Repräsentation

Representation is one of the controversial concepts in politics and is therefore hotly debated in political science, philosophy, sociology, historiography and constitutional law. The question ‘What is representation, how should it take place and what should it bring about?’ is therefore still relevant. One of the central questions in democracy theory is whether, in a representative democracy, the people from whom a state’s power emanates are represented in such a way that they can identify with the politics of the rulers. The decisive problem of political representation is the question of legitimacy. It is a question of trust as the basis of the legitimacy of politics. It is hard to gain the people’s trust but easy to gamble it away.