Lost in translation: Centripetal individualism and the classical concept of descending representation
| Date | 01 April 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885110395473 |
| Published date | 01 April 2011 |
| Author | Alin Fumurescu |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
10(2) 156–176
!The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885110395473
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Article
Lost in translation:
Centripetal individualism
and the classical concept of
descending representation
Alin Fumurescu
Indiana University, USA
Abstract
The article argues that by the 17th century, despite the increased intellectual exchanges
of the time, two different kind of individualism were developing across the Channel –
one labeled here as ‘centripetal’, the other one as ‘centrifugal’. On the French side, one
witnesses a focus on forum internum, as the only site of uniqueness and authenticity. On
the British side, the emphasis switched to forum externum and the equality of wills. The
article explores the consequences of these different self-apprehensions of the individual
in terms of different understandings of political representation. I claim that, despite
today’s general consensus, representing ‘the people’ was not naturally assimilated
with an ascending theory of representation. ‘The people’, understood as a whole,
was apprehended in France as still higher than its representatives – kings, Estates, or
Parlements. The idea of individuals willingly delegating their rights and/or authority to a
representative remained for more than a century a peculiar British development. The
consequences of this ascending understanding of representation are to be seriously
reevaluated.
Keywords
ascending representation, centrifugal individualism, centripetal individualism, descending
representation, forum externum,forum internum
The overspread feeling of frustration and disappointment experienced by democ-
racies old and new all across the world needs, unfortunately, little supporting evi-
dence. The loss of confidence in politicians is repeatedly confirmed by polls and
translates into record low turnouts at different levels of the electoral process.
1
It has
been claimed that citizens’ loss of trust in their representatives not only raises ethical
or philosophical difficulties but also endangers the very functioning of many
Corresponding author:
Alin Fumurescu, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, 210 Woodburn Hall, 1100 East Seventh
Street, USA
Email: afumures@indiana.edu
democratic institutions, affecting the decision-making process.
2
I argue that the
problem is misstated. At least partially responsible for this situation is the
modern concept of representation as individuals delegating their rights and author-
ity to an individual or a group of individuals. So deeply embedded is the assump-
tion that this is the only proper way of understanding political representation that it
perpetuates itself practically unchallenged in media, politics, academia, and –
which is probably the most important – in the ranks of the electorate itself.
Following in the footsteps of Walter Ullmann, almost every author that in the
past decades has seriously considered the challenges posed by the idea of political
representation – from Hanna Pitkin to Edward S. Morgan, and from F. R.
Ankersmit to Nadia Urbinatti – took it as a matter of fact: once the descending
theory of representation was discarded altogether with the divine rights of kings, it
was replaced once and for all for with its ascending version – the representation of
the people.
3
I claim that, while the representation of people qua individuals prop-
erly qualifies as an ascending theory of representation, this has not always been the
case. In continental Europe and especially in France, the representation of people
has been understood for a longer period of time in the classical sense as descending
(sometimes circular, as I will show) representation.
4
The explanation is straight-
forward and made perfect sense for a 17th-century European: as long as the con-
cept of people is understood in a corporate, organic way (as universitas, rather than
societas), this body is above all its representatives (king, parliament, etc.). ‘The
whole body was prior to and greater than the king, greater though he might be
than any individual member of the realm’.
5
The implications of such different understandings of representation are not to be
discarded as mere matters of wording. An entire set of questions pertaining to the
mandate versus independent agent controversy, accountability, aesthetic, promis-
sory, anticipative, gyroscopic or surrogate representation, political community, etc.
had to be either rethought on a new basis or, in some cases, discarded altogether.
Evidently, these are more than mere academic issues, having direct implications for
the ways both citizens and politicians understand themselves, their relationship,
and the possibilities opened or closed by modern politics. After all, as Quentin
Skinner argues, ‘what is possible to do in politics is generally limited by what is
possible to legitimize. What you can hope to legitimize, however, depends on what
courses of action you can plausibly range under existing normative principles’.
6
I would not claim that this attempt to rethink the basis of political representa-
tion is a pioneering one.
7
At the beginning of the 19th century, Franc¸ ois Guizot
already realized that the modern concept of representation was seriously flawed.
He argued that a representative government ought not to be confounded with the
sovereignty of the people understood as a collection of wills. Once ‘reason, truth
and justice’ are marginalized in favour of a system based on the representation of
individual wills, such an understanding would not be different in principle from an
aristocratic government, for ‘it connects the right to govern, not with capacity, but
with birth’.
8
Once one declares the individual sovereign in virtue exclusively of his
will, it doesn’t matter if this individual is a king, a nobleman, or a ‘lay’ citizen.
Fumurescu 157
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