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Descriptive Representation under Group Conflict Scenarios

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2023

Katherine Tate Open the ORCID record for Katherine Tate [Opens in a new window]
Katherine Tate*
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Brown University, USA
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Extract

Jane Mansbridge (1999) challenges critics of descriptive representation, writing that it leads to improvements in substantive representation. Theorists, however, continue to debate the degree to which groups can be represented by single individuals in government as gains in descriptive representation fail to be transformative. The effects of descriptive representation are more complex than they are often presented as new descriptive representatives do not always win acceptance. Even as there are substantive policy gains through descriptive representation, there are also setbacks for groups through the mobilization of opposition groups. There is also pressure on descriptive representatives to moderate their positions and be less vocal. Given the dominant position of privileged groups and their conservative ideologies that defend inequality, substantive gains from descriptive representation are less than implied by descriptive representation advocates.

Type
Critical Perspectives Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 2023 , pp. 1256 - 1260
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. 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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