Constructing disability in parliament: Extending the constructivist turn to the political representation of disabled people

The last decade has seen radical and rapid legislative change that has restructured the structural positioning of many disabled people. Within this context we have seen the political (mis)representation of disabled people in parliaments abound – with a proliferation and decimation of images, narratives and discourses. Claims to represent disabled people abound, yet these claims reveal the ubiquity of institutionalised ableism in elected legislatures resulting from the historic and systematic exclusion of disabled people from politics as both the representative and the represented. Yet the parliamentary politics of disability remains largely misunderstood and systematically overlooked in research. This endures despite seismic shifts in political representation studies, most notably an increased interest in how claims to representation (mis)represent the very groups they purport to represent. This recent turn has engaged scholars from across a number of disciplines in extensive theoretical and empirical discussions on political representation – redefining what we understand by representation and how it should be studied. From these discussions, we have witnessed the emergence of the constructivist model of representation, which views representation as dynamic and contested process wherein divergent claims to representation compete against each other, in contrast to the traditional models, where representation is seen as the translation of fixed demands into measurable acts. The constructivist lens has become commonplace in studies examining the political representation of women, ethnic minorities, and other marginalised groups, but it has yet to be explored in relation to the representation of disabled people. This paper reviews the constructivist turn in political representation studies in relation to disability, and assesses how renewed interest in substantive representation, mostly notably the claims-making thesis, can help us study the political (mis)representation of disability. Following this discussion, an alternative framework for conceptualising and analysing political representation in relation to the specific context of disability is outlined, with the express aim of capturing and evaluating the complex, contested nature of claims to represent disabled people in parliamentary arenas.