Representative democracy principles and genealogy - Urbinati, Nadia (University of Chicago Press, 2006)
Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-315) and index
It is usually held that representative government is not strictly democratic, since it does not allow the people themselves to directly make decisions. But here, taking as her guide Thomas Paine?s subversive view that ?Athens, by representation, would have surpassed her own democracy,? Nadia Urbinati challenges this accepted wisdom, arguing that political representation deserves to be regarded as a fully legitimate mode of democratic decision making?and not just a pragmatic second choice when direct democracy is not possible. As Urbinati shows, the idea that representation is incompatible with