The good representative

Is President George W. Bush a good or a bad representative? How about Russian President Vladimir Putin? Who is a better representative according to democratic standards: former Representative Tom DeLay or Senator Hillary Clinton? Contemporary political theorists do little, if anything, to help us answer such questions. Indeed, some treat citizens’ preferences for representatives as sacrosanct, something that political theory should remain silent about. We need to identify democratic standards for selecting representatives because the legitimacy of a polity’s democratic institutions depends on the representatives and citizens who make up that polity. What should democratic citizens look for in a representative? This book argues that democratic citizens need to evaluate representatives by their ability to settle political conflicts fairly and justly. And this requires attending to three virtues of democratic representation: good representatives are fair-minded; good representatives develop critical trust; and good representatives are good gatekeepers.

Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Who is a Good Representative? -- An Ethics of Democratic Representation -- The Proper Scope of an Ethics of Democratic Representation -- Three Assumptions -- The Theoretical Contribution of The Good Representative -- The Structure of The Good Representative -- 2. Moving beyond Descriptive Representation -- Democratic Representation and Descriptive Representation -- Two Problems with Descriptive Representation -- Justifying the Silence about Criteria -- The Need for Criteria -- The Need for Democratic Standards -- 3. Democratic Advocacy and Good Democratic Representation -- The Scope of Democratic Representation -- Sources of Authority for Democratic Representatives -- Holding Democratic Representatives Accountable -- Existing Standards for Identifying Bad Representatives -- Why Democratic Standards? -- The Importance of Function -- The Three Virtues -- Democracy and Democratic Citizens' Preferences -- 4. The Virtue of Fair-Mindedness -- Political Efficacy -- Democratic Efficacy -- Why Civic Equality? -- The Meaning of Civic Equality -- Using the First Virtue to Evaluate Representatives -- Two Problems with the First Virtue -- 5. The Virtue of Criti…