The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation

This volume traces the roots of the constructivist turn in the distinct (and competing) traditions of Continental and Anglo-American Western political thought. Divided into three thematic parts, these 13 newly commissioned essays develop the constructivist turn as a central concept. They advance the insight that there can be no democratic politics without representation; constituencies or groups exist as agents of democratic politics only insofar as they are represented.

Lisa Disch is Full Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author of Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Philosophy (Cornell University Press 1994), The Tyranny of the Two-Party System (Columbia University Press 2002), and co-editor with Mary Hawkesworth of the Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory (Oxford University Press 2016). She works on feminist theory, democratic theory, and environmental political theory.

Mathijs van de Sande is Lecturer in Political Philosophy at Radboud University in Nijmegen. In 2017, he obtained his PhD at the Institute of Philosophy in Leuven with a thesis on the prefigurative repertoire of recent assembly movements (such as Occupy Wall Street). His main research interests are radical democratic theory (broadly conceived), political representation, activism, and social movement theory.

Nadia Urbinati is Full Professor of Political Theory at Columbia University, New York. She works on democratic theory; in particular, representative democracy, populism, plebiscitary leadership, and post-party representation.