The Contemporary Debates On The Type Of Political Representative: Methods And Specifications

The western political theorists begin to pay close attention to politicalrepresentation, since Thomas Hobbes proposed the concept of representation and solvedthe problem of citizens’ authorization. The binary analysis framework of “delegate vs.trustee”, which established by Edmund Burke has lead the debate of representativeconcepts for a long time, the relationship between representatives and constituents thusbecome the focus of the debate. In the academic circles of contemporary politicalscience，Hanna Pitkin is the first scholar who comprehensively and systematicallystudied on concept of representation. In a way that combining the semantic analysiswith methods on political historical thought, she elaborated the different forms andmeaning of representatives from formality and substance. Jane Mansbridge hasproposed four types of representative: promissory, anticipatory, gyroscopic andsurrogate. She analyzed the power relations, deliberative models and normative criteriaof each kind of representation. Andrew Rehfeld criticized that Mansbridge’s concepthad push the analysis into another complicated situation. He tried to establish a moregeneral analytical framework of representation according to “the goal of representative”,“the source of the judgment” and “responsiveness”. At the method level, there are threedisagreements between them. First, on the issue of standards of guiding conceptdesigning, Mansbridge claims that a concept should emphasize the effectiveness inparticular contexts, however, Rehfeld think that concepts should not be limited by theirpractice experience. Second, on the issue how the nature of representation types can bemodelled, Mansbridge thought representation is a relational concept, it should reflectthe relationship between representative and their constituents, but Rehfeld tends toanalyze the characteristic of representative. Third, Mansbridge tries to bring substantial ideas for representations, while Rehfeld mainly engages in clarifying the characteristicsof representative relationship, he advocates that the research should be expand beyondwestern-style democracy.The debates between Mansbridge and Rehfeld intensively show the issues oncontemporary political representation theories, it is meaningful to explore therepresentation out of the standard account of political representation.