Toward A Mobilization Conception of Democratic Representation

Toward a Mobilization Conception of Democratic Representation
Author(s): LISA DISCH

Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 105, No. 1 (February 2011), pp. 100-114
Published by: American Political Science Association
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American Political Science Review Vol. 105, No. 1 February 2011
doi: 1 0. 101 7/S000305541 0000602
Toward a Mobilization Conception of Democratic Representation

LISA DISCH University of Michigan
researchers find their expectations regarding democratic responsiveness to be in conflict with their
Tl findings his researchers
findings regarding
article regarding
the context
analyzes
dependency
find theirof individual
the what expectations
preferences. context
I attributeI term
thisdependency
dilemma to " the regarding dilemma of democratic individual of democratic responsiveness preferences. competence I to attribute , be " which in conflict this emerges dilemma with when their to
scholars' normative expectations , rather than to deficiencies of mass democratic politics. I propose a
mobilization conception of political representation and develop a systemic understanding of reflexivity
as the measure of its legitimacy. This article thus contributes to the emergent normative argument that
political representation is intrinsic to democratic government , and links that claim to empirical research
on political preference formation.
democracy is defined by the "continuing responsive-

voters are more "competent" than research into ness of the government to the preferences of its cit-
This voters opinionopinion
articleformation
are formation
once tookbegins
themmore
to be"competent"
(e.g., with once an took empirical than them research finding: to be (e.g., U.S. into izens" (Dahl 1971, l).3 This idea, whose orientation
Carmines and Kuklinski 1990; Lupia 1992, 1994; Lupia toward preexisting preferences makes it one aspect
and McCubbins 1998; Popkin 1991; Sniderman 2000; of what Mansbridge (2003, 518) calls the "traditional
Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). 1 They can form model of promissory representation," not only makes
opinions and hold preferences that are coherent and responsiveness the signature feature of democratic rep-
stable enough to be represented. However, the rea- resentation, but also prescribes that it be unidirec-
soning process by which they form these preferences tional. Pitkin (1967, 140) captures this when she writes
depends on communications put forward by political that, in democratic representation, the "representative
elites in their bids to forge a winning majority in an must be responsive to [the constituent] rather than the
election or policy contest. Elites educate constituents other way around."
as they recruit them to positions that work to elites' Pitkin expresses here what I term the "bedrock"
own advantage in an interparty struggle for power, norm, the common-sense notion that representatives in
typically without avowing the dual motive (Gerber and a democratic regime should take citizen preferences as
Jackson 1993). Political learning takes place by means the "bedrock for social choice" (Page and Shapiro 1992,
of communication that is at once explicitly oriented 354; cf. Achen 1975, 1227; Bartels 2003, 62).4 According
to constituents and silently enmeshed in a struggle for to this norm, which configures the representation pro-
power. cess as linear and dyadic, legitimacy turns on voters and
This finding sits uneasily with two prominent demo- representatives being oriented in the proper direction.
cratic intuitions that belong to two different schools ofAs Mansbridge (2003, 518) aptly characterizes it, the
democratic theory. First is the idea that representative "voter's power works forward" to hold representatives
to the promises they made at election time, whereas the
"representative's attention looks backward" to the pre-
Lisa Disch is Professor, Departments of Political Science and viously expressed preferences of the constituency. Em-
Women's Studies, University of Michigan, 5700 Haven Hall, 505 S. pirical findings about preference formation sit uneasily
State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (ldisch@umich.edu).
I am grateful to Mark Brown, Sam Chambers, Richard Flathman,
with this norm because they defy this static portrait
Keith Gaddie, Jack Gunnell, Jonathan Havercroft, Clarissa Hay-of preferences together with this linear dyadic model
ward, Jenny Mansbridge, Andrew Rehfeld, Mark Warren, and Justin of influence. They reveal, instead, that the represen-
Wert for their comments on various versions of this article. I thank
tative process is dynamic and interactive. Represen-
the students who took my graduate seminars on political represen-
tatives look backward to preferences that have been
tation at the Universities of Minnesota and Michigan, colleagues at
both of those institutions, and SABLE members Anne Carter, Anna expressed, and orient themselves forward in a specula-
Clark, Kirsten Fischer, Jeani O'Brien, Jennifer Peirce, and Gabriela tive mode toward what their constituency might want
Tsurutani. Final thanks go to anonymous reviewers for the APSR or be induced to want at the next election. In short,
whose perceptive advice significantly improved this work, to the empirical research reveals political representation to
APSR coeditors, and to Coeditor Kirstie McClure, who supported
this article with critical acuitv and intellectual generosità be constitutive : legislators do not simply respond to
1 I define competence, after Lupia and McCubbins (1998, 2), as the constituent preferences but are "active ... in searching
capacity for "reasoned choice," which is nonarbitrary but distinct out and sometimes creating them" (Mansbridge 2003,
from "rational choice" in being exercised in the absence of full in-
formation and relying on the advice of others.
2 I follow Zaller (1992, 6) in defining elites as "politicians, higher-
level government officials, journalists, some activists, and many kinds 3 Garsten (2009), Hayward (2009), Warren and Castiglione (2006),
of experts and policy specialists," as well as corporate elites. They in- and Williams (1990) join Mansbridge (2003) in calling "responsive-
fluence preference formation primarily by means of the mass media, ness" into question.
and secondarily through such organizations as lobbies, churches, and 4 The bedrock norm originated with the U.S. and French Revolutions
labor unions. The media serves them not as a platform from which whose most radical strands held the people to be the only "legitimate
to promulgate their views directly, but rather as means of framing source of power" in a democracy and identified democratic legiti-
issues and exercising agenda control (Althaus et al. 1996; Bennett macy with the "idea of a mandate or delegation" (Rosanvallon 2008,
1990; Bennett and Manheim 1993). 9, 236).
100
American Political Science Review Vol. 105, No. 1
518; cf. Manza and Cook 2002;

these Squires
criteria, then one is bound to2008; Williams
find manipulation
1990. everywhere.
This research shows that responsiveness does, in- This is not because deception is everywhere, al-
deed, turn "the other way around." Does this inver- though elites certainly engage in it (e.g., President
sion irredeemably compromise democratic ideals? For Johnson's claims regarding North Vietnamese attacks
the most committed formal modelers and theorists of in the Tonkin Gulf or President Bush's assertions re-
rational choice, the answer would have to be "yes" garding the existence of "weapons of mass destruc-
because preference endogeneity in itself troubles their tion" in Iraq). Much of the time, political discourse is
model of the rational individual. In contrast, delibera- neither straightforwardly false nor intentionally mis-
tive democratic theorists allow that political elites can
leading. It consists, rather, of what Jacobs and Shapiro
shape constituent preferences as long as their inter- (2000, 27) call "crafted talk"- messages that political
ventions facilitate "mutual education, communication, elites systematically develop through the technologies
and influence," rather than manipulation (Mansbridge of opinion polling and focus groups "in order to attract
2003, 520). For them, the problem is not endogeneity favorable press coverage and 'win' public support for
per se but the opening it affords to what they deem what they desire." Such messages have a twofold mo-
strategic action by elites. tivation and a twofold effect: to declare a stand and
This belief that preferences, which are necessarily to "shift . . . the line of cleavage" in a bid for power
endogenous to politics, must be deliberatively formed (Schattschneider [1960] 1975, 61). Put simply, whereas
is the second democratic intuition. It is even more elite discourse serves at once to inform potential vot-
at odds with the scholarship on opinion formation ers and to recruit them into a winning majority, elites
by virtue of its intellectual inheritance from discourse avow only the first of these goals. To disclose the sec-
theories of democracy. Specifically, it derives from ond self-interested aim, as Habermasian deliberation
the
Habermasian analytic separation of "communicative requires, would make their speech acts less likely to
and strategic action," which aims to distinguishsucceed.6 (coun-
terfactually) social coordination that is achieved Empiricalnon- research shows that in the "political envi-
coercively, by the give and take of reasons ronment," among "communicative" and "strategic" action are
speakers oriented toward mutual understanding, frominextricably.7 Individuals form coherent and rel-
linked
that which either results from the overt use of threats atively stable preferences not in spite of but by means
or bribes or occurs under conditions where a party of messages that political elites deploy in pursuit of un-
conceals an orientation toward nonmutual advantageavowed competitive goals. This sets up what I term the
(Habermas 1990, 58; cf. Cohen 1989).5 The discourse "dilemma of democratic competence": citizens' capac-
ideal casts suspicion on preferences that are formedity to form preferences depends on the self-interested
in information contexts where power is at stake andcommunications of elites. Research that aimed to vin-
where unstated motives exist- the very conditions ofdicate representative democracy ends up provoking
preference formation according to empirical scholar-the discomfiting sense that "one form of incompetence
ship. simply replaces another. Specifically, while people who
Scholars who are influenced by this ideal propose rely on party cues avoid basing their preferences on ar-
to judge representation by a distinction between ed- bitrary information, they also expose themselves to the
ucation and manipulation that, as Mansbridge (2003) possibility of elite manipulation" (Druckman 2001a,
acknowledges, is "not easy to operationalize." They 239). Thus, communication that discourse theory re-
define education as (1) lacking intent to deceive, (2) gards as manipulative turns out to be intrinsic to the
serving to clarify voters' "underlying interests and the learning process.
policy implications of those interests," (3) leading vot- What are researchers to make of the fact that they
ers to make choices in their interests, and (4) garnering can affirm citizens' capacity for preference formation
support for changes that voters approve in retrospect only at the cost of revealing their susceptibility to the
(519; cf. Page and Shapiro 1992, 354; Zaller 1992, 313). self-seeking rhetoric of competing elites? Must they
One problem with these criteria is that they beg the
question "what is and what is not in an individual's
interests," another point that Mansbridge (2003, 519) 6 For example, in the early 1960s, when Democratic and Republican
acknowledges to be open to contest. Thus, identifying party elites radically altered their party's positions on the leading
issues of the day (civil rights and the Vietnam War, respectively),
manipulation requires the analyst to posit the "counter- they did so "to increase their likelihood of winning elections" but
factual" of how voters would define their interests "un- presented it as the right thing to do (Gerber and Jackson 1993,
der other, often ill-defined circumstances" (Druckman639). Even if voters suspect (and they surely do) that most political
2001a, 233). A second problem is that if one adheres todiscourse is partisan posturing, politicians would alienate voters by
making that explicit. Voters prefer to imagine they are treated as
principled decision makers, rather than as pawns in a bid to effect
partisan realignment.
5 This distinction gets its critical edge from Habermas' pejorative
equation of strategy with instrumental action. If one defined "strate-
7 Empirical researchers use the term "political environment" to des-
gic" to mean simply "goal oriented," then the distinction would do the "totality of politically relevant information to which citi-
ignate
very little critical work because all communication is oriented to are exposed" by various mediating institutions (Kuklinski et al.
zens
some goal. Moreover, as Bohman (1988) argues, the idealization of 411). It functions for them as a way to speak of what norma-
2001,
communication and derogation of strategy works against Habermas' tive theorists would call the "public sphere," without crediting that
own project by discrediting the speech of the social critic who neces-
environment with the virtues of equality, openness, reasonableness,
sarily mixes the two. etc.
101
Toward a Mobilization Conception February 2011
despair of citizens' capacity todesires,

