The Representative Claim

Representation is more than a matter of elections and parties. This book offers a radical new perspective on the subject. Representation, it argues, is all around us, a dynamic practise across societies rather than simply a fixed feature of government. At the heart of the argument is the straightforward but versatile notion of the representative claim. People claim to speak or stand for others in multiple, shifting, and surprising patterns. At the same time they offer images of their constituents and audiences as artists paint portraits. Who can speak for and about us in this volatile world of representations? Which representative claims can have democratic legitimacy? The Representative Claim is set to transform our core assumptions about what representation is and can be. At a time when political representation is widely believed to be in crisis, the book provides a timely and critical corrective to conventional wisdom on the present and potential future of representative democracy.

1 - Remainders and opportunities: recent theories of political representation
2 - Mapping the representative claim
3 - Variations and resources
4 - The elected and the unelected
5 - Debates and interventions
6 - Representation, legitimacy and democracy

Michael Saward is Professor of Politics at the Open University. He has published a wide range of books and articles on the idea of democracy, new forms of representation, green political theory, British politics, and the changing structure of states. At the Open University he has led and participated in the making of a new generation of multi-media politics undergraduate courses, and has commented regularly in the broadcast media.