Centripetal Representation

Abstract

Growing political complexity is one of the defining features of contemporary rich post-industrial society. Patterns of electoral, administrative, and societal representation have become more complex over the past fifty years as organizations and policymaking processes have stretched across borders, as relatively stable patterns of post-war party competition have broken down, and as more dynamic and ad-hoc governance networks have sprung up alongside older bureaucratic hierarchies. While populist leaders have capitalized on voters' desire to "take back control" of institutions whose opacity they find alienating, deliberative democratic and constructivist theorists of representation tend to express substantial enthusiasm for more complex representative systems.They show why pluralizing processes of representation can promote wiser, more inclusive, more dynamic, and, ultimately, more democratically legitimate processes of self-rule.iii However, the fragmentation of processes of political representation can pose a serious threat to democratic legitimacy and should be countered by a specific kind of democratic simplification. Complexity exacerbates information asymmetries between representatives and constituents that afflict the resource-poor worse than others, biasing the representative system against them. Simplifying systems of political representation can help ordinary people understand and engage with their representatives and push back against gridlock, collusion, capture, and shirking. Broad inclusion of pluralistic claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery of the representative system should therefore be combined with substantial democratic simplicity at its core, with networked responsiveness in between. I use the metaphor of centripetal motion to captures the idea that pressure and influence should flow "inwards" from a heterogeneous assemblage of claims, actors, and institutions on the periphery to a relatively small and organized group at the centre.The theory of centripetal representation can help political theorists, social scientists, and political practitioners think about how to manage complexity and shape our evolving systems of representation in ways that promote democratic legitimacy by helping ordinary people to be seen and heard, rather than allowing the powerful to hide. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation first began to take shape under the guidance of Simone Chambers, whose work has long been an important model for my own. Her incisive judgement has helped me not stray too far from the right path and her somewhat pugilistic style has been a constant spur to professionalism. I was influenced at a decisive stage by Michael Donnelly, an erstwhile committee member whose inspiring teaching got me excited about the way political scientists study political representation. I am extremely lucky that Andy Sabl happened to come to Toronto, as there are few democratic theorists so independent in their orientation and so closely engaged with empirical work. Certainly, there cannot be many who are ...