to needs, liveand up to
values thatdemocratic
are fixed prior to polit-
norms? Must they denounce the and
ical contests communications
relatively impervious to political ap-influ-
paratus of mass democracy? Or
ence. The is contends
latter it time to call are
that preferences theconsti-
norms themselves into question? I argue that
tuted in the communication for the
occurs duringlat-
decision
ter. To rest democratic representation
making, implying that choice either
is as muchon the that
something
"bedrock" of citizen preferences
institutions effect oras on a cognitivist
it is something that an individual
model of deliberation is tomakes. Insofar as this is a move from an
misunderstand individualist
what pref-
erences are and how they to an environmental
form. It isaccountalsoofto preference formation,
deprecate
it might seem
crucial features of democratic more appropriate to labelfigura-
representation: this position
"contextualist" rather political
tion and mobilization.8 Democratic than "constructivist." I contend
represen-
that it can
tation neither simply reflects nor indeed be viewed as a "constructivist"
transmits demands; turn it
by virtue of theconstituencies.9
creates them as it actively recruits commitment to the notion that opinion
The argument continues isover not simplyfour there to be "discovered or
sections. I intuited"
beginbut
by specifying the challenge mustthat empirical
be built either by researchersfindings on
or by the individual
opinion formation pose to him- preference-based
or herself (O'Neill 2002, 348). 10 concep-
tions of democratic representation. Findings regarding I the
turncontextnext
dependence
toofthepref-
new wave of democratic theory and show
erences have significant how
implications its
for the al-
"bedrock"
legiances to a vestige of foundationalism norm, which holds that democratic representation
prevent it is
from answering this challenge. necessarily Following
preference based. For those who
that, subscribe
I make
a brief return to Pitkin'sto (1967) this norm, classic text,
preferences that which
fluctuate in responseI
argue both initiated a bolder to politicians'
move and toward
pollsters' "choice of language"
represen-
tation as mobilization than her successors have man- lack the "nice properties of global coherence and con-
aged and opened the gap between normative expec- sistency that would allow them to play the role of
tations and empirical research. I build my conception preferences" as "most liberal theorists of democracy
of representation as mobilization out of Pitkin's(and most their cousins, the economists)" have defined the
radical insights, bringing that conception within termthe(Bartels 2003, 67, 56, 49). Their expectation is that
compass of deliberative democracy by drawing on citizens
the should hold "definite, preexisting preferences
work of scholars of "rhetorical deliberation" (Garsten regarding the underlying issues [that] any reasonable
2006; cf. Bickford 1996).. I propose "reflexivity" choice as the of language might elicit . . . equally well" (51,
measure of its legitimacy. A term that I take up67). fromI argue for a reframing of this expectation. Is it
Mansbridge (2003, 518), I elaborate "reflexivity" theascase
a that preferences must display the constancy of
systemic capacity rather than an individual subjective bedrock to count as such? Must political representation
one. take preferences as its starting place and ground in
order to be democratically legitimate? Constructivist
research in opinion formation says "no" to both.
THE "CONSTRUCTIVIST TURN" As to the first expectation, Chong and Druck-
IN OPINION FORMATION AND man (2007, 652) counter that the decisive question
PREFERENCE-BASED DEMOCRACY is not whether preferences change but whether they
do so arbitrarily, in response to logically equivalent
Beginning with Gamson and Modigliani (1989), re-
information.11 In political discourse, opinion shifts in
search in public opinion and political psychology has
response to what Druckman (2001a, 235; 2004, 672)
taken what researchers call a "constructionist" or "con-
calls "issue" framing, instances where a speaker brings
structivist" turn (Kinder and Nelson 2005, 103) from "a substantively different consideration ... to bear on
a rational individualist to an environmental or con-
the issue at hand." Such change, which is not necessar-
textual account of preference formation. The ily former
arbitrary (although it may be so in some cases), is
holds individuals to define their preferences according an ever-present feature of democratic politics, which
"involves battles over how a campaign, a problem,
or an issue should be understood" (Druckman 2001a,
8 I specify "democratic" representation because I take mobilization 235). Issue framing is one means of waging what
to be specific to political representation following the eighteenth-
Schattschneider ([I960] 1975, 64) termed the "conflict
century democratic revolutions. Before then, political representation
of conflicts."
entailed "direct adhesion" to social differences, with representatives
acting primarily as delegates, as in the model of the French estates
(Urbinati 2006, 49). 10 In fact, the term "constructivist turn" may strike some as a mis-
9 The internecine struggles within parties, together with their efforts nomer. These researchers exhibit neither a Kantian concern to justify
to navigate the riptides of third party or civil society forces (e.g., the ethical prescriptions nor a poststructuralist pleasure in relocating
Moral Majority or the Tea Party), show that recruitment goes on even agency from conscious, willing individuals to the anonymous pro-
when the constituency is formally defined as a legislative district or cesses of meaning-making in language, but rather retain a humanist
state population. Although I focus on that formal electoral context in commitment to capacities of judgment and choice.
this article because I chose to draw on empirical research conducted 11 Druckman (2004, 672) differentiates "equivalence" framing,
within that context, representation as mobilization is pertinent to which presents logically equivalent information with a different em-
the work of international nongovernmental organizations and other phasis, from "issue" framing, which brings new considerations to
"self-appointed" (Montanaro 2010) or "unelected" (Saward 2010, light. Equivalence framing effects are not as pervasive in actual po-
ch. 4) representatives who act outside the bounds of citizenship and litical debate as they have seemed to be in psychology experiments
national elections. (Druckman 2001b).
102
Taking
This sensitivity of preferences political of
to contexts communication
conflict
need not compromise their ented toward
integrity mutual understan
as preferences, ex-
cept to the methodological individualist
the principlewho holds
of the that
unforced for
preferences must have the "nice
ment, properties
but of global
competitive, self-inter
coherence and consistency" in and
ward of themselves,
winning that
elections, it asks: c
is, independent of or prior people to think
to political twice
contests about the
(Bartels
2003, 56). For Druckman and thanLupia absorbing (2000), them who from have elit
mustered the insights of ing cognitive frames, scienceChong and Druckm
against ra-
tional individualist notionsways of rationality,
in which competition preferences foster
simply do not attain consistency
this sense. in advance.
First, it As can "com-
moderat
parative evaluation^]" or "ranking[s]
Second, exposure over a set to multipleof ob- f
jects" that conflict bringsto into considerrelationship which with is theone most a
another, they necessarilyple develop make over that the judgment course based of
a political contest (2). This view of preferences
strength," not merely takes on its fr
the normative charge out(639, of 651).the distinction between
preference "endogeneity" That and "exogeneity"
"strong" because
frames win out over loud and insistent
it suggests that preferences
ones is no are always
guarantee of democraticendogenous
legitimacy, how- to
some context that is beyondever. Foran individual's
a frame to be "strong" means only control.
that it
For these researchers, so-called
is credible- that itendogenous prefer-
is proposed by a respected source,
ences are preferences. Features of and
taps familiar concerns, the appliesenvironment
to the matter at
such as cues and frames help
hand. A strongindividuals
frame is not necessarily form
a strong- i.e., pref-
erences that are consistent and
disciplined and relatively
well-reasoned- argument.stable.
It may de- Such
preferences can be represented; they
rive that credibility "as muchcannot
[from] its sourceserve
and as
a basis for responsiveness as values
cultural the "bedrock"
and symbols it invokes as [from]normits re-
quires because they cannot causal have
logic" (Chong and Druckman 2007, 652). 3 Itcausal
"independent
import" (Manza and Cook 2002,
follows 657).
that competition In cannot
among frames sum, satisfy there
is an emerging consensus the that
Habermasianpolitical
counterfactual ofrepresentation
producing a rea-
need not and cannot take preferences
soned asof its
position that warrants the assent starting
all affected.
place and ground. It remains in dispute
Competition whether-
may raise the quality of public debate by given
the context dependence of preferences-
improving representa-
the "odds that germane considerations will
tion can be democratically legitimate.
be publicized and discussed" (652). Druckman (2010)
In exploring this question, it
cautions, is noteworthy
however, that a frame may prevail over itsthatri- re-
searchers do not assess the rationality
vals by ofrather
tapping insecurity and prejudice voter than by pref-
erences against the counterfactual of
