Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-mx8w7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-19T21:26:42.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shape-Shifting Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

MICHAEL SAWARD
MICHAEL SAWARD*
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
*
Michael Saward is Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom (m.j.saward@warwick.ac.uk).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Shape-shifting representation is common in practice but largely shunned in theoretical and empirical analysis. This article resurrects, defines, and explores shape-shifting and closely linked concepts and practices such as shape-retaining. It generates new concepts of representative positioning and patterning in order to aid our understanding, and makes the case for placing this critical phenomenon front and center in the analysis of political representation. It examines crucial empirical and normative implications for our understanding of representation, including the argument that shape-shifting representation is not intrinsically undesirable. Developing the theory of shape-shifting representation can prompt a new level of analytical purchase on the challenge of explaining and evaluating representation's vitality and complexity.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 108 , Issue 4 , November 2014 , pp. 723 - 736
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Ankersmit, F. R. 2002. Political Representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Archibugi, D., Koenig-Archibugi, M., and Marchetti, R., eds. 2012. Global Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Austin, J. 1975. How To Do Things With Words, second edition, eds. Urmson, J. O. and Sbisa, M.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Holquist, M., trans. by Emerson, C. and Holquist, M.. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Barker, R. 2001. Legitimating Identities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bellamy, R., and Castiglione, D.. 2013. “Three models of democracy, political community and representation in the EU.” Journal of European Public Policy 20 (2): 206–23.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power, trans. by Thompson, J. B.. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, J. 1997. Excitable Speech: Politics of the Performative. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Celis, K., et al. 2008. “Rethinking Women's Substantive Representation.” Representation 44 (2): 99–110.Google Scholar
Chabal, P., and Daloz, J.-P.. 2006. Culture Troubles: Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. London: Hurst & Co. Google Scholar
Dahl, R. A. 1985. A Preface to Economic Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Derrida, J. 1998. Limited Inc. Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Disch, L. 2011. “Toward a Mobilization Conception of Democratic Representation.” American Political Science Review 105 (1): 100–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dovi, S. 2008. The Good Representative. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Eriksen, E.O., and Fossum, J. E.. 2012. “Representation through Deliberation—The European Case.” Constellations 19 (2): 325–39.Google Scholar
Eulau, H., Whalke, J. C., Buchanan, W., and Ferguson, L. C.. 1959. “The Role of the Representative: Some Empirical Observations on the Theory of Edmund Burke.” American Political Science Review 53 (3): 742–56.Google Scholar
Eulau, H., and Karps, P. D.. 1977. “The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 2 (3): 233–54.Google Scholar
Fenno, R. F. Jr., 2003. Home Style. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Garsten, B. 2009. “Representative Government and Popular Sovereignty.” In Political Representation, eds. Shapiro, I. et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Giordano, B. 1999. “A Place Called Padania: The Lega Nord and the Political Representation of Northern Italy.” European Urban and Regional Studies 6 (3): 215–30.Google Scholar
Goetz, H. H., and Meyer-Sahling, J.-H.. 2009. “Political Time in the EU: Dimensions, Perspectives, Theories.” Journal of European Public Policy 16 (2): 180–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E. 1990 [1959]. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Goodin, R. E., and Saward, M.. 2005. “Dog Whistles and Democratic Mandates.” The Political Quarterly 76 (4): 471–6.Google Scholar
Harré, R., and van Langenhove, L.. 1991. “Varieties of Positioning.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 21 (6): 393–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayward, C. R. 2009. “Making Interest: On Representation and Democratic Legitimacy.” In Political Representation, eds. Shapiro, I. et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Helms, D. 2012. “Democratic Political Leadership in the New Media Age: A Farewell to Excellence?” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 14 (4): 651–70.Google Scholar
Henriksen, T. D. 2008. “Liquidating Roles and Crystallising Positions: Investigating the Road between Role and Positioning Theory.” In Global Conflict Resolution Through Positioning Analysis, eds. Moghadden, F. M., Harré, R., and Lee, N.. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Hobbes, T. 1968 [1651]. Leviathan, edited and with an introduction by Macpherson, C. B.. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Jung, C. 2009. “Critical Liberalism.” In Political Representation, eds. Shapiro, I. et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keane, J. 2011. “Monitory Democracy?” In The Future of Representative Democracy, eds. Alonso, S., Keane, J., and Merkel, W.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kristiansson, M., and Tralau, J.. 2014. “Hobbes's Hidden Monster: A New Interpretation of the Frontispiece of Leviathan .” European Journal of Political Theory 13: 299–320.
Locke, J. 1924 [1690]. Two Treatises of Government. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Macdonald, T. 2008. Global Stakeholder Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, N. 2004 [1532]. The Prince (trans. by Bull, G.). London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, J. 2003. “Rethinking Representation.” American Political Science Review 97 (4): 515–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, J. 2009. “A ‘Selection Model’ of Political Representation.” Journal of Political Philosophy 17 (4): 369–98.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, J. 2011. “Clarifying the Concept of Representation.” American Political Science Review 105 (3): 621–30.Google Scholar
Montanaro, L. 2012. “The Democratic Legitimacy of Self-appointed Representatives.” Journal of Politics 74 (4): 1094–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, J. R. 2012. Democracy and Public Space. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parkinson, J. R., and Mansbridge, J., eds. 2012. Deliberative Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, P. 2009. “Varieties of Public Representation.” In Political Representation, eds. Shapiro, I. et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, A. 1995. The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pitkin, H. F. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popkin, S. 1994. The Reasoning Voter, second edition. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rai, S. M. 2010. “Analysing Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament.” Journal of Legislative Studies 16 (3): 284–97.Google Scholar
Rao, N. 1998. “Representation in Local Politics: A Reconsideration and Some New Evidence.” Political Studies 46 (1): 19–35.Google Scholar
Rehfeld, A. 2009. “Representation Rethought: On Trustees, Delegates and Gyroscopes in the Study of Political Representation and Democracy.” American Political Science Review 103 (2): 214–30.Google Scholar
Rehfeld, A. 2011. “The Concepts of Representation.” American Political Science Review 105 (3): 631–41.Google Scholar
Runciman, D. 2007. “The Paradox of Political Representation.” Journal of Political Philosophy 15 (1): 93–114.Google Scholar
Urbinati, N. 2011. “Representative Democracy and its Critics.” In The Future of Representative Democracy, eds. Alonso, S., Keane, J., and Merkel, W.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Saward, M. 2010. The Representative Claim. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitter, P. 2011. “Diagnosing and Designing Democracy in Europe.” In The Future of Representative Democracy, eds. Alonso, S., Keane, J., and Merkel, W.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schechner, R. 2002. Performance Studies: An Introduction, second edition. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. 2012. Two Cheers for Anarchism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Simmons, A. J. 1976. “Tacit Consent and Political Obligation.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 5 (3): 274–91.Google Scholar
Slezak, P. 2002. “The Tripartite Model of Representation.” Philosophical Psychology 15 (3): 239–70.Google Scholar
Young, I. M. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.