Why We Need to Return to the Ethics of Political Representation

[...]the systemic turn risks obfuscating the impact of structural inequalities on the functioning of representative systems. In this sense, articulating standards becomes a way of identifying the standard violations and misuses of representatives' extensive powers (Rubenstein 2014). Because of our attention to contextualized power relations, our identification of standards also is compatible with Disch's (2015) citizens' perspective: we treat vulnerable groups (those worthy of scholarly attention) as contingent on context-specific power relations. Drawing on the literature about colonial cultural brokers, they demonstrate how contemporary ethnic-minority representatives serve as bridges, uniting yet also keeping social groups separate. Because they embody the symbolic boundaries routinely drawn up between social groups, minority representatives are well suited to transform the relationships between social groups to make them more equitable. [...]the articles in this symposium provide an important foundation for future research.