The Politics of representation in the global age

The Politics of Representation in the Global Age

Identification, Mobilization, and Adjudication

Peter A. Hall, Wade Jacoby, Jonah Levy, Sophie Meunier (eds)

Cambridge University Press june 2014 259 p. 19,99 £

 

How has the process of political representation changed in the era of globalization? The representation of interests is at the heart of democracy, but how is it that some interests secure a strong voice, while others do not? While each person has multiple interests linked to different dimensions of his or her identity, much of the existing academic literature assumes that interests are given prior to politics by a person's socioeconomic, institutional, or cultural situation. This book mounts a radical challenge to this view, arguing that interests are actively forged through processes of politics. The book develops an analytic framework for understanding how representation takes place - based on processes of identification, mobilization, and adjudication - and explores how these processes have evolved over time. Through a wide variety of case studies, the chapters explore how actors identify their interests, mobilize them into action, and resolve conflicts among them.

Table of Contents

Foreword, Peter Gourevitch   1. Introduction: the politics of representation in the Global Age, Peter A. Hall, Wade Jacoby, Jonah Levy and Sophie Meunier

Part I. The Politics of Interest Representation:

  2. Discursive democracy and the construction of interests: lessons from the Italian pension reform, Lucio Baccaro
3. Regulation released: the politics of consumer protection in postwar France, Gunnar Trumbull

Part II. Responding to the Challenges of a Global Era:

  4. Globalization and the politics of trade union preferences in France, Marcos Ancelovici
5. Public-private institutions as social and knowledge bridges: reconfiguring the political boundaries for economic upgrading, Gerald A. McDermott
6. Reorganizing interests in Latin America in the neo-liberal age, Frances Hagopian

Part III. New Institutional Settings for Representation:

  7. Blurring political and functional representation: sub-national territorial interests in European multi-level governance, Simona Piattoni
8. Altering politics: international courts and the construction of international and domestic politics, Karen Alter
9. Private regulation (and its limitations) in the global economy, Richard M. Locke.