Review of Political Translation: How Social Movement Democracies Survive by Nicole Doerr (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

In Political Translation: How Social Movement Democracies Survive, Nicole Doerr uncovers the role of translators as a “third voice within deliberation,” neither participants nor facilitators but advocates for specific individuals to be heard and understood. Her empirical research on translation of various types and in various settings also raises broader theoretical issues about direct versus representative democracy.