appealing to logic and fact.what their
Some researchers inter-
who focus
ests "really" are. They look
on cues at
rather the interaction
than frames are more optimistic. Lupiaamong
and McCubbins
messages, rather than at their (1998, 201) maintain
content, focusingthat democratic
on the
"external forces" that makeinstitutions
it more render people capable of for
likely drawing political
knowl-
learning to take place (Lupia
edge fromand McCubbins
the political environment that enables 1998,
them ch.
2). Framing research, for toexample, has
be "selective about whom theybegun to study
choose to believe."
the competition among frames Noteworthy here and between
is researchers' turn from frames
the
and cues (e.g., Druckman bedrock
et al. 2010;
of autonomous Sniderman
preference to the communi- and
Theriault 2004). 12 In effect, this
cation process. research
This shows, as Mansbridge studies
(2003, 518) de-
liberation in the actual public
argues, that sphere
empirical research of electronically
is newly open to the
mediated, highly funded,"deliberative
two-party mass
side" of political democracy.
representation. Yet, I
argue that normative theory is not fully equipped to ex-
ploit this opening. There remains a mismatch between
12 In this article, I tend to generalize about elite communication.
Note that I draw on results from two different research tracks: studies the constructivism of empirical research and the "de-
of informational "cues" (e.g., Carmines and Kuklinski 1990; Lupia liberative theory of democracy," which Urbinati (2006,
1992, 1994; Lupia and McCubbins 1998; Popkin 1991; Sniderman 118-19) rightly characterizes as "hesitant to face" the
2000; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991), and studies of such ar-
"ideological as rhetorical process of representation."
gumentative strategies as "framing" and "priming" (e.g., Chong and
Druckman 2007; Druckman 2001a, 2004; Gamson and Modigliani This hesitancy is true of even the most politically astute
1989; Kinder and Nelson 2005; Kinder and Sanders 1996; Sniderman defenders of deliberation insofar as they hold out for
and Theriault 2004). Although the lines of inquiry into heuristics and an ideal of independence from partisanship that puts
argumentation are distinct, the two phenomena overlap in practice their work out of synch with the findings on preference
because people can learn from frames and cues can be embedded in
context dependency.
the frames proposed by political parties and interest groups (Druck-
man et al. 2010). A strong distinction between cues and frames does
appear to hold with respect to the reasoning process. Framing is
more powerful in its early stages and with "online processors," who
rely on an initial judgment to screen subsequent information. Cues 13 As a further cautionary note, some research suggests that only the
can provide information updates to those who take them in and will moderately politically aware and well informed are actually open to
be more powerful with "memory-based processors" who make their new information and inclined to bring it to bear on an issue. If this is
decisions based on what they have most recently learned (Druckman true, then the proportion of the populace that is open to persuasion
et al. 2010). and deliberation may be quite small (Druckman and Lupia 2000, 15).
103
THE DEMOCRATIC "REDISCOVERY" a qualitative difference between the two, asserting that
OF REPRESENTATION "questions regarding voters' interests, in contrast to
their preferences, are not susceptible to certain reso-
Following the wave of academic theory that lution."
embraced Whereas Mansbridge (517, n. 6) regards pref-
"participatory" democracy in the wake of the erences
Civilin behavioral terms, she takes pains to gloss
Rights, student, and antiwar movements (e.g., Barber as including "identity-constituting[,] ideal-
"interest"
1984; Miller 1987; Pateman 1970), normativeregardingscholars commitments as well as material needs."
have proclaimed a "democratic rediscovery Mere of repre-
preferences, she suggests, are unreflexive, but
sentation" (Urbinati 2006, 5; see Dovi 2002; Manin are "enlightened preferences," refined dia-
interests
1997; Mansbridge 1999, 2003; Plotke 1997; Schwartzlogically in light of not just "simple cognition" but
1988; Seitz 1995; Urbinati and Warren 2008; Young and emotional understanding" (517, n. 6).
"experience
1997, 2000). This rediscovery begins by questioning
The question at stake between normative and empir-
the assumption that democracy need have its origins
ical scholars is: would the context-dependent "prefer-
in a constituency, as a democratic constituency ences"exists
theorized by Druckman, Lupia, and other such
"at best potentially" (Young 2000, 130). Being scholars
large, count as what Plotke and Mansbridge term
dispersed, and vaguely defined, it "rarely brings"interests"
itself to or "enlightened preferences"?
affirm a common will," but requires "representative Not in-according to the most rationalist version of in-
terest, which is modeled by Habermas' communica-
stitutions and the process of authorization themselves
tive
[to] call its members into action" (130). In effect, action/strategic action distinction. Deliberative
then,
as public opinion researchers have come to democrats
recognize have attempted to translate that ideal into
the context dependency of preferences, theorists politics ofby means of "citizens' juries," "mini-publics,"
political representation have taken a similarand turn to such experiments that insulate "participants
other
conceive of the "people," democracy's political from
subject,
the usual sources of information and persuasion
as endogenous to the process of representation. and the usual conditions under which they respond
to polls
The rediscovery of representation alters the very va- about their preferences" (Rosenblum 2008,
lence of "representative democracy." This phrase 300). 14that
Such experiments are at odds with empirical
research on opinion formation because they juxtapose
once struck participatory democrats as an "oxymoron"
(Urbinati 2006, 4) for putting representatives in the
deliberation against "partisan contestation" (300). Not
place where the people should be, now strikes theorists
only do they participate in a long tradition of antiparti-
of representation as "in fact a tautology" (Näsström
sanship, as Rosenblum argues, but they also open a gulf
2006, 330). It is only through representation that a normative models of the way citizens should
between
people comes to be as a political agent, one capable
reason of and empirical accounts of the way they do rea-
putting forward a demand. Thus, representation son (300).
cannot
Even those deliberative democrats who have
be regarded as either supplementary or compensatory;
it is "the essence of democracy" (330). criticized the rationalism of the Habermasian model
persist by
This, too, is a constructivist turn, one motivated in an intersubjective model of dialogue and
a critical awakening to what Young (2000, 125) calls
an attachment to independent interests as a point of
democratic political theory's "metaphysics of pres- for the representative relationship. Plotke
departure
ence." Presence, a concept that Young borrows (1997,from
32) envisions a dialogic process in two stages
Derrida ([1967] 1973), names the fantasy ofwhere a reality
citizens first "aim to clarify their own prefer-
ences"
that is self-evident, unmediated by social processes, among themselves, then "seek to select rep-
and
sovereign so that it can be imagined to provideresentatives
an origin who will try to produce suitable results."
Young and
and point of reference for assessing the accuracy (2000, 132) also envisions a two-stage process,
faithfulness of any attempt to represent it. one To reject
that begins with "citizen participation" in a con-
such a fantasy is precisely to refute the assumption
text of conflict to produce demands that are specific to
that representation is a "descriptive and mimetic"
thatpro-
context, then seeks representatives to carry those
cess, one that merely transmits "something demands
preexist-forward. Even though Young describes de-
ing it, like for instance a single or collective sovereign
mands emerging out of political conflict, she nonethe-
that seeks pictorial representation throughless election"
insulates the process of their formation from party
(Urbinati 2006, 46, 33). For proponents of the "redis-
politics. Hers is a world where "citizens . . . form them-
covery" of representation, "democratic politics is con-
selves into [constituencies]" and engage "in debate and
stituted partly through representation" (Plotke 1997,
struggle over the wisdom and implications of policy de-
31; emphasis added). cisions" independently of elite cues and frames (131). 15
There remains a conceptual gap between normative
and empirical bodies of work that opens at the most
basic question of what is to be represented. Many
14 In a nor-
favorable review of the "macro-political impact of [such]
mative theorists would agree with Plotke (1997, 32)
micro-political innovations," Goodin and Dryzek (2006, 220) report
that "interest representation" is the "starting point
that in they rarely have a direct influence on policy content,
although
a democratic view of representation." Plotkeminipublics
's choiceand other such forums can serve as a way to test-market
policy proposals, promote legitimacy, and build a constituency for
of the term "interest" rather than "preference" marks
change.
something more than a semantic disagreement 15 Forst with
(2001, 369) depicts a similar scenario of demands produced
empirical scholars. Mansbridge (2003, 519-20) affirmsnetworks of discussion" entering into the "center
in "information
104
On such accounts, it is common-sense

