Representing Principles
Representing Principles
This chapter focuses on the vertical division of democratic labor between citizens and their lawmaking principals, recasting the problem of representation by taking up the citizen's perspective. In particular, it introduces the notion of principled representation, which defends an agency relationship designed for a less-than-ideal democracy and envisions principles of justice as codefining—not exhausting—democratic life. The chapter first considers two conceptions of practical authority to show how a theory of democratic representation can assign citizens an ongoing role in basic structural reasoning. It then tests the theory of principled representation by exposing it to increasingly nonideal conditions and presents two arguments for the proposed approach. First, it simultaneously avoids the command and council problems. The second argument appeals to a conception of political equality that understands citizens as peers in reasoning about shared terms of interaction.
Keywords: democratic labor, citizens, lawmaking, representation, principled representation, agency, democracy, justice, practical authority, reasoning
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
