Films.
Körösényi, András. 2009. “Beyond the Happy Consensus on Democratic Elitism.” Comparative Sociology 8: 364–82.
Kuklinski, James H., and Segura, Gary M.. 1995. “Endogeneity, Exogeneity, Time, and Space in Political Representation.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 20(1): 3–21.
Kuklinski, James H., and Stanga, John E.. 1979. “Political Participation and Government Responsiveness: The Behavior of the California Superior Courts.” American Political Science Review 73(4): 1090–99.
Laclau, Ernesto. 1996. Emancipations. New York: Verso.
Laclau, Ernesto. 2005. On Populist Reason. New York: Verso.
Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Wolin, Sheldon, eds. 1965. The Berkeley Student Revolt: Facts and Interpretations. Garden City: Anchor Books.
Lukes, Steven M. 1974. Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan.
Lupia, Arthur. 1994. “Shortcuts versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections.” American Political Science Review 88(1): 63–76.
Mansbridge, Jane J. 2003. “Rethinking Representation.” American Political Science Review 97(4): 515–28.
Mathiowetz, Dean. 2011. Appeals to Interest: Language, Contestation and the Shaping of Political Agency. State College: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Mettler, Suzanne. 2010. “Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era.” Perspectives on Politics 8(3): 803–24.
Mettler, Suzanne. 2011. The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mettler, Suzanne, and Soss, Joe. 2004. “The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 2(1): 55–73.
Miller, W. E., and Stokes, D. E.. 1963. “Constituency Influence in Congress.” American Political Science Review 57(1): 45–56.
Mitchell, Timothy. 1991. Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Muller, Edward N. 1970. “The Representation of Citizens by Political Authorities.” American Political Science Review 64(4): 1149–66.
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Page, Benjamin I., and Jacobs, Lawrence R.. 2009. Class War? What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y.. 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Peterson, Paul E. 1970. “Forms of Representation: Participation of the Poor in the Community Action Program.” American Political Science Review 64(2): 491–507.
Phillips, Kevin. 1993. Boiling Point: Republicans, Democrats and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity. New York: Random House.
Pitkin, Hanna. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Pitkin, Hanna. 1993 [1975]. Wittgenstein and Justice. 2d ed.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Prewitt, Kenneth, and Eulau, Heinz. 1969. “Political Matrix and Political Representation: Prolegomenon to a New Departure from an Old Problem.” American Political Science Review 63(2): 427–41.
Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan, and Manin, Bernard. 1999. “Introduction.” In Democracy, Accountability and Representation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rehfeld, Andrew. 2006. “Towards a General Theory of Political Representation.” Journal of Politics 68(1): 1–21.
Rogowski, Ronald W. 1981. “Representation in Political Theory and in Law.” Ethics 91(3): 395–430.
Rorabaugh, W.J. 1989. Berkeley at War: The 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press.
Runciman, David. 2007. “The Paradox of Political Representation.” Journal of Political Philosophy 15(1): 93–114.
Saward, Michael. 2006. “The Representative Claim.” Contemporary Political Theory 5: 297–318.
Saward, Michael. 2010. The Representative Claim. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Schattschneider, E.E. 1975 [1960]. The Semisovereign People. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
Searle, John. 1971. The Campus War: A Sympathetic Look at the University in Agony. New York: World Publishing Co.
Seidelman, Roy, and Farr, James, ed. 1993. Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Soss, Joe, Fording, Richard C., Schram, Sanford F.. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Squires, Judith. 2008. “The Constitutive Representation of Gender: Extra-parliamentary Re-presentation of Gender Relations.” Representation 44(2): 187–204.
Stepan, Al, and Linz, Juan J.. 2011. “Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in the United States.” Perspectives on Politics 9(4): 841–56.
Stimson, James A. 2009. “Perspectives on Unequal Democracy.” Perspectives on Politics 7(1): 151–53.
Sunstein, Cass. 1991. “Preferences and Politics.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 20(10): 3–34.
Urbinati, Nadia. 2006. RepresentativeDemocracy: Principles and Genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Waddell, Brian. 2011. “Review Symposium: Class Politics, American-Style.” Perspectives on Politics 9(3): 659–62.
Wahlke, John C. 1971. “Policy Demands and System Support: The Role of the Represented.” British Journal of Political Science 1(3): 271–90.
Warren, Mark E., and Castiglione, Dario. N.d. “Rethinking Democratic Representation: Eight Theoretical Issues.” Unpublished manuscript. University of British Columbia, Canada.
Weissberg, Robert. 1978. “Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress.” American Political Science Review 72(5): 535–47.
Williamson, Vanessa, Skocpol, Theda, and Coggin, John. 2011. “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.” Perspectives on Politics 9(1): 25–43.
Winters, Jeffrey A., and Page, Benjamin I.. 2009. “Oligarchy in the United States?” Perspectives on Politics 7(4): 731–51.
Wolin, Sheldon, and Schaar, John H.. 1970. The Berkeley Rebellion and Beyond: Essays on Politics and Education in the Technological Society. New York: Vintage Books/NY Review Books.
Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

Perspectives on Politics
  • ISSN: 1537-5927
  • EISSN: 1541-0986
  • URL: /core/journals/perspectives-on-politics
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *

CAPTCHA *

Skip to the audio challenge
×

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 6
Total number of PDF views: 240 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 763 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 28th June 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Cancel
Confirm
×