not elite moralcommunication
imperative "to do what he or shebut
had promised thethat
a "public sphere of discussion" voters at [election
orients time]" (515, 518).
citizens
in conflict by setting "an issue
In retrospective agenda
voting, legislators actandnot onlythe
accord- main
terms of dispute or struggle"
ing to the "actual (Young 2000,
[past] preferences 130).
of the voter," but To
be sure, Young does not also
adhere
according to strictly
their own " beliefsto the
" about bedrock
"the future
norm; she does not understand
preferences of theinterests to When
voter" at reelection time. be vot-fixed,
but rather conceives theming to
is retrospective,
be arrived representation
at becomes "anticipa-
dialogically.
But she does preserve thetory," temporal
creating "a prudential, logic
not a moral,of bedrock,
relationship
to those voters"
together with the requirement of(518). Whereas promissory
unilateral represen-
responsive-
ness, by stipulating that ithave
tatives isonlyonly
one courseonce
of action citizens
(to do as they saidhave
"organize[d] and discuss[ed] the
or to justify issues
any deviation that
in terms are impor-
of the principles they
tant to them" that theyprofessed
"callto on hold), candidates
anticipatory representatives, who
to respond
aimAs
to their interests" (130). to please "future voters,"
Squires (2008,have two.190)They attempt
notes,
the "process here flows tofrom
gauge what thea voting constituents
majority will want at the next to the
representatives." In sum, although
election, turning to "public both
opinion polls, Young
focus groups, and
and gossip aboutare
Plotke recognize that interests the 'mood
not of the
fixed nation'" prior
so as to to
politics, they make them adaptendogenous
themselves to the electorate's movement (517).in an
to politics
They also make themselves
idealized way: they are formed by practices agents of that change, at-
of public
reason to secure the independence andso autonomy
tempting to shape public opinion that voters "will be of
citizens' judgment against
more the
likely toopportunistic
approve of the representative's communi
actions"
cations of elites. (517).
These models of two-stage processes conflict with Mansbridge (2003) draws two important conclusions
empirical accounts of context-dependent preferences from this new landscape. First, anticipatory voting
in two ways. First, they hold onto an ideal of inde- opens up the possibility that "voters can change their
pendence from partisan communication as a touch-preferences after thinking about them" (517). In turn,
stone for democratic legitimacy, departing from lib- because representatives will not merely follow those
eral/economic models of politics by making interest changes but will actively seek to influence them, it fol-
(rather than preference) its site and dialogue (rather lows that anticipatory representation "encourages us
than preference exogeneity) its guarantor. This is ef- to think of voters at [re-election time] as educable (or
fectively a deliberative rewriting of the bedrock norm.manipulable)" (517). Mansbridge insinuates into her
Second, they model deliberation out of the contexttext (by means of the parentheses) an all-too-familiar
distinction. The question is: how does she propose to
of interparty conflict, as occurring first among citizens
and then between citizens and their representatives. In tell the difference between them?
contrast, as I argue, empirical research on preference This question brings Mansbridge (2003, 518) to her
context dependency shows preferences to evolve in the second important conclusion, that anticipatory repre-
sentation
context of interparty competition and to be respon- is "in most instances interactive and more
sive to communications from representatives and othercontinually reflexive" than the promissory model al-
elites. These communications, although addressed to
lows. Consequently, the "appropriate normative crite-
constituencies, are primarily oriented toward that com-ria for judging [anticipatory and other] more recently
petition. Put simply, citizens learn from, not in spite ofidentified
' forms of representation are systemic, in con-
the frames and cues that political elites deploy to gain trast to the dyadic criteria appropriate for promissory
an edge in partisan contests. In short, empirical re- representation" (515). In other words, we can no longer
search recognizes political communication as twofold: assume that democratic representation is secured by
addressed explicitly to constituencies and silently en- the match (or "congruence") between constituent pol-
meshed in interparty struggle. What would happen to icy preferences and legislative votes. Nor can we em-
dialogic models if they had to confront this twofold phasize, as Young and Plotke do, the quality of de-
character? liberation among constituents and between them and
Mansbridge (2003, 515) grapples with precisely this their legislators. Although Mansbridge notes that it
question in a path-breaking article where she takes is necessary to evaluate the "quality of mutual edu-
up the normative implications of empirical studiescation of between legislator and constituents," she cau-
"'retrospective voting,'" in which voters assess their tions that this communication "depends only in small
representatives' performance based on priorities that part on the dyadic efforts of the representative and
they developed over the course of the term, rather constituent" (518-19). It is impersonal and systemic,
than on those that they held at the moment of election. relying on the "functioning of the entire representa-
Mansbridge explains that retrospective voting effects tive process- including political parties, political chal-
a "shift in temporal emphasis" that gives rise to "un- lengers, the media, interest groups, hearings, opinion
expected normative changes" (518). In the traditional surveys, and all other processes of communication"
promissory model, the representative is bound by a
(519).
Mansbridge (2003) moves much closer to the com-
of decision-making processes" by way of "parliamentary debate and
petitive political environment than either Plotke or
hearings," so that elected representatives do not craft demands but Young is willing to venture. She recognizes that po-
transmit them from below. litical reasoning is mediated by "opinion polls and
105
HANNA
focus groups," as well as by PITKIN'S "MOBILIZATION"
"opposition candidates,
CONCEPT OF(520).
political parties, and the media" REPRESENTATION
These need not
be mere "tools of manipulation" but may contribute to
In 1967, Hanna Pitkin initiated a bolder break with
a genuinely deliberative process of interest formation,
the traditional dyadic
one that need not be unidirectionally model of representation
responsive (as in than
many of her successors
promissory representation) but would be "reflexive" managed. This claim might
(520). What would reflexivity entail? Despite her who
come as a surprise to the many scholars in-would
novative moves beyond thecredit the most mainstream understanding
foundationalist model of of repre-
democratic representation, here Mansbridge falls back that
sentative democracy to the summary definition
Pitkin
on a familiar communicative (209) formulated:
ideal, defining "representing here means act-
reflexivity
subjectively as a property ing
ofinan the individual's
interest of the represented, judgment in a manner
rather than as a systemicresponsive
capacity. to them."17
For As Rehfeld (2006, 3) notes,
Mansbridge,
a reflexive "representative "few historical [should
system treatments have been so completely
contribute]
accepted as a standard
to ongoing factually accurate and mutually educative account of a concept in all
communication" (519). areas of political science" as Pitkin's. This "standard
account" reduced Pitkin's central thesis to the nutshell
The difficulty is that what would count as educa-
tion for Mansbridge rarely formulation
occurs that "responsiveness
in actual is what representa-
political
tive government is
discourse. Education, as Mansbridge (2003, 519; em- all about" (Kuklinski and Segura
1995, 4). And this short
phasis added) defines it, is a "form of influence" that phrase made Pitkin's work easy
to assimilate
meets two criteria: it "works to the empirical
through paradigm of the moment,
arguments on
which held
the merits and is by definition in"constituency
the recipients'influence" to be the hall-
inter-
ests ." Druckman's (2001a) mark of democratic political
arguments representation and
regarding issuemade
"congruence"- the literal
framing- that politics involves conflicts over precisely match between a legislator's
what considerations should votes be
and the preferences of his
brought to or her constituents-
bear on its a
index (Miller and Stokes 1963).
particular question- cast doubt on the feasibility of this 18 That assimilation, in
turn, covered over her intricately
first criterion. Although it is possible to identify deceit- argued assault on a
fundamental
ful, irrelevant, and misleading claims,premise:there
that representation
is often can benoun-
derstood on to
neutral standpoint from which the model
resolveof a principal-agent
the questionrelation.
Pitkin refutes
what is or is not on the merits of thetheprincipal-agent
case.16 model by opposing
As to
the intuition, definitive
the second criterion, Mansbridge (2003, 519) herself for late twentieth-century liber-
has conceded that being "in alism,
the that citizen preferences interests"
recipients' are and ought to be is
the
similarly contested. Once again, "principal force
ininaa representative
political system" (Sunstein
environ-
ment where political elites never speak exclusively 1991, 6-7; Wahlke 1971, 272-73). She argues that legis-
as
educators of constituents but use political communi- lators respond to too "great a complexity and plurality
cation to gain an edge in interparty of determinants" for citizen preferences to be a driving
competition, ed-
ucation is not an orientation but a side effect of the force in legislative decisions (Pitkin 1967, 214 or 220).
battle. Such decisions are multidimensional; they cannot be
Despite recognizing the need to give normative the- reduced to a "one-to-one, person-to-person relation-
ory a "systemic" turn, Mansbridge's normative vision ship" between a principal and an agent (221). Even if
of political communication sets aside precisely what I a legislator were to want to accord the constituency
take to be definitive of its systemic aspect- that repre- pride of place, constituents seldom hold articulate and
sentatives and opinion shapers are not only (or even well-formed preferences on the bills that actually come
primarily) in relationship to potential voters, but also before Congress. When they do, the discrete prefer-
in competition with each other. Her definition of edu- ences of the members of a district would not add up to
cation falls back on criteria better suited to assess an a "single interest," and so lack the unity of a principal
intersubjective relationship than a representative (221).
sys-
tem. Why should this be so? The pervasiveness of Pitkin the (1967) sets the dyadic model aside to propose
Habermasian paradigm of deliberation has something that political representation should be conceived as
to do with it. Even those who, like Mansbridge, would
17 Kuklinski and Segura (1995, 4) claim that "this conception has
not endorse Habermas' rationalism, nonetheless re-
motivated nearly all empirical work, often implicitly, from Miller and
tain a vestige of his urge to separate "communicative" Stokes' classic study" to a range of recent work. Those who make it
from "strategic" action. In addition, these scholars are their take-away point include Eulau and Karps (1977, 237), Jewell
following a path blazed by Hanna Pitkin who antici- (1983, 304), Peterson (1970, 493), Prewitt and Eulau (1969, 429),
pated more of today's debates than she is credited with Rogowski (1981, 396), and Saward (2006, 300). Notable departures
include Runciman (2007) and Näsström (2006), who aim to give
doing- both the insights and the impasses. Pitkin's "paradox" of representation its due.
18 Miller and Stokes (1963) set out only to measure congruence be-
tween legislators and constituents; they emphasized that a "congru-
ence" finding is proof of "constituency influence" only in a context
16 Has anyone put this point better than E.E. Schattschneider ([I960] of institutional arrangements that give citizen opinion leverage over
1975, 66) who wrote: "political conflict is not like an intercollegiate official conduct.
debate in which the opponents agree in advance on a definition of 19 Pitkin's arguments on this point are at odds with Saward's (2006,
the issues. As a matter of fact, the definition of the alternatives is the 300) claim that Pitkin takes the represented as "unproblematically
supreme instrument of power"? given."
106
a "public, institutionalized
1186).arrangement," one
Not least among these was the where
reigning wis-
representation emerges not domfrom "any single
that representative governmentaction by
is democratic be-
any one participant, but cause
[from]
