On political representation

An essential feature of political representation is that a mediating assemb ly is set between the citizenry and political decision making. Representati on involves indirect decision making or agency. Rational actor political th eory often assumes representation in order to focus on problems of a princi pal-agent kind, but offers only relatively weak arguments for representatio n. We offer an alternative argument for representation that builds on our b roader interpretation of rational actor political theory - an interpretatio n that emphasizes expressive considerations relative to instrumental consid erations, and operates in a richer motivational setting. As well as providi ng an account of representation, we believe that our approach is capable of re-connecting rational actor political theory to many of the concerns of m ore traditional political theory.