Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

claim, made it possible to give a different characterization of governance:
one that takes into account the (constitutive) representational
aspect of the separate units of governance decision-making. However
inspiring the representative claim-model is in this regard, I want to
contrast it here with representative democracy that characterizes the
‘classical’ government-model. In order to get a better insight in to that
which we admire in ‘representative democracy’ and to know what it is
exactly that we will miss when switching to the governance-model, it
is necessary to uncover the elements that make representative democracy
so valuable.
Spatial division
48
DEMOCRACY TODAY
Nadia Urbinati differentiates between three theories of representation
which can be traced back to the history of representation that started
with liberal parliamentarism. She speaks about a juridical, institutional
and political theory of representation. The separation between state
and society is the basic trait of the three theories. Without this division
there is no representative ‘democracy’. The chronologically two
first systems, juridical and institutional representation, are essentially
and almost exclusively about this relationship. Urbinati associates
these theories amongst others with Hobbes, one of the first to install
this clear division between state and society on the basis of a contract.
The contract-relationship is a relation of authorization. In such a relation,
when the representative has to be appointed, the focus is on the
individual and his/her personal qualities and not on a political issue
itself. The content of decision-making is in a contract-relation only of
concern to the one who is authorized [6] . “It makes representation into
a rigorously state-centered institution whose relation to society is left
to the judgment of the representative (trustee); and it restricts popular
participation to a procedural minimum (election as magistracy designation)”
(Urbinati 2006, 23). This is why these forms of representation
6
“[…] The juridical configures the relationship between represented and representative
along the lines of an individualistic and nonpolitical logic insofar as it presumes that
electors pass judgment on candidates’ personal qualities, rather than their political ideas
and projects” (Urbinati 2006, 22).