it realizes the over-all
not majority structure
rule but " minorities rule"
and functioning of the system"
(Dahl 1956, (221-22). For represen-
132)- the representation of a plurality of
tation to take place, there groups,
does understood
not need to be a meeting
as "context-independent entities"
(Lavaque-Manty 2006,
of the minds between representative and6). Inconstituency,
contrast, Pitkin (1967,
or even so much as a meeting.
215; emphasisPitkin* contends
added) holds democratic that
representation
legislators' "pursuit of the topublic interest
involve acting and group."21
for an " unorganized response
To the
to public opinion need not always
empirical democrats,bewho conscious and de-
regarded self-organizing as
liberate," and that "representation may
prerequisite to political emerge
representation, from a
an "unorga-
political system in which many nized" group individuals,
would not only be an both voters
oxymoron, but its
and legislators, are pursuing political quite other
representation would be goals" (224).
next to impossible.
This is Pitkin's own constructivist turn. She effec- Pitkin understands representing to participate in defin-
tively redefines democratic representation from an in- ing group identities. Speaking of the "national unity
terpersonal relationship to a systemic process that is gives localities an interest in the welfare of the
that
anonymous, impersonal, and not seated in intent.20 whole," she insists that it is "not merely presupposed by
The process will be judged representative so longrepresentation
as [but] also continually re-created by the
it "promot[es] the interests of the represented, in a
representatives' activities" (218; emphasis added). Her
context where the latter is conceived as capable of is not that representation invents constituencies
point
action and judgment, but in such a way that he does out of whole cloth but that it draws them together: it
not object to what is done in his name" (Pitkin 1967, imputes to them a unity that they discover only through
155). As Runciman (2007, 95) insightfully argues, being the represented. This makes representing an activ-
measure of interest here is "negative." The represen- ity without a model, without certainty, and- in Pitkin's
tativity of the system turns not on the match between words- without "guarantee" (163).
the opinions of the represented and the votes of the At its most radical and unique, then, Pitkin's is what I
representative, but rather on what he terms Pitkin's term a "mobilization" conception of representation.22
"non-objection criterion": the "ability of individuals She toholds the process of representation to participate
object to what is done in their name" (95). in forming demands and social cleavages, not merely
Pitkin's nonobjection criterion not only robs congru-to reflect them. Thus, for Pitkin, as for Urbinati (2006,
ence of its substantive ground, but it also casts it under
37), political representation does "not simply allow the
suspicion. She suggests that a congruence finding socialcan to be translated into the political, but . . . facili-
be trusted as an indicator of democracy only when a the formation of political groups and identities."
tates
constituency has the capacity to object. As provision It
for aims, then, not to re produce a state of affairs but
such a capacity, Pitkin calls for competitive elections,
to produce an effect: to call forth a constituency by
the guarantee that those who win genuinely have depicting
the it as a collective with a shared aim.
power to govern, universal franchise, and the protec- A mobilization conception of representation is an-
tion of opposition and its extension to all. I suggest ticipatory, in Mansbridge's sense. It both seeks to at-
that this list is inadequate, even on Pitkin's own terms,
tract potential constituencies and aims, prudentially, to
because it fails to make good on a significant clause please future voters. Pitkin (1967, 164) even sounds like
of the nonobjection criterion: that the represented be
Mansbridge when she writes, "legislators often pattern
"conceived as capable of action and judgment." This, their actions not on what their constituents ought to
which I call the "judgment" clause, is crucial because want but on what they anticipate their constituents
without it there is no trusting that citizens' objection
will want (in all their ignorance)." What neither Mans-
or nonobjection has not simply been framed or primed bridge nor Pitkin recognize is that this anticipatory
out of the debate by habit, ignorance, or stereotype. aspect
As makes the mobilization conception of politi-
Druckman (2010) cautions, the most successful frames cal representation analogous to aesthetic and literary
may not stimulate judgment but foreclose it by tapping models of representation that emphasize that repre-
exactly those features of the political environment (cf.
sentations are performative: representing is an activity
Chong 2000, ch. 4). I come back to the question what it
would take to satisfy the "judgment" clause at the end
of this article. 21 This notion made Pitkin a better interest group pluralist than
those who claimed the title, being truer than they were to the
A few of Pitkin's early readers picked up on the rad-
"anti-foundationalism" of Bentley's (1908) conception of groups
icalism of her arguments. Registering this move to "un-
(Lavaque-Manty 2006, 10). Lavaque-Manty (2009, 109) writes that
Bentley "conceived of interest as a relationship that depended on
derstand representation as a systemic property," they
the context in which similarly situated individuals might find them-
warned that it could upset many "conventional assump-
selves," so that groups do not precede politics but "come into exis-
tions" (Prewitt and Eulau 1969, 431; cf. Hansen 1975,
tence" in response to that context.
22 Mobilization, as I use the term, applies to the work that images,
narratives, and other mediated messages do in soliciting individuals
20 Pitkin (2004, 340; cf. 1989) seems to retreat from this position in
to identify with a larger group or principle. This should not be con-
her later writings on representation, where she affirms the need for a with activities such as canvassing, phone banking, and other
fused
"centralized, large-scale, necessarily abstract representative system
forms of direct contact that parties and other organizations use to
[to be] based in a lively, participatory, concrete direct democracy
getatout the vote or turn members out to meetings (cf. Rosenstone
the local level." and Hansen 1993).
107
To link
that produces ontological effects Pitkin
while to this
seeming merelyradical s
to follow from an existing state
rary of affairs
democratic (cf. Butler
theory is to put h
1995, 134). 23 the standard account of (unidir
A mobilization conception ness with which so accords
of representation many reader
with "poststructuralist" or Are "post-Marxist"
those readers pluralist simply wrong
theories that have emphasized from how the most political identi-implic
challenging
termed her "constructivist
ties and demands do not emerge directly turn." from social
divisions, but rather that social
The retreatdifferences
begins at the end of the and the
book, where
politics to which they give Pitkin
rise(1967) sums influenced
are up her unconventional byargument
elite
discourse (Laclau 1996; Laclau and Mouffe
in these conventional 1985;here
terms: "representing Mc-
means
actingthat
Clure 1992). 24 The idea is not in the interest
political of the represented, in a man-
elites create
ner responsive
constituencies arbitrarily and in words to them" (208). Read out
alone.25 of context
Instead,
the claim is that there is anof inescapably
her critique of the principal-agent
figurative modelmo-
and en-
ment in the emergence of a
dorsement
democratic
of representation
constituency.26
as a systemic process that
Several theorists have proposed is anonymous waysand impersonal, this could sound like
of characterizing
this moment. Laclau (1996,(and 98;was taken
2005, to be)155)
a returnwrites
to the standardofdyad.
the
"impurity" in political representation Pitkin quickly counters this, that "does
however, writing that,not
as
simply reproduce ... a fullness she understood
preceding it, responsiveness
it" but is notisa "constant
pri-
mary "in the constitution of activity" but a "condition ...Saward
objectivity." of potential (2006,
readiness
300) proposes the conceptto "representative respond" (233). This feature, that claim"
it "requirestoonly
underscore that "at the heart potentialof responsiveness,
the act access
of to power rather than
represent-
ing is the depicting of a constituency its actual exercise," makes asherthis
conceptionorof that,
repre-
as requiring this or that, sentation as having "perfectly compatible
this or withthat leadership
setand of
interests." Ankersmit (2002, 115;
with action emphasis
to meet new or emergencyadded) ex-
situations" but
plains that without representation, "incompatible . . . with "we are orwithout
manipulation coercion of the a
conception of what political public" (233).
reality- the represented-
is like."27 Representing rouses Here is the a language that so bedevils contempo-
constituency to ac-
tion by giving it a picture raryof itself
normative that
theories enables
of democratic it to
representation.
recognize itself in terms of Pitkin a recognizes,
"generality"-as does Mansbridge, that as soon
a common
enemy, shared problem, shared as representation
virtue- becomes that
anticipatory
is (rather
neither than
given nor self-evident but must merely responsive)
be narratedit opens up the possibility
into beingfor po-
(Rosanvallon 2008, 11). litical elites to change voters' preferences. Pitkin, like
Mansbridge, is inclined to parse this possibility in terms
of what she presents as an opposition between "leader-
ship" and "manipulation." Although Pitkin (1967, 223)
23 Saward (2006, 302), who also stresses the "performative side of
acknowledges that the "line" between these two "is a
political representation," tends to define the term theatrically as
"performing" and "action by actors." I adopt the speech act tenuous
theory one, and may be difficult to draw," she leaves
no doubt
conception of performativity in order to disrupt the imputation of that normative theory should find ways of
cause to effect, a move that is significant to displacing the bedrock
doing so. As to just what this might entail, she does
norm from its centrality in democratic representation.
not say. Instead, Pitkin finishes by asserting, as if italics
24 It is noteworthy that Urbinati and Warren (2008, 395) leave this
work out of their account of the new wave, attributing the could
shiftmake it so, "there undoubtedly is a difference,
and this difference makes leadership compatible with
to "constitutive" representation, on the one hand, to scholarship
representation while manipulation is not" (233; em-
on group-based inequalities and, on the other hand, to scholarship
emphasizing the connections between political representation andoriginal).
phasis
political judgment. Just what underlies Pitkin's italicized conviction?
25 For a radically constructivist conception of political representa-
tion, see Bourdieu ([19811 1991). Nothing less that what she terms the "etymological
origins" of the word representation, which she reads
26 Writing about the mobilization effects of political movements,
off its prefix: " re-presentation , a making present again"
Snow and Benford (1988, 198) argue that whereas movements
"frame . . . relevant events and conditions in ways that are intended
(Pitkin 1967, 8). That is, Pitkin invokes etymology to se-
to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander
cure the distinction between democratic leadership and
support, and to demobilize antagonists," activating (or suppressing)
a constituency is no simple linear top-down initiative. It authoritarian
is a "di- manipulation. In a memorable passage,
she writes: "as the 're' in 'representation' seems to sug-
alectical" process, constrained by the belief system of the potential
gest,
supporters, the range of concerns they consider to be relevant, and as I have argued in rejecting the fascist model
and
their assessment of the "utility of becoming active in the cause"
of (202,
representation, the represented must be somehow
204).
logically prior; the representative must be responsive
27 It is important to underscore that representing creates the concep-
tion of reality, not the reality itself. Ankersmit (2002, 115; emphasis
original) loses this subtlety in the very next sentence, writing that:
"Without representation there is no represented- and without po- 28 A notable exception is Garsten (2009, 91), who groups Pitkin
litical representation there is no nation as a truly political entity ." together with Constant and Madison, thinkers who hold the "coun-
Näsström (2006, 331) criticizes Ankersmit for this radical construc- terintuitive" position that the purpose of representative government
tivism, which assigns the creativity of political representation to the is "to oppose popular sovereignty as it is usually understood"; it
