Hearing the Voiceless? The Substantive Representation of Future Generations

Even though modern democracies face many long-term policy problems, many authors claim that democratic systems are notoriously ill-equipped to deal with such long-term challenges (Boston et al. 2014; Jacobs 2011; MacKenzie 2013; Thompson 2011). Democracies have an "appetite for the immediate" (Thompson 2011, p. 19) in that they experience difficulties in producing political outcomes that take into account the long-term concerns of future generations (Boston 2016). Since future generations are - by definition - not yet present, their interests are unlikely to be represented. To compensate for their voicelessness, several scholars argue that the interests of future generations could be articulated in the present-day representational process through the election of Special Representatives of the Future to voice the concerns of posterity (Dobson 1996; Ekeli 2005; MacKenzie 2016). By reserving seats in parliament for such special representatives, the latter can then actively consider and defend future generations' interests. Even though the idea of special representatives of the future is interesting, this paper analyses the representation of the interests of future generations by 'regularly' elected officials. Using the 'representative claim' (Saward 2006) as a framework of analysis, the central research question is whether and which representative claims are made on behalf of future generations, who makes such claims and under what conditions. In order to answer this question, we conduct a content analysis of legislative documents from the Belgian federal parliament between 2009 and 2019, showing that today's non-special elected legislators can indeed act as substantive representatives for future generations.