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Experience, Knowledge, and Political Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2021

Peter Allen Open the ORCID record for Peter Allen [Opens in a new window]
Peter Allen*
Affiliation:
University of Bath
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Abstract

Evidence suggests that increasing the descriptive representation of groups improves their substantive representation. What underpins this link? Many scholars writing on the subject stop short of arguing explicitly that it is “shared experience” within groups. I argue that we should embrace the potential conceptual and empirical benefits of framing representation through experience. To do this, we should think of experience specifically in terms of the epistemic content and capacities gained through subjective experience, which can allow individuals to think about the world in distinct ways. I reframe the idea that experiences might be shared within groups and ameliorate concerns that the concept is essentialist, drawing out the political relevance of my argument. This has the strategic implication that we should be unafraid to argue in favor of political presence on the basis of (shared) experience and the empirical implication that future research should consider subjective experience more closely.

Keywords

Political representationdescriptive representationsubstantive representationexperienceshared experience
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 1112 - 1140
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

I am indebted to Fran Amery, Sarah Childs, Sophia Hatsizavvidou, Joni Lovenduski, David S. Moon, Deivi Norberg, Jessica C. Smith, Rebecca Wainwright, Ana Catalano Weeks, and audience members at Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Bath for comments and discussion on previous drafts of this article. I would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers at Politics & Gender for their extremely helpful feedback during the peer review process, which greatly improved the manuscript.

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