representative alone, thereby undercutting the democratic aspira- is not to aim for but to "undermine the idea that government can
tions of his account. adequately represent the people."
108
rived from
to him rather than the other way repetition
around"and not the reverse"
(140). (52). On
Pitkin
Derrida's
imposes here a stricture of account, representation isthat
unidirectionality not a "reduplica-
I term
the "etymological protocol." tion that befalls
This a simple
protocol
presence" (53).
is ItPitkin's
is an ac-
return to the bedrock norm. It ensures that there is
tivity that creates its own reference points and then
a "one-way flow of influence from public opinion to
affects, by "etymological" feint, to have done nothing
at all.
policy" (Manza and Cook 2002, 639), establishing, as
I take Derrida's argument to call into question the
if it followed inevitably from the prefix to the word,
that when responsiveness is functioning properly, etymological
it is protocol of unidirectionality. Why assume
that the "re" is a temporal "re," the "re" of return?
properly democratic. Thus does Pitkin, by a linguistic
sleight of hand, fuse representation to democracy It might
in just as well be an iterative "re," the "re" of
a way that turns one of her genuinely radical sugges-
repetition. When Pitkin defines representation as " re-
tions in reverse: she has moved from demonstrating presentation , a making present again," she puts both
into play. One could follow the etymological protocol
that democracy is intrinsically representative to assert-
ing that representation is intrinsically democratic to (cf.
emphasize making present again , the "re" of return
Rehfeld 2006). (temporal and recapitulative). Yet, as I show, there is
Scholars who came away from Concept with the in her text that violates this protocol and warrants
much
common-sense notion that "responsiveness isawhat Derridean reading. Such a reading would put the
representative government is all about" at onceemphasis
got on the making present, activating the "re" of
less from Pitkin's text than they might have and took
repetition (iterative and active) and bringing out what
on more than they bargained for. Whereas they missedI call its figurative and mobilizing aspects.
Derrida's account has the merits of explaining at
her assault on the principal-agent model, they internal-
ized the etymological protocol of unidirectionality.once
This why violations of unidirectionality in responsive-
ness need not stir anxiety and why they will do so
protocol ensured that contemporary empirical findings,
which leave no doubt that responsiveness has indeed
nonetheless. The very word representation perpetrates
turned "the other way around," would seem to betray
a ruse by the ambiguity that is built into its prefix. Rep-
a fundamental democratic norm. Furthermore, Pitkin
resenting is a making (the iterative "re") that affects
fidelity to something prior (by the "re" of return). I
left contemporary scholars with the urge to rehabilitate
that norm by way of the leadership/manipulation suggest
dif- that the dilemma of democratic competence
ference. Yet, it is precisely this difference that proves
is, in part, an effect of this ruse. For to find politicians
so elusive in the face of current empirical findings framing, cueing, and priming, and to find citizens form-
about preference context dependency. First, asing I ar-preferences in response to that activity, is merely
gue, citizens learn from communication that recruitsto find both exercising the practice of representation,
them to a side in interparty conflict. Second, thereunderstood
is no in the iterative sense. At the same time,
"bedrock"- unadulterated preference or enlightened it is to find a breach of that practice insofar as the
interest- on which to ground a determination etymology
as to of the word seems to promise not a making
which of these has occurred. In short, by its fall back but a making present again .
present
on unidirectional responsiveness and its normative ori-Understood as making present again , representing
entation to a difference that proves difficult to discern,
will inevitably give rise to a normative urge for fidelity
to a popular mandate. If representing is a making
Pitkin's text left normative theory without a purchase
over the empirical findings that have established elite
present, as the mobilization conception would have
cueing, framing, and other modes of influence as it,pre-
then that mandate cannot be trusted; the risk will
conditions for democratic competence. always be that it testifies not to the deliberative com-
petence of the people but to the duplicity of the repre-
sentative who seduced them into voicing a demand.
RETHINKING RE-PRESENTATION This does not mean that a mobilization conception
of representation cannot be democratically legitimate,
I propose to change the terms of this debate by only
enlisting
that it cannot be legitimate on the terms that the
Derrida's ([1967] 1973) Speech and Phenomenabedrock, which, norm defines.
incidentally, was published in France in 1967, the In fact, it is no simple matter to bring existing
same
year that Pitkin's book appeared in the United States. norms to bear on representation as mo-
democratic
This text, which demonstrates that the meaningbilization,
of signs which is at odds with the model of in-
is not derived from the ideas that they are taken terest representation to which leading proponents of
to rep-
resent but rather generated in their relationsdeliberative
to other democracy subscribe. On the mobilization
signs, casts suspicion on this habit of deriving govern-
conception, representing is "not meant to make a pre-
ing protocols for re-presentation from its etymology.
existing entity- i.e., the unity of the state or the people
Against the presumption that a re-presentation or themust
nation- visible" (Urbinati 2006, 24). Nor can it
follow from something that has already beenbepresent regulated by the Habermasian distinction between
("primordial presentation"), Derrida proposes that it
communication and strategy. Representation as mobi-
is from repetition that reality acquires the attribute
lization aims to persuade: its modus operandi is rhetor-
of originality, the quality of seeming to be both log-
ical and anticipatory. Urbinati (46; emphasis original)
ically and temporally prior to its repetitionexplains,
(45, fn.representatives "prefigure courses of action
4). As he puts it, "the presence-of-the-present and is de- their deliberation in the future, which is,
project
109
Aristotle does,
unavoidably, a dimension inhabited by that there is an art
things thatto rhetoric,
have hence that
only a hypothetical or fictional nature."29
it is not in itself instrumental, is no guarantee that every
Representation as mobilization
rhetor willis at the
respect odds with
constraints that de-
are immanent
liberation on the Habermasian model,
to its practice which
as an art. In short, aims to Aris-
whereas these
"legitimiz[e] one shared andtotelian
authoritative perspective
theorists of deliberation do make a place for
representation
from which to judge all public as mobilization in (Garsten
controversies" deliberative democ-
2006, 190).30 As Bohman (1988, 187)
racy, they leave argues, this
open the crucial model
normative question of
how it is to be the
denigrates rhetoric by "asserting evaluated.
primacy of the
literal use of language and often of the argumenta-
tive, if not logical, structure of discourse," requiring
deliberators to argue their case inRESPONSIVENESS
FROM terms with TO which all
REFLEXIVITY
reasonable people could agree.31 In contrast, scholars
who are building a model of To "rhetorical deliberation"
characterize representation as mobilizing is to call
from Aristotle begin from attention
the unabashed
to its creativeavowal that
effects and, thereby, to alter
rhetoric aims to influence a particular
expectations about audience.
what it ought to They
do. If democratic
argue that the constraints on the practice
representation of rhetoric
neither takes the social as its ground,
can only be immanent to its own orientation
nor relies on good reasons to alone
success.
to recruit support-
Rhetors who want to persuade cannot
ers, then invent
it is not best assessedframes
by its congruence with
out of whole cloth. They mustgroup engage thethe
interests because sympathies
very notion of congruence
of a specific audience that holds
assumes particular value
that representatives com-
do and should carry for-
mitments at a particular place
wardanddemandstimethat (Garsten 2006,
"belong" to groups in a prefigured
190). As Garsten explains, asocial
goodfield.rhetorician targets
In characterizing representation as mobi-
an audience "where they stand"
lization, and seeks
I emphasize howtoactsbring
of representation work
them "to thoughts or intentions they
together might
with political not other-
practices to configure the social
wise have adopted" (3, 6). Rhetoric
field and to frame does
the terms not succeed
of conflict within which
without the active participation of and
the pertinence the audience,
cogency of arguments who are judged.
" change their own beliefs andThese
desires in light
claims suggest of what
that representation as mobi-
has been said" (7; emphasis added).
lization Bickford
is not well (1996,
suited to be judged by an ideal
42) adds that Aristotle's rhetoric is an art
model of argumentation thatof attune-
forces a distinction be-
ment "whose function is 4o see the available means of tween communication and strategy. For the democratic
persuasion in each case'" and thereby to identify what
representative, as for the social critic, legitimate politi-
kinds of appeals are likely to set a particular audience
cal communication can be simultaneously "oriented to
thinking. Th is is the aim of deliberation on the Aris-
understanding and oriented to success" (Bohman 1988,
totelian model. Not to produce a justifiable general 195). Both the critic and the representative will recruit
understanding but to "dra[w] out good judgment" in a
supporters as they educate them, employing rhetorical
time- and place-bound audience (Garsten 2006, 190). practices that aim to effect "changes in beliefs, desires,
In Aristotle's terms, the finding that citizen prefer-
and attitudes" not by the unforced force of argumenta-
ences respond to such rhetorical techniques as issue tion alone, but by appeal to identity, emotion, and bias
framing need not indicate a pathology. It simply con- (195). If elite communication is inescapably twofold,
firms that persuasion has occurred. As Lupia and Mc- at once oriented toward constituents and enmeshed in
Cubbins (1998, 40) argue, "in settings where reasoned interparty struggle, then does it follow that manipula-
choice requires learning from others, persuasion is [its]
tion is inevitable? Is it no longer possible to tell the
necessary condition ." If citizens are persuaded bydifference
a between a popular mobilization that uses
rhetor who respects their art as something that should its constituency as a pawn in elite partisan warfare and
provoke thinking rather than merely tap prejudice, one that activates incipient concerns to stage a new and
the resulting preferences can be affirmed as reasoned potentially transformative conflict?
choices. Yet, this notion of respecting the art brings us Even without congruence, responsiveness, and other
to the limit of this Aristotelian position. To establish,measures
as that rely on some version of bedrock, it
should be possible to assess whether a democratic po-
29 Hawkesworth's (2003, 531) analysis of "racing-gendering" in litical
system is more or less representative. But nor-
the
mative theory in the wake of the constructivist turn
U.S. Congress shows how these rhetorical dynamics operate not
needs to break with typical assumptions about the rela-
only between elected representatives and their constituents, but also
within the legislature itself, to produce "difference, political asym-
tionship between democratic representation and pop-
metries, and social hierarchies."
ular sovereignty. It requires what Garsten (2009, 91)
30 The core commitments of Habermasian deliberative democracy
can be found in Habermas (1998, chs. 7 and 8) and Cohen (1986, rightly identifies as "counterintuitive" thinking about
1989). Bohman (1996, 1-22) is an excellent overview. what political representation is supposed to do. Its
31 Garsten (2006, 6) clarifies that although such theories "do notpurpose, Garsten argues, drawing on liberal thinkers
call upon us to always reach consensus," they nonetheless presume in eighteenth-century France and the United States,
"universal agreement" as setting the boundaries within which people
is not to respond to popular demands but to " multi-
disagree. This puts them in contrast to the "classical-humanist tra-
dition of rhetoric, which assumed that people disagreed and asked and challenge governmental claims to represent the
ply
how they could engage in controversy through speech rather than people " (91). By his emphasis on contestation, I believe
force" (6). that Garsten gets closer to naming the conditions that
110
would actualize Pitkin's to mandate but could be observed

