Rethinking Non-Electoral Political Representation: Roles, Duties, and Democratic Potential

Abstract

Many of us have an intuition that there is something morally suspect about being spoken for. When we hear others make claims on behalf of groups to which we belong, for example, we might object, “Who are they to speak for us? For me?” The stakes seem especially acute when those being spoken for are marginalized and oppressed groups, and the claims at issue concern matters that stand to have a significant impact on political interests of these groups, implicating their livelihoods, health, shelter, safety, and access to basic rights and liberties. We may worry that these actors misrepresent the views or interests of those they are representing or represent them in the wrong way or to the wrong audience or at the wrong time. In light of these moral hazards, philosophers who have examined this practice have tended to approach it as one that is only permissible or justified when or to the extent that the represented need it, say, because they suffer from political injustices of various kinds. Accordingly, they have tended to ascribe duties to those engaging in this practice which reflect a concern with the risk that these actors may, through their acts of representation, exacerbate the injustices to which the represented groups are subject. I argue that such an approach neglects the non-corrective roles this practice may play, and also mischaracterizes the nature of the duties one has while engaging in the practice. By lifting these presumptions, we may more fully appreciate the positive democratic potential of the practice – not only under unjust conditions such as those we live under but also under the just conditions to which we ought to aspire – without thereby denying, and addressing, its moral hazards. In this dissertation, I will offer an account of the practice that I have been describing which I believe better captures the range of forms this practice can take, the range of roles it can play, and the range of duties to which those engaged in it are subject. In Chapter 1, I analyze this practice as a form of non-electoral political representation. I introduce the concept of non-electoral political representation and show how it developed out of a recognition that conventional ways of thinking about political representation were inadequate for capturing the range of forms political representation can take. I then consider how dominant accounts of non-electoral political representation have conceived of the phenomenon. I argue that these accounts’ conceptions of the practice fail to capture all of the cases that ought to be of concern to political philosophers, that their normative accounts of the practice are preoccupied with its moral hazards, and that their accounts of the duties associated with the practice misconceive the nature of these duties, in part due to a continued reliance on paradigms inherited from what I call the Standard View of political representation. In Chapter 2, I examine the question of what role(s) non-electoral political representatives may play under just conditions, as well as under unjust ones. Intervening in debates on the boundary problem, or the problem of who ought to be included in the demos of a democratic society, I identify and distinguish between claims to two kinds of democratic inclusion – one kind belonging to members of a democratic political community and the other belonging to non-members who are relevantly affected by certain decisions of the community. Non-electoral political representatives, I argue, may play a role in helping satisfy each kind of claim – under unjust as well as just circumstances. To that end, they do have a valuable corrective role to play in helping satisfy the inclusion claims of those whose claims, but this role does not exhaust their positive democratic potential. In Chapter 3, I consider the question of whether there is ever a duty to engage in non-electoral political representation. Building on the takeaways of Chapter 2, I observe that non-electoral political representatives may play a valuable role in promoting just institutions, both through using their speech to directly help satisfy democratic inclusion claims and through using their speech to promote reform of just institutions. To that end, engaging in non-electoral political representation is one way to satisfy the natural duty to promote just institutions. However, though there is a general duty to promote just institutions, there is no specific duty to engage in non-electoral political representation as a means to that end – though particular individuals are especially well-positioned to promote justice in this way in virtue of their social positions. That said, there are other potential sources of a duty to engage in non-electoral political representation, including role obligations and duties of beneficence, which have been neglected by normative theorists of non-electoral political representation. In Chapter 4, I consider the question of what duties govern the activity of non-electoral political representation. Many theorists think that these representatives are subject to certain role obligations, specific to the role of non-electoral political representative and applicable to all instances of the practice – a view I take to be a holdover from theorizing about the ethics of electoral political representation. I offer an account of these duties according to which they are not role-specific duties but context-specific iterations of the ordinary pro tanto moral duty all moral agents have to avoid foreseeably harming others through our actions. This approach to the question of non-electoral political representatives’ duties has the virtue of generality, in that it better captures the diversity of moral hazards that may arise in different kinds of cases of non-electoral political representation and the kinds and range of duties they may trigger, and avoids the challenge that prevailing views face in identifying an appropriate ground for role-specific obligations that may generalize across cases. In Chapter 5, I address six of what I take to be the most challenging objections for my account. In responding to these objections, I clarify nuances and features of the account with references to real-world examples, in ways that bring out advantages of my account over existing attempts to theorize the practice and the ethics of non-electoral political representation.