TY  - JOUR
A1  - Guasti, Petra
A1  - Geißel, Brigitte
T1  - Saward’s concept of the representative claim revisited: An empirical perspective
T2  - Politics and Governance
N2  - Representation is a process of making, accepting, or rejecting representative claims (Disch, 2015; Saward, 2014). This groundbreaking insight challenged the standard assumption that representative democracy can be reduced to elections and activities of elected representatives (Pitkin, 1967). It broadened the scope of representative democracy to encompass representation activities beyond those authorized by elections, transformed our thinking and provided a new perspective, putting claims and their reception into the center. This paradigm shift erased the distinction between elected and non-elected representatives and disclosed the potential of non-elected actors’ claims to represent (Andeweg, 2003; Kuyper, 2016; Rosanvallon & Goldhammer, 2008; Saward, 2006, 2009; Van Biezen & Saward, 2008). In spite of this lively debate, we identify an important gap in the literature: while this paradigmatic shift inspired many authors, conceptual frameworks that can be applied for systematic empirical analysis of real-life cases are missing. In this article, we fill this gap and propose frameworks for assessing and validating a variety of real-life claims. Our study provides empirical substance to the ongoing theoretical debates, helping to translate the mainly theoretical ‘claim approach’ into empirical research tools. It helps to transform the conventional wisdom about what representation can (not) be and shines a new light on the potential future of (claims on) representation.
KW  - democracy
KW  - representation
KW  - representative claim
KW  - Saward
KW  - typology
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/51875
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-518753
SN  - 2183-2463
N1  - © Petra Guasti, Brigitte Geissel. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
VL  - 7
IS  - 3
SP  - 98
EP  - 111
PB  - Cogitatio Press
CY  - Lisbon
ER  -