Freiheit und Repräsentation

The much-cited "crisis of representation" is accompanied by populist tendencies that denounce the failure of the model of representation and at the same time seek to take advantage of it. Individual self-determination and representative co-determination, which together constitute the organization of freedom in the modern constitutional state, seem to fight and destruct each other. The reason, however, is less to be seen in the emphasis on the legal protection of individual self-determination than in a widespread misconception of the nature of representation. Representation, as "collective representation", still requires that the political decision of the representatives of the people be oriented towards the public interest.