Abstract:
Classic accounts of representative democracy describe an interest-first model according to which constituencies form around things they want and elected representatives respond to their demands. Research into political knowledge and preference formation shows that in practice, responsiveness goes the other way. In mass democracies, acts of political representation often do not take constituencies and their interests as a starting point. Representatives of all kinds participate in forming group identities, crafting political demands, and defining political cleavages. In such a context, the model of interest-first representation and the responsiveness ideal set representative democracy up to fail: they create expectations about “competence” that most individuals cannot and need not meet. I propose a mobilization conception of political representation and defend a dynamic account of constituency making to shift those expectations.