Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

are better suited by the name ‘representative government’ than by the
name ‘representative democracy’ [7] .
In the transition from the represented to the representative something
absent is made present. We refer here to the absence in reality of
the abstract idea of the pre-existing unity of the community which is
made present by installing the sovereign as possessing state power
(Ibid., 22). Urbinati herself states that in this framework we can’t
really speak of a representing of the people, but rather about a “system
of organization of the people and the will of the nation” (Ibid., 23).
This organization comes about by transcending the social realities
proper to society.
These first two models of representation generated both in its
own terms isonomia, which can be translated as legal equality (Ibid.,
40). In its most basal form this is guaranteed by the rule of law and
the state of right. Gradually this was translated into universal suffrage,
generating an equal right to vote, i.e. an equal right to voice for
everyone. It must be clear that such legal equality can only be realized
on a territorial basis.
Temporal narrative
However, those two theories of representation (juridical, institutional)
are incomplete. They miss a ‘political’ element which adds to the representational
relationship a broader narrative. Besides the guarantee
of legal equality, the necessary complement of another form of equality
is needed in order to create justice.
What is different in the political conception of representation
is the circularity between state and society. In order for the state to
represent it must constantly be re-inspired by society. This is guaranteed
by a communicative link between state and society, instead of
confining deliberation to the sphere of the assembly. Both the formal
mechanisms of the system (such as elections) as well as multiple forms
of participation as part of a rich political life (e.g. social movements)
49
GOVERNANCE
THROUGH THE LENS OF
REPRESENTATION
Femmy Thewissen
7
“[…] eighteenth-century American and French revolutionaries used two distinct terms
to denote their innovative enterprises: representative government and representative
democracy” (Urbinati 2006, 27).