![]() ![]() With these caveats in mind, I start by asserting the relevance of Burke to the current debates on representation, and then outline the standard interpretation of Burke as understood by several influential theorists on representation. Burke was a towering figure in European political thought up until the First World War, and O’Brien surmises that the dismissal of Burke’s thought after the war may have been a reaction against the so-called political wisdom that had brought them to such a disastrous state. The left prized his writings on America and India, with their emphasis on the importance of consent of the governed, while the right valued his polemic against the revolution in France. Conor Cruise O’Brien explains that, in the 19 th century, Burke was widely admired for his political wisdom by both liberals and conservatives. Indeed, in Empire and Revolution, Richard Bourke cautions readers that reconstructing Burke’s political thought requires “a full examination of current affairs as well as careful attention to intellectual context.” Further, in approaching Burke, we must be aware of the ways that various political movements have made use (and abuse) of his voluminous body of work. Cullen notes that Burke “was primarily a politician and his voluminous writings and speeches were dictated by the exigencies of public life ” moreover, most of Burke’s tenure as a politician was spent in the opposition, a position which, because of the pressures of party and time, fostered his giving more attention to a prudential path of solving problems than to a theoretical examination of them. ![]() Many of the inconsistencies in Burke’s thought can be better understood if we recall his role as a politician. ![]() As Melissa Williams observes, “…here is not one Burke, but a multiplicity of Burkes Burke has inspired nineteenth-century utilitarians and Cold War conservatives alike.” My aim, then, is not to reconcile the many Burkes, but rather to describe an alternative emphasis one can give to his thought on representation. One can find in his speeches and letters support for a variety of positions on representation the interpreter encounters the challenge of deciding which of these elements to emphasize. In reading support for descriptive representation in Burke’s thought, I am not claiming that his oeuvre is a monolithic, coherent, internally consistent body of work. In fact, however, contemporary representation theorists might find that one of the most prominent proponents of trustee-style representation, Edmund Burke, also found it important that, particularly in cases where there is a history of oppression, those trustees reflect the descriptions of the people they represent. Strictly from the standpoint of classical liberalism, it may seem that groups that have experienced a history of systematic exclusion or under-representation have no recourse. We might fruitfully apply this concept to racial and ethnic minorities in America, and thus bolster the case for greater descriptive representation, whether through candidate selection, redistricting or the protection of minority voting rights. His statements on the Irish Catholic plight indicate a sensitivity towards their history of oppression and religious discrimination he claimed that the Irish could not benefit from virtual representation when those in power were of an “adverse description.” Burke continually argued that Irish Catholics be granted the franchise and representation in Parliament, in addition to other constitutional civil rights. While Burke is typically associated with the concept of virtual representation-the idea that the interests of a constituency may be advanced by representatives they have not elected themselves-in the case of both the American colonists and Irish Catholics, Burke argued that virtual representation was inadequate. In this essay I want to propose that contemporary theorists of representation, as well as scholars of racial and ethnic politics, might find a surprising ally in Edmund Burke. Given this legacy, can descriptively mirroring the people in the legislature be a worthy goal for those wedded to the classical liberal tradition? ![]() The Federalists, for instance, saw it necessary to insulate the government from the whims of the masses. Looking at the classical liberal tradition, it can appear that representatives were intended to serve more as superior trustees than responsive descriptive representatives, and to compass national concerns rather than serve the narrow concerns of particular constituencies. While these worries can sometimes be dismissed as mere engagement in “identity politics,” they may be worth a closer look. Much of the current literature on representation concerns how legislatures might come to mirror more closely (or “descriptively represent”) the populace in terms of gender, race, or class. ![]()
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