Good Representative

Suzanne Dovi is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include democratic theory, representation (especially the representation of historically disadvantaged groups), feminist theory, and normative concepts such as hypocrisy, guilt, and despair. Her work has appeared in American Political Science Review, Constellations, Journal of Politics, and Polity.

• Preface viii Acknowledgments xi1 Who is a Good Representative? 1An Ethics of Democratic Representation 6The Proper Scope of an Ethics of Democratic Representation 9Three Assumptions 14The Theoretical Contribution of The Good Representative 17Deliberative democracy 18Descriptive representation for historically disadvantaged groups 21The Structure of The Good Representative 232 Moving beyond Descriptive Representation 27Democratic Representation and Descriptive Representation 29Two Problems with Descriptive Representation 34Justifying the Silence about Criteria 36The Need for Criteria 39The Need for Democratic Standards 443 Democratic Advocacy and Good Democratic Representation 52The Scope of Democratic Representation 53Sources of Authority for Democratic Representatives 62Holding Democratic Representatives Accountable 65Existing Standards for Identifying Bad Representatives 68The interests of the constituents 69Autonomy 71Professional norms 72Why Democratic Standards? 75The importance of standards 78The Importance of Function 81Identifying the function of democratic representatives 84Political advocacy 85Democratic advocacy 88The Three Virtues 90Democracy and Democratic Citizens’ Preferences 924 The Virtue of Fair-Mindedness 100Political Efficacy 101Democratic Efficacy 104Why Civic Equality? 105The Meaning of Civic Equality 108Using the First Virtue to Evaluate Representatives 114Two Problems with the First Virtue 1205 The Virtue of Critical Trust Building 124Democratic Representation and Participation 127Problems with Evaluating Representatives by Citizen Participation 130The Virtue of Critical Trust Building 134Promoting Critical Trust 139Problems with the Second Virtue 1416 The Virtue of Good Gatekeeping 145Developing the Right Relationships 148The Scope of Mutual Relations 155The Virtue of Good Gatekeeping 161Political opponents 162The dispossessed 164The marginalized 167A Perspective of Exclusion 170Problems with the Third Virtue 174Conclusion 1777 Preferable Democratic Representatives: Real-World Political Virtues 179Preferability and the Virtues 182Preferability and System-Dependency 183Are Good Descriptive Representatives Good Democratic Representatives? 185Choosing among the Virtues 190Bad Democratic Representatives 196Notes 201References 228Index 241