"non-objection in the represen-
criterion" than
she did herself. tative's response to challenges to his or her (or its)
I propose "reflexivity" as the normative standardreputation or to a decrease in following or contributor
for evaluating political representation understood in base (Grant and Keohane 2005; Montanero 2010, ch.
these (nonsovereign) terms. I elaborate this concept 5). As for the mass media and opinion shapers, it would
not primarily as a quality of individual judgment, but be important to assess the degree to which audiences
rather as a system capacity. As I use the term "reflex- expose themselves to diverse sources or remain in dis-
ivity," it is not purely descriptive. It is not a synonym crete ideological "silos."
for feedback, the interference that occurs when au- Although it is beyond the scope of this article to
thoritative predictions and pronouncements becomedevelop it in full, I draw an example of reflexivity
an active force within the systems they are supposed from the constitutional design proposed by French rev-
merely to regulate or observe.32 Nor is it normative in olutionary Condorcet, whom both Rosanvallon (2008)
the strong sense, naming the mode of argumentation and Urbinati (2006) have rediscovered as a theorist
that produces warranted decisions, thereby securingof democratic representation. Condorcet's model of
the "moral right" of each individual "not to be sub-representation is reflexive because it is not "binary,"
jected to certain actions or institutional norms thatpremising democratic legitimacy on a link between
cannot be adequately justified to them" (Forst 2010,the people and its representatives that is "zippered"
712). It would not make sense to say of the design orby elections, but iterative, involving a dynamic move-
outcomes of a representative system, as one might say ment between authoritative acts and opinion in process
of a principle of justice, that they are "right" in the(176). Although Condorcet's model was never adopted
sense of justifying the assent of all affected. Finally, and was limited to formal government institutions, it is
reflexivity, as I use it, is not that consciousness of self nonetheless possible to extract principles from its fea-
in time or in relation to others that makes possible atures that could guide a more expansive democratically
modern sense of history or ethics, one ordered with- representative practice today.
out reference to a transcendental principle (Koselleck The design begins with a system of primary as-
[1979] 2004). It is, instead, the measure according tosemblies. These were to be organized at the district
which a representation process can be judged as morelevel, composed of 450 to 900 members each, run by
or less democratic insofar as it does more or less to an elected bureau of 50 members, and federated-
mobilize both express and implicit objections from the
first into communes and then into the 85 departments
represented. that were represented in the National Assembly (Con-
Building on Garsten, I try to imagine what it would dorcet 1793, Title 7, Article 2). The primary assemblies
mean to extend reflexivity not only to government were not sites of direct democracy, but rather entry
institutions, but also to the representation process as points into representative government. In them, citi-
a whole- "including political parties, political chal- zens would select nominees, vote on candidates, and,
lengers, the media, interest groups, hearings, opinion most important, set in motion the iterative process by
surveys, and all other processes t of communication" which opinion and authoritative acts were made to en-
(Mansbridge 2003, 519). For a representation process gage each other (Title 8, Article 1). They would be the
to be reflexive, it would have to encourage contesta- means by which, in Pitkin's terms, citizens object to
tion. First, no official or unofficial body could claim to government acts.
speak for the people absolutely and definitively, so that The objection process would begin with a motion
dissent would be a norm rather than a betrayal. Second, to repeal a law, submitted by an individual citizen to
the represented would enjoy both formal and informal the bureau of his or her primary assembly in the form
means of communication and action to contest gov- of a petition signed by 50 members of his or her dis-
ernment and party initiatives or, equally important, to trict (Title 8, Article 3). As long as the signatures were
protest government and party inaction where initiative valid, the bureau would convene the District Assembly
should be. Finally, the political communications of ad- to hear the petition. Following a week's deliberation,
vocacy groups, mass media, and opinion shapers would Assembly members would be required to vote- yes or
be in competition with one another so as to mitigate no- on whether the petition warranted consideration
passive absorption of elite communications. at the communal level. If a majority of its members
For a system as for an individual, however, reflexivity voted yes, then the primary assemblies across the com-
means more than the mere fact of contestation. Offi- mune would be required to convene to decide whether
cial and unofficial representatives must have regular, to submit it to the consideration of the department as
structured ways of taking objections into account. In a whole. If majorities in a majority of the assemblies
the case of official representatives (e.g., government oracross the commune put it forward, then the depart-
party), reflexivity would require provision for a formal mental administration would have to order a general
response that at least registers (if not necessarily incor- convocation, submitting the petition to the judgment
porates) popular challenges. In the case of unofficial of or all assemblies in its communes.
"self-appointed" representatives, reflexivity is difficult I draw two principles from these aspects of Con-
dorcet's design. First, reflexive institutions are inter-
locking so that a ruling by one triggers a review by
32 Kaplan (2003) is a powerful analysis of the monumental effect
another.
that Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's speculative phrase, Second, they are structured to incrementally
"irrational exuberance," had on global financial markets. broaden what Schattschneider ([I960] 1975, 3) terms
Ill
the "scope of conflict." Atin the

