Elections and Representation: Fragile Affinity?

Abstract: Throughout history, political thinkers have doubted the alliance between representation and democracy.  Even today, the idea that democracy is going through a crisis is often tied to the belief that a crisis of representation is underway. Protest movements emerging in the past decades have given credence to these doubts, expressing their discontent with the performance of elected representatives and growing disenchantment with representative institutions. With the now-famous slogan “We have a vote, but we don’t have a voice!”, citizens directly pointed out the failure of elections to represent them. In light of these developments, this paper examines the affinity of elections and representation in representative democracy. It unfolds by pondering the fading lustre of elections related to the perceived loss of representative function. The paper proceeds by elaborating on the representative turn and the subsequent constructivist turn in political representation and considers their implications for the representative function of elections. Both turns have contributed to the rehabilitation of representation and renewed interest in the concept of representation. However, the constructivist turn, in particular, has further exposed the fragile nature of the relationship between elections and representation since it conceptualised representation primarily as a process of mutual construction of the representative and the represented, making the institutional electoral framework secondary or even disposable. Finally, the paper thus outlines a way of conceiving the representative function of elections after the constructivist turn.

Bio: Kristina Broučková is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. She focuses on political and democratic theory, particularly theories of political representation. In her dissertation, entitled “Elections and Democracy: (Un)easy Alliance,” she examines the role of elections in representative democracy.