Between the square and the circle: a view from the ‘representative standpoint’

European Journal of Political Theory 24 (1):27-48 (2025)
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Abstract

Despite the transformation it introduced in theories of democratic representation, the so-called ‘constructivist turn’ left unchallenged the epistemology that had characterised traditional accounts: the questions at stake in current debates on representation are still mostly elicited by a ‘passive’ image of representation as ultimately the phenomenon of being represented by others. Nowhere has the focus explicitly been placed on the experience of representing others. This article proposes a recalibration of current constructivist accounts of representation by introducing what I term the representative standpoint, an epistemological perspective which discloses neglected aspects of the nature and the value of democratic representation. In particular, I suggest that from the representative standpoint, we are able to configure representation as the periodic motion between two spaces: the square, where the representative meets with their constituents, and the circle, where the representative meets with the representatives of other constituencies. The essence of democratic representation lies precisely in the constant moving back and forth between these two spaces. I finally suggest that, configured in these terms, representation may be acknowledged and valued also for providing liberal democracies with an in-built device for a kind of civic education, the beneficiaries of which are the representatives themselves.

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References found in this work

Why standpoint matters.Alison Wylie - 2003 - In Robert Figueroa & Sandra G. Harding, Science and other cultures: issues in philosophies of science and technology. New York: Routledge. pp. 26--48.
The Concept of Representation.Hanna Fenichel Pitkin - 1967 - University of California Press.
The Representative Claim.Michael Saward - 2010 - Oxford University Press.
The problem of speaking for others.Linda Alcoff - 1991 - Cultural Critique 20:5-32.
The Representative Claim.Michael Saward - 2006 - Contemporary Political Theory 5 (3):297-318.

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