Revisiting the constructivist turn in political representation

Abstract

In recent times, representation theory has become one of the most productive and interesting sub-fields in democratic theory. Arguably, the most important theoretical innovation are the so-called ‘constructivist’ approaches to political representation. These approaches play a central role in Creating Political Presence: The New Politics of Democratic Representation and The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation, two impressive volumes that take stock of the state of the art in representation theory. I discuss the two volumes by focusing on three broader and interconnected themes: the problem that constructivism is meant to respond to, the tendency of representation theorists to expand the possibilities of representation as broadly as possible, and the normative aspects of political representation and how constructivists deal with them.