Description
Book SynopsisAmericans conceive of the process of political representation as operating like a transmission belt. Elections convey citizens' preferences unchanged into the legislative assembly and thereby allow them to participate, through their representatives, in the political affairs of the nation. This conception stands firmly in the tradition of liberal thought, as does much theory about political representation. In that tradition, government is defined primarily in terms of power, and elections are little more than the means by which that power is transferred from the people to their representatives. In The Blue Guitar (the title alludes to a poem by Wallace Stevens), Nancy L. Schwartz offers a radically new understanding of representation. As she sees it, representatives should beand, in the past, have beenmore than mere delegates or trustees of individual desires and interests and the process of representation more than the appropriation of power and control. Ideally, representation should
