Representatives or delegates: a contemporary overview on the democratic possibilities of political representation

• Grant number: 13/10778-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2013
• End date: December 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science
• Principal Investigator: Eunice Ostrensky
• Grantee: Gabriela Rodrigues da Guia Rosa
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The controversy about the affinities between representation and democracy currently mobilizes many Political Science theorists. Some authors see an incompatibility between the two concepts as Hanna Pitkin and Bernard Manin, yet there are also those who consider democratic representation not only possible but also desirable as Nadia Urbinati. The origins of this debate however date back to classical theorists such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. A very influent formulation is proposed by Rousseau in which the democratic regime legitimancy depends upon the election of delegates, not of representatives, as the latter can compromise the popular sovereignty exercise. Hence it is inevitable to consider the relevance of the concept of sovereignty when considering the relationship between representation and democracy. This paper therefore seeks to shed some light on this difficult question, from the arguments resumption of contemporary authors about their popular sovereignty conception and how this may be related to a representative model of government. (AU)