thepeople's name. It can,
lowest however,
levels of set the
in motion
structure, a commune simply heard
what amounts what
to a recall of their the major-
representatives. If the
general
ity in one district referred toconvocation
it andresults decidedin a "yes" whether
for repeal, then
there would be
the petition warranted further new national elections in whichwhereas
consideration, mem-
a department would both bers
hear who stood
andbyrule the law onwouldthebe prohibited
merits from
competing.
of a proposal that a majority of Onceitsreconstituted,
communes the National Assembly
deemed
would take up the
worthy of its attention (Condorcet question Title
1793, of repeal again, with its de-
8, Article
10). In the move from the communal
cision subject to the to
same the
processdepartment
of censure, beginning
level, then, there would be anewanwithexpansion
a petition to the district
of the (Condorcet
scope1793,
of conflict and an intensification of its stakes. At the
Title 8, Articles 22 and 26). Condorceťs constitution
makes it possible to call any statement of the popular
departmental level, if voting majorities in a majority
will into question. Because no site is privileged for its
of the communes voted for repeal, then that judgment
would extend the scope of conflict and raise its stakes
expression, the process of its articulation is always open
once again, triggering reconsideration of the law to amendment.
by
Condorceťs design exemplifies what reflexivity
the National Assembly (Title 8, Article 13). In short,
Condorceťs design would permit voting majorities might
of look like as a capacity of formal government
institutions. His account is limited by that focus and by
the Assemblies in just 1 of the 85 national departments
to call the legitimacy of a national law into question.
the fact that it institutionalized deliberation by means
Urbinati (2006, 196) argues that, by its "complex
of interlocking face-to-face arenas. Today, the princi-
ples of his design would have to be extended to the
system of time delays" and multiplication of the "sites
representative
of debate," this structure increases the possibility of process as a whole, including opinion
producing a judgment that "command[s] rationalsurveys,
con- lobby groups, and other organized forces, and
viction" (Urbinati 2009, 196). This is, indeed, possi-
take account of the mediation of political communica-
ble. But the more certain and, hence, striking feature
tion by television, the Internet, and political advertising
of Condorceťs design is that it would steadily(together
and with the structure of its financing).33 How-
automatically bring new participants into a conflict.
ever, these principles- interlocking assemblies, system-
It lends momentum to dissent. That Condorcet de- atically broadening the scope of conflict, and privileg-
signed this momentum to build through deliberative
ing no site as the locus of the popular will- foster the
kind of competition that Chong and Druckman (2007)
public forums, rather than instantaneously (or "virally"
by today's vehicle of blogs and 30-second advertising
suggest may activate citizens' judgment. These princi-
spots), may encourage greater rationality. Reflexivity
ples, then, begin to fill in the details of what it would
take to satisfy Pitkin's "non-objection criterion" to-
is, however, a necessary but not a sufficient condition:
although it protects against the spontaneous andgether
imme- with its "judgment" clause. Expanding the scope
diate mobilization of citizen objections, it cannotofguar-
conflict mobilizes objections; competition among
antee that objections that make it through the the sites aims to ensure (but cannot guarantee) that
process
will be reasonable. objections raised will be well reasoned. Insofar as it is
Finally, Condorcet ensured that no site would reflexive,
be a representative process may be democrati-
cally legitimate in spite of the fact that it includes and
privileged as the locus from which to express the popu-
lar will. As Urbinati (2006, 183) argues, Condorceteven "setrequires the participation of self-seeking elites.
up political processes that presumed dissenting inter-
pretations of the meaning of the 'common opinion,'" CONCLUSION
creating the means to put any statement of popular
will- whether by majority vote, popular initiative, leg-
This article opens with an apparent dilemma: the po-
islative action, or executive order- up for revision or environment that enables citizens to form repre-
litical
even repeal. This is evident from the next step insentable
the preferences renders them susceptible to elite
process, the ruling of the National Assembly, which manipulation. This seems to be a pathology of mass-
would be required to happen within two weeks of a votemediated democratic politics; however, I argue that it
to repeal by the department (Condorcet 1793, Title 8,
is not, or at least not entirely. What drives the sense of
Article 13). The National Assembly would have the pathology is the bedrock norm, with its expectation of
option to affirm the departmental repeal or oppose it
unidirectional responsiveness. In place of that norm, I
and stand by its law. If it voted against repeal, propose
then a mobilization conception of democratic rep-
that ruling would not be final; on the contrary, it would
resentation and put reflexivity forward as an alternative
perpetuate the conflict by occasioning a general convo-
measure of its legitimacy. As a norm of representative
cation of every primary assembly in the 85 departmentsdemocracy, reflexivity recasts the dilemma of citizen
(Title 8, Article 20). The scope of conflict would expand
competence by taking the citizen-representative dyad
again because, if the National Assembly stood by its out
law of its center. Rather than worry that elite com-
in the face of one department's challenge, the question
munication affects citizen preference formation, and
of repeal would be referred to the citizenry as a whole.
Remarkably, that a majority joined in the opposition
33 In their survey of the "incentive effects of democratic institutions,"
would still not suffice to repeal the law. For Condorcet,
Lupia and McCubbins (1998, 206, ch. 10) find what I would term
even a popular referendum is not synonymous with "reflexivity"
the internal to the legislative process in the U.S. House of
voice of the people: it cannot make a substantive claim
Representatives and the bureaucracy.
112
quest after criteria to determine when

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Toward A Mobilization Conception of Democratic Representation

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Author(s): LISA DISCH

Toward a Mobilization Conception of Democratic Representation

democracy is defined by the "continuing responsive-

518; cf. Manza and Cook 2002;

despair of citizens' capacity todesires,

On such accounts, it is common-sense

would actualize Pitkin's to mandate but could be observed

the "scope of conflict." Atin the

quest after criteria to determine when

Kinder, Donald R., and Lynn Sanders. 1996.

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