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‘Not All Claims Are Representative Claims’: Constructing ‘The
People’in Post-Representative Movements
Thomás Zicman de Barros
Centre for Political Research (CEVIPOF), Sciences Po Paris, Paris, France
ABSTRACT
The article argues that the eruption of ‘indignation’protests after
2011 produced new discourses questioning political representation
that challenge one of the most important frameworks of the
constructivist turn in democratic theory: Michael Saward’s
representative claim. This article analyses these post-representative
claims through Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s distinction between
Vertretung (or representation as ‘acting for’)andDarstellung
(aesthetic and performative representation), and concludes that it
is possible to discursively construct ‘the people’without implying
representation as ‘stepping in someone’splace’.
KEYWORDS
Michael Saward;
constructivist turn;
representative claim; post-
representation; protest
movements
Introduction
The constructivist turn in democratic theory has had a major impact on how scholars
understand political representation, opening new paradigms for political research. It is
a movement that stopped seeing representation as a relation between two pregiven enti-
ties –the represented and the representative –and started to see it as the process that
leads to the construction of these two entities (Disch, 2012; Disch et al., 2012). Going
back to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s distinction between political representation as
‘stepping in someone’s place’(Vertretung) and aesthetic and performative representation
(Darstellung), one can say that this turn showed how, when a representative acts for
someone, this act discursively constructs both the representative and the represented
(Spivak, 1990, p. 108). Yet, despite its merits, this approach has an important limitation:
it tends to ignore how discursive constructions can take place outside representation as
‘acting for’someone. This article will show this limitation through a critical analysis of
the most successful expression of the constructivist turn: Michael Saward’s representative
claim framework (Saward, 2010).
For it tries to expand the potentials of the constructivist tradition, this article recog-
nises Saward’s contribution and its fruitful insights. However, it identifies as a by-
product of his success a tendency among scholars to ‘make every political claim a repre-
sentative claim’(De Wilde, 2013, pp. 287–288) and apply this framework to many con-
texts in a search for makers, subjects, objects and audiences. Although Saward himself
once stated that ‘not all claims are representative claims’(Saward, 2010, p. 43), he did
not reverse this generalising trend.
© 2020 McDougall Trust, London
CONTACT Thomás Zicman de Barros
REPRESENTATION
2021, VOL. 57, NO. 4, 515–530
https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2020.1853598
As I will argue, discursive constructions taking place outside the representative claims
can have many expressions –for instance, in media statements about the ‘people’.To
understand the limits of Saward’s framework, this article focuses on expressions of
‘non-representative’discourses as they emerge in claims made by a series of political
movements that have erupted over the last decade. These were Occupy Wall Street
(USA, 2011), Indignados (Spain, 2011), Jornadas de Junho (Brazil, 2013) Nuit Debout
and the Gilets Jaunes (France, 2016 and 2018–19). The demand for ‘real democracy’
acted as a nodal point in all these movements (Gerbaudo, 2017, p. 62), and was precisely
associated with the rejection of ‘the paradigm of representative politics, the politics of
political parties, elections and voting’(Tormey, 2012a, p. 134). I argue that the protesters’
claims do not quite fit into Saward’s theoretical system and invite one to consider a
different dynamic between its elements. Moreover, they indicate how the relations
between Vertretung and Darstellung are more complex than suggested by the construc-
