Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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are two aspects that need to be specified in order to come up with<br />
a criterion for legitimacy that starts from the given of the representational<br />
relation. First, in democratic theory authors have defended<br />
opposing views on the room of manoeuvre that the representative<br />
should have at its disposal in order to use the power that is delegated<br />
to him. Some have argued that the representative is better informed<br />
than the represented and should be given the free<strong>do</strong>m to exercise his<br />
power, i.e. an elitist rendition of representation, while the opposing<br />
view defends the need for close scrutiny of the representative. In the<br />
following I will try to show that an intermediary position is possible<br />
as well. Secondly, one should specify the ones partaking in the representational<br />
relationship, because it is the answer to ‘legitimacy of<br />
what?’. For example, while representation in a ‘government-system’<br />
consists in a relation between state and society, representation in a<br />
‘governance-system’ <strong>do</strong>es not consist in this unique relationship but<br />
consists in a plurality of representation-relationships arising in the<br />
overlapping zones between state, society and market. By making<br />
explicit the underlying representational relationship, and hence ‘who’<br />
the representative and represented are, one can offer a more specific<br />
account of one’s view on legitimacy. To illustrate this: The examples<br />
in the subsection on Governance in search of legitimacy show that there<br />
exist contrasting views on who should be the ones offering input:<br />
Scharpf is thinking of a pre-existing demos (which is more in line with<br />
the ‘government-model’), while others, like Risse, talk about participatory<br />
input of specific groups in specific policy-making issues (which<br />
is more in line with the ‘governance-model’).<br />
Below I will deal with these two aspects of legitimacy in representation.<br />
First I will present two different models of representation,<br />
which have implications for the normative question of the scope of<br />
manoeuvre that should be attributed to the representative. Secondly,<br />
on the basis of the most appropriate descriptive term I will look into a<br />
comprehensive theory of representation (the representative claim) that<br />
offers an untraditional answer to the ‘legitimacy of what’-question.<br />
A rather formalistic way of formulating representation is the<br />
principal-agent relationship. It consists in authorization of the agent<br />
by the principal and accountability of the agent to the principal. The<br />
use of the terms authorization and accountability suggest that the agent<br />
43<br />
GOVERNANCE<br />
THROUGH THE LENS OF<br />
REPRESENTATION<br />
Femmy Thewissen