Representative Claims in History

Abstract

The current constructivist turn in the theory of representation, epitomised by Michael Saward’s notion of representative claims, sheds new light on the history of political representation. Instead of the common narrative describing political modernity as the triumph of political representation, implicitly considered synonymous with representative government, we can use a constructivist framework to study the history of the diverse and competing forms of representative claim-making, both in Europe and in countries in which representative government did not become hegemonic. In particular, it can help reassessing the role of elections in the historical development of political representation and lead us to reconsider the history of non-electoral, embodiment-based representation. Are these forms of representation “pre-modern”? When did mandate-based representation appear, and how did it become hegemonic in Western representative governments? What other forms of representation may be uncovered by a genealogy of both electoral and non-electoral representation? This panel welcomes papers addressing these questions, and more generally papers discussing the history of (claims of) representation.