The Representative Disconnect: Theoretical Frame and Empirical Dimensions

Concepts such as ecology and disconnection are useful to provide a comprehensive response to the malaise of representative democracy. The article explains these concepts in relation to the interactive nature of democratic representation. It also identifies three analytical levels of the representative disconnect: governance, social intermediation, and the affective level. On the basis of this theoretical framework, the article maps an empirical phenomenology of the representative disconnect. A preliminary examination of data drawn from a survey of representative elites and the general public suggests that the pessimism permeating many interpretations of the crisis of representative democracy may be tempered by some empirical evidence. Negative attitudes persist; however, they do not necessarily preclude the possibility of renewed alignment among the actors operating within the representative ecology.