Rinascita, trasformazione o fine della rappresentanza? Una discussione aperta

Several books and articles have been published in the United States and Canada since the last decade of the Twentieth Century on the subject of representation. Some of them are centred on different up-to-date categories of representation; other studies propose critical approaches or new general theories, or stress the relationship between representation and constituency. All share the idea that the conclusions drawn fifty years ago by Hanna Pitkin in her classical essay should be substantially revised. However, according to the author, currently political theory pay little or no attention to the connection between legitimate democratic representation and political parties and to the relationship between political science and history of political thought, which are the main features of Pitkin’s approach.