Informal political representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups. Such representation can give these groups some say, however mediate, partial, and ...imperfect, in how things go for them. Coeval with the political goods such representation offers these groups are its particular dangers to them. Mindful of these dangers, skeptics challenge the practice for being, inter alia, unaccountable, unauthorized, inegalitarian, and oppressive. These challenges provide strong pro tanto reasons to think the practice morally impermissible. This paper considers the question: On what conditions is the informal political representation of oppressed and marginalized groups permissible? By responding to skeptics’ challenges, I develop a systematic account of moral constraints that, if adopted, would make such representation permissible. The account that emerges shows that informal political representatives (IPRs) must aim to fulfill two sets of sometimes conflicting duties to the represented: democracy within duties, which concern how the representative treats and relates to the represented, and justice without duties, which concern how the representative's actions advance the aims of the representation.
This article provides a survey of the emerging debate on the political representation of nonhuman animals. In Section 1, I identify some of the reasons why the interests of animals are often ...disregarded in policy-making, and present two arguments why these interests should be considered. In Section 2, I introduce four institutional proposals that have been discussed in the relevant literature. Section 3 attempts to make explicit the underlying logic of each proposal (i.e. which specific problems it wants to tackle). Section 4 discusses some of the main normative pros and cons of each proposal.
Proportional electoral rules are associated with more substantial women’s representation than majoritarian ones. To provide causal evidence that electoral rules affect women’s representation and the ...qualification of politicians, we collect panel data on the universe of Italian politicians from all levels of government over the period 1987–2013 and analyse an Italian reform which, in 2005, changed the electoral rule for national elections from (mostly) majoritarian to proportional, but did not affect subnational level elections. We find that this reform increased the number of women elected by 5%, while not decreasing the overall qualification levels of politicians, measured by the level of education and political experience. We provide evidence that the highest qualification women are not elected and that the overall qualification of elected politicians could have increased (rather than remain constant) if the best women candidates had been elected.
In this paper we develop linkages between non-representational theory and emerging work by disability scholars in geography. We argue that non-representational thinking has the potential to advance ...our understanding of the complex and emergent geographies of dis/ability. We first outline key dimensions of non-representational thinking within geography. We then explore how this perspective has begun to, and might further inform, geographical scholarship on disability. Next, we extend our thinking to consider how NRT might provide the basis for a critical geography of the ‘able-body’. We conclude by reflecting on the conceptual, political, methodological and empirical implications of our argument.
Abstract Do female policymakers encourage the production of renewable energy compared to their male counterparts? Using instrumental variables, we conduct a cross-country analysis of 39 high-income ...countries for the years 1997–2020 using quota laws and women’s suffrage as instruments for women’s participation in the parliament. We find that a 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of women in the legislature increases renewable energy production by 1.54 percentage points. This study suggests that fostering policies that boost women’s participation in policy-making positions is beneficial, especially when considering the positive spillover to other countries.
The global spread of electoral gender quotas has been characterized as one of the most significant institutional developments of the last 30 years. Many of the countries that have adopted these laws ...designed to increase women's political representation are electoral autocracies that have otherwise-stark gender inequalities. Some scholars argue that electoral authoritarian states have adopted quotas as a strategy for improving their international reputations for democracy. This article represents the first exploration of whether quotas really generate reputational boosts. Using large-scale survey experiments in Sweden and the United States concerning hypothetical developing countries, we find that they do. In particular, audiences perceived electoral autocracies as more democratic and were more likely to support giving them foreign aid when women's descriptive representation was greater. Beyond its contribution to our understanding of gender quotas and women's representation, this article contributes to broader debates about international reputation, human rights, and foreign aid attitudes.
Six electoral cycles since the implementation of Brazil’s gender quota, just 15% of the 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies are women. We ask how parties’ use of informal institutions mediates the ...effectiveness of the gender quota. Drawing on data from more than 4,000 state-level party organizations, we show that parties employ informal practices that intentionally and non-intentionally interact with gender equity rules to affect women’s political representation: the intentional nomination of phantom candidates (“laranjas”) allows parties to comply with the letter of the quota law, without effectively supporting women’s candidacies—to the detriment of women’s election; meanwhile, the extended use of provisional commissions to minimize oversight on candidate selection poses an obstacle to the quota and women’s candidacies and election more generally. Quota resistance characterizes an instance of both the likely inadvertent effects of informal institutions employed for non-gendered motivations and party leaders acting to preserve their own power.
The article compares analytically populism and technocracy as alternative forms of political representation to party government. It argues that populist and technocratic principles of representation ...challenge fundamental features of party democracy. The two alternative forms of representation are addressed theoretically from the perspective of political representation. First, the article identifies the commonalities between the two forms of representation: both populism and technocracy are based on a unitary, nonpluralist, unmediated, and unaccountable vision of society's general interest. Second, it highlights their differences. Technocracy stresses responsibility and requires voters to entrust authority to experts who identify the general interest from rational speculation. Populism stresses responsiveness and requires voters to delegate authority to leaders who equate the general interest with a putative will of the people. While the populist form of representation has received considerable attention, the technocratic one has been neglected. The article presents a more complete picture of the analytical relationship between them.
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