The Edges of Political Representation

Claire Dupont is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for European Studies and the Political Science Department, Vrije Universiteit in Brussels.Mihnea Tanasescu is an FWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Political Science Department, Vrije Universiteit in Brussels.

The concept of political representation has expanded beyond the classical relationship between representative and the represented to encompass advocacy, group identities, non-human voices, future generations, non-democratic systems, symbols, virtual representation and broader interests. As such, literature on political representation stems from a wide range of viewpoints and scholarly traditions, with different norms and assumptions built in.This volume aims to map and critique the 'edges' of political representation. By moving from a discussion in the classical electoral literature through feminist perspectives to different levels of representation, different understandings of who is represented and onto empirical studies of symbolic and virtual representation through participation, the contributions in this book provide a nuanced assessment while also presenting future avenues for research that go beyond the mainstream of research on political representation.Taken together, the chapters provide a wide vista of political representation across several sub-disciplines in political science (political theory, political philosophy, party politics, electoral politics, feminism, European politics, minority politics, online governance etc.), and also open up new research avenues through a thorough investigation and critique of political representation in scholarship.

Acknowledgements1. IntroductionMihnea T¿n¿sescu and Claire Dupont2. Electoral RepresentationKris Deschouwer3. Exclusion and Representation: Women¿s Struggle for InclusionKaren Celis4. Representation and Accountability of the European Union in Global Governance InstitutionsSebastian Oberthür5. Representing Persons: Evocative RepresentationMihnea T¿n¿sescu6. Theorising Representation Fairness: Why We Need to Account for Social GroupsEline Severs7. Representing Future GenerationsClaire Dupont8. Understanding the Controversy of `Black Pete¿ through the Lens of Symbolic RepresentationIlke Adam, Soumia Akachar, Karen Celis, Serena D¿Agostino & Eline Severs9. An Architecture for Hybrid Democracy in the EU: when Participation (en)counters RepresentationFerran Davesa & Jamal Shahin10. ConclusionsMihnea T¿n¿sescu and Claire Dupont