Good Representative (eBook)

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 xi

1 Who is a Good Representative? 1

An Ethics of Democratic Representation 6

The Proper Scope of an Ethics of Democratic Representation 9

Three Assumptions 14

The Theoretical Contribution of The Good Representative
17

Deliberative democracy 18

Descriptive representation for historically disadvantaged groups
21

The Structure of The Good Representative 23

2 Moving beyond Descriptive Representation 27

Democratic Representation and Descriptive Representation 29

Two Problems with Descriptive Representation 34

Justifying the Silence about Criteria 36

The Need for Criteria 39

The Need for Democratic Standards 44

3 Democratic Advocacy and Good Democratic Representation
52

The Scope of Democratic Representation 53

Sources of Authority for Democratic Representatives 62

Holding Democratic Representatives Accountable 65

Existing Standards for Identifying Bad Representatives 68

The interests of the constituents 69

Autonomy 71

Professional norms 72

Why Democratic Standards? 75

The importance of standards 78

The Importance of Function 81

Identifying the function of democratic representatives 84

Political advocacy 85

Democratic advocacy 88

The Three Virtues 90

Democracy and Democratic Citizens' Preferences 92

4 The Virtue of Fair-Mindedness 100

Political Efficacy 101

Democratic Efficacy 104

Why Civic Equality? 105

The Meaning of Civic Equality 108

Using the First Virtue to Evaluate Representatives 114

Two Problems with the First Virtue 120

5 The Virtue of Critical Trust Building 124

Democratic Representation and Participation 127

Problems with Evaluating Representatives by Citizen
Participation 130

The Virtue of Critical Trust Building 134

Promoting Critical Trust 139

Problems with the Second Virtue 141

6 The Virtue of Good Gatekeeping 145

Developing the Right Relationships 148

The Scope of Mutual Relations 155

The Virtue of Good Gatekeeping 161

Political opponents 162

The dispossessed 164

The marginalized 167

A Perspective of Exclusion 170

Problems with the Third Virtue 174

Conclusion 177

7 Preferable Democratic Representatives: Real-World Political
Virtues 179

Preferability and the Virtues 182

Preferability and System-Dependency 183

Are Good Descriptive Representatives Good Democratic
Representatives? 185

Choosing among the Virtues 190

Bad Democratic Representatives 196

Notes 201

References 228

Index 241

"This book provides an excellent 'yardstick' to aid in the application of democratic theory...addresses potential problems...and discusses the realities of selecting 'good enough' representatives." (Choice)

This book provides an excellent 'yardstick' to aid in the
application of democratic theory...addresses potential
problems...and discusses the realities of selecting 'good
enough' representatives. (Choice)



The Good Representative is a real service not just to the
scholarly community but to general readers and ordinary citizens.
Dovi puts forth clear criteria for judging those who aspire to
speak in our name and defends them with vigor and clarity but
always in just the civil and inclusive tone that she calls for in
politicians. This is a comprehensive and careful work of synthesis,
pulling together material from ethics, political science, and
democratic theory that is not often mastered by one author, but it
is something more: a work of true originality that will make even
those who think they they know all the arguments about
representation think again.

Andrew Sabl, Harvard University