Introduction

Four decades after publication, Hanna Pitkin's The Concept of Representation (1967), continues to resonate with scholars of representation and democratic performance. Many contemporary empirical and theoretical studies of politics begin and/or end with Pitkin's seminal taxonomy of representation (formal, symbolic, descriptive, and substantive representation); her definitions of these different forms of representation; or her conceptualizations of the relationships between the representative and the represented. This classic work still seems to provide some of the crucial tools and concepts for analyses and critiques that focus on the way in which and the extent to which policy decisions and deliberative processes relate to society.