Recursive Representation in the Shadow of Populism

In Europe, the UK, and the US populism has gained ground. The rise of populism is a response to growing global interdependencies, which simultaneously increase the need for collective action (and legitimate coercion) and decrease its supply. In the context of scarce democratic legitimacy, populist politicians and policies become attractive to citizens who feel they are not being heard. Old understandings of hierarchy in representation no longer have resonance in today’s world. It is time to conceive instead of the always partial production of legitimacy in representation in the complexity of today’s world. In this paper, I stress the importance of recursive presentation in the electoral, administrative, and societal realms. In recursive representation both representatives and constituents take in what the other is saying, update, revise, and respond on the basis of their own experience, then listen to the others’ response to their responses and respond to that accordingly. Recursive representation should replace or at least supplement the traditional norm of “two-way communication” as a component of the larger ideal of good political representation across representative systems. Recursive representation serves as an aspirational (“regulative”) ideal.