Theory of Representation - Case Study Example

Critically evaluate Anne Phillips' "politics of presence" theory of representation: Anne Phillips' understanding and interpretation of the theory ofrepresentation is quite interesting. The idea of representation in electoral politics goes back more than a century, but it has since been refined and expanded to cover a wide range of demographic and electoral contingencies. In particular, Phillips' introduction of the notion of "politics of presence" adds new dimensions to political discourse in liberal democratic societies. Given that for much of twentieth century history minorities and women were excluded or marginalized from the electoral process, the study of representative democracy assumes new significance today as conventional barriers of race, gender and ethnicity becomes weakened. The most symbolic event of this political transformation is the recent election of Barack Obama to the office of President. The rest of this essay will critically assess Anne Phillips' "politics of presence" theory of representation, by contrasting it to alternative theories and interpretations forwarded by other scholars. In the introduction to her book 'The Politics of Presence', Anne Phillips states that "most voters know too little about the candidates to make their talents or virtues the basis for political choice. Most voters, indeed, would query whether these should be a central concern. We might all wish to be represented by people we regard as wiser or more able than ourselves, but, faced with a choice between someone more competent and someone whose views we can share, we usually feel safer in giving our support to the latter. The political party provides us with the necessary shorthand for making our political choice: we look at the label rather than the person, and hope we will not be let down." (Phillips, 1998, p.15) The above passage captures the essential dilemma confronting a voter, who is often unsure of which candidate truly represents his/her interests, opinions and beliefs and in turn will help create matching policy measures. Typically, there are no concrete ways in which one can ascertain if a candidate really represents the aspirations of the voter. To this extent the democratic system is said to operate on "the politics of ideas". Anne Phillips' model of representation based on "politics of presence" aims to provide an alternative framework for analyzing representation. At the centre of political representation based on presence is the demand for equality based on gender, race, class and other parameters of a particular democratic society. The well-entrenched politics of ideas, which is the dominant model in the twentieth century, suggests "a broadly secular understanding of politics as a matter of judgement and debate, and expects political loyalties to develop around policies rather than people" (Phillips, 1998, p.16). But either due to the apparent failure of this model of representation or due to the compulsions of modern times, political scientists and public intellectuals are looking at alternative models of representation, based on avenues of "'typical' or 'mirror' or 'random' representation, which they have seen as a better approximation to the old dream of being ruler and ruled in turn, or as a more satisfactory way of ensuring that all interests are adequately addressed" (Phillips, 1998, p.16). Although Anne Phillips does not endorse these radical alternatives to traditional models of democratic representation, the theory based on 'politics of presence' is an effort toward the broader search for alternatives. The politics of presence theory of representation tries to address the sense of political exclusion felt by communities defined by their race, gender or ethnicity. More specifically, the politics of presence "demands for the equal representation of women with men; demands for a more even-handed balance between the different ethnic groups that make up each society; demands for the political inclusion of groups that have come to see themselves as marginalized or silenced or excluded" (Phillips, 1998, p.15). Through these demands for equal representation political presence is gaining ascendancy over the politics of ideas. It should be remembered that this new alternative model of representation comes at the back of numerous other forms of representation formulated and proposed by scholars such as John Burnheim, James Fiskin, Hanna Pitkin and others - all of which are classified under "politics of ideas" theory of representation by Anne Phillips. Hanna Pitkin, who pioneered the theory of political representation defines representation as "primarily a public, institutionalized arrangement involving many people and groups, and operating in the complex ways of large-scale social arrangements. What makes it representation is not any single action by any one participant, but the over-all structure and functioning of the system, the patterns emerging from the multiple activities of many people. It is representation if the people (or a constituency) are present in governmental action, even though they do not literally act for themselves". (Pitkin, as quoted in de Greiff, 2000, p.397) It is a reflection of the failure of conventional models of representation that here in the UK as well as in the United States and elsewhere, there is a disconnection between public opinion and public policy. Independent polling institutions such as Gallup have published many reports that suggest that government policy initiatives consistently deviate from the aspirations of the general public. It is also pointed out that policies tend to be right-of-centre whereas an overwhelming majority of the voting population expresses opinions and beliefs that are left-of-centre in the political spectrum. This divergence is most blatant in the United States, where the two-party system narrows down the universe of political discourse (Guinier, 1991, p.1102). This shrinkage in meaningful choices is further accentuated by the processes through which candidates attain party nominations. For example, a study of Presidential candidates from both parties in the last fifty years reveals that each one of them come from well-to-do backgrounds, been educated in elite institutions like the Harvard and Princeton, were all male and white. And most importantly, their stances on policy matters are not substantially different. The case of electoral democracy in the United States demonstrates that public representatives have proven ineffective in expressing the opinions and beliefs of those they are representing. The recent election to power of Barack Obama assumes special significance in this regard, since he derives from African American heritage and comes from a working class background (Young, 2002, p.125). One can argue that since racial minorities comprise nearly a third of the American population and are also predominantly working class, Obama's election is a triumph for the "politics of presence" theory of representation forwarded by Anne Phillips. But on closer inspection one understands that the representation based on political presence is as ineffective in promoting democratic practices as were older systems. For example, the incarceration and conviction rates of Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately high when compared to Caucasian Americans. The primary factor behind this imbalance is the law governing illegal drug-trafficking. Peddling illegal drugs in order to survive is not a crime comparable in scale to the massive white-collar crimes committed by large business corporations (Guinier, 1991, p.1102). Key examples of the latter include the bankruptcies of Enron, General Motors, Lehmann Brothers, etc, which have not only triggered the present economic recession but have caused job losses for thousands of working class Americans. Yet, in the first one year of the Obama Presidency, huge bailout packages have been gifted to the Wall Street at the same time when thousands of minorities and working class citizens are losing their homes through foreclosures. Seen in this context, Barack Obama has so far failed to 'truly represent' his electoral constituency, namely that of working class people and racial minorities. Furthermore, it can also be argued that many political leaders in so-called democratic nations represent business interests than that of the people. This being the case, the electoral process in these cases can neither be viewed through "politics of ideas" perspective nor can it be viewed through "politics of presence" perspective. In the case of Barack Obama, just because he is black does not mean that he serves the interests of the African American community. To understand why this is so, one has to look the primary criticism leveled against representation through presence: "Many who advocate the specific representation of women, or African Americans, or classes, or Aboriginals, however, would find absurd the suggestion that the physical or membership attributes of people as such are grounds for their representing those with similar attributes. Instead, they argue that women, or Aboriginals, have similar experiences that only others of the group can understand with the same immediacy. Others worry, however, that justifying group representation in terms of experiences, interests, or opinions allegedly shared by all members of the group obscures differences within the group, wrongly reduces all members of the group to a common essence, and thereby also divides groups so much from each other that understanding and co-operation across the differences may become impossible." (Young, 2002, p.126) In British politics as well, business interests tend to overrule the spirit of representative democracy. It is true that the New Labour government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was a welcome relief from the two decades of Tory dominance. It is widely acknowledged by analysts that the Thatcher era was the most stifling and business-oriented in the last fifty years. Comparing the political structures and representation under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, one can conclude that the latter's leadership had coincided with wider representation of minorities than the former. In other words, while the Thatcher era political climate was based on "ideas" (as well as being ideological), the Blair era is one of "political presence". The move away from the politics of ideas is reflected from the centrist policy framework adopted by the New Labour leadership (Liddle, 2007, p.398). Dichotomies such as liberal and conservative could not be applied in this new era of politics, where political presence as defined by Anne Phillips is on the rise while the nexus between government and business interests continues as usual. The following table, extracted from David Judge's book Representation: Theory and Practice in Britain reveals this change. Table depicting backgrounds of MPs: May 1997 Labour Conservative Liberal Democrat n % n % n % Age of MPs 20-39 65 16 22 13 17 37 40-9 178 43 61 37 9 20 50-9 140 33 61 37 15 32 60+ 35 8 21 13 5 11 Education Public school 67 16 109 66 19 41 University 275 66 133 81 32 70 Occupation Professions 188 45 61 37 23 50 Business 37 9 65 39 11 24 Miscellaneous 139 33 38 23 11 24 Manual workers 54 13 1 1 1 2 Women 101 24 13 8 3 7 Black/Asian 9 2 0 0 0 0 Source. (Judge, 1999, p.11). It is evident from the above table that minority representation in British politics is on an all-time high, which is an encouraging sign. Irrespective of the entrenched links between government and big business, the trend of growing political presence of erstwhile underrepresented groups is a welcome change. Elsewhere in the world too, the participation of women in national decision-making has been growing throughout the 1990s. At the beginning of the decade Anne Phillips assessed women's participation in national parliaments outside Nordic countries as ranging between 2 and 10 per cent (Phillips, 1998, p.60). In 1999 this has grown to figures of between 1 and 36 per cent, closing the gap to the Nordic countries, where percentages stood at between 36.4 and 42.7 per cent. In Africa, where women were noted to have withdrawn from politics two decades back and where societies were dominated by men, they succeeded in finding entry into erstwhile male dominated institutions with great resolution and speed. Further, in the member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) "the average percentage of women in parliaments and cabinets stood, with 15 and 12 per cent, above the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa, with a representation of women of 30 per cent after the 1999 elections was in 1999 ranked 8th on a world-wide scale, behind the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and Germany". (Geisler, 2004, p.45) With new developments taking place across the globe, precipitated by the injustices cause by neo-liberal economic globalization, many people are taking direct action to demand their rights. This is especially true in the Global South where grassroots political activism is putting enormous pressure on government agencies. When seen along with the adoption of "politics of presence" practices of representation, it is possible to foresee a future when meaningful socio-political policy measures are initiated by governments across the world, which would put the legitimate interest of people and environment ahead of others. But it is important to keep in mind that these "social movements increasingly call for forms of group representation not only in legislatures, but also in various kinds of commissions and boards, private corporate governing bodies, and in civic associations, as well as state institutions. Although proposals for group representation are nearly always controversial, structural exclusions that lead to such proposals do not seem to fade away. As Anne Phillips points out, however, specific representation of otherwise marginalized groups does not follow immediately from commitment to political equality. Additional normative arguments are required". (Young, 2002, p.103) Works Cited: Arat, Zehra F. "Human Rights and Democracy: Expanding or Contracting." Polity 32.1 (1999): 119. Burke, Thomas F. "The Concept of Corruption in Campaign Finance Law." Constitutional Commentary 14.1 (1997): 127-149. De Greiff, Pablo. "Deliberative Democracy and Group Representation." Social Theory and Practice 26.3 (2000): 397. Divall, Colin, and George Revill. "Cultures of Transport: Representation, Practice and Technology." The Journal of Transport History 26.1 (2005): 99+. Friedman, Barry D. "Mueller, Dennis C. Capitalism and Democracy: Challenges and Responses in an Increasingly Interdependent World." International Social Science Review 80.1-2 (2005): 74+. Fung, Archon. "Associations and Democracy: Between Theories, Hopes, and Realities." Annual Review of Sociology (2003): 515+. Geisler, Gisela. Women and the Remaking of Politics in Southern Africa: Negotiating Autonomy, Incorporation and Representation. Uppsala: Nordic African Institute, 2004. Guinier, Lani. "The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act and the Theory of Black Electoral Success." Michigan Law Review 89.5 (1991): 1077-1154. Hegde, Radha S. "A View from Elsewhere: Locating Difference and the Politics of Representation from a Transnational Feminist Perspective." Communication Theory 8.3 (1998): 271-297. Judge, David. Representation: Theory and Practice in Britain. London: Routledge, 1999. Lawrence, Charles R. "Forbidden Conversations: On Race, Privacy, and Community." Yale Law Journal 114.6 (2005): 1353+. Liddle, Joyce. "Challenges to Democratic Legitimacy, Scrutiny Accountability in the UK National and Local State." Public Administration Quarterly 31.4 (2007): 397+. Mello, Brian. "Recasting the Right to Self-Determination: Group Rights and Political Participation." Social Theory and Practice 30.2 (2004): 193+. Panitch, Leo. "Renewing Socialism." Monthly Review Feb. 2002: 37+. Phillips, Anne. The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pierson, Chris. "Globalisation and the End of Social Democracy." The Australian Journal of Politics and History 47.4 (2001): 459+. Young, Iris Marion. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Read More