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Lookup NU author(s): Daniel Hutton FerrisORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc., 2024.
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This article develops a general theory about how representative systems might best promote democratic legitimacy – one that recognizes the potential benefits of networked responsiveness between diverse kinds of representative but is alert to the threat of fragmentation and the value of democratic simplicity. Deliberative democratic and constructivist theorists of representation tend to agree that more pluralistic systems of representation are more democratic. I will argue, however, that fragmentation can bias responsiveness toward elites and that democratic simplifications can help ordinary people engage with, understand, and influence their representatives, pushing back against gridlock, collusion, and capture by the powerful. Systems of representation are most likely to capture the benefits of pluralism and heterogeneity while avoiding fragmentation when their structure is “centripetal”: with power and influence moving inwards, via processes of networked responsiveness, from broadly inclusive peripheries to democratically simple cores.
Author(s): Hutton Ferris D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: American Journal of Political Science
Year: 2024
Volume: 68
Issue: 2
Pages: 445-458
Print publication date: 01/04/2024
Online publication date: 24/08/2022
Acceptance date: 01/05/2021
Date deposited: 04/05/2023
ISSN (print): 0092-5853
ISSN (electronic): 1540-5907
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12726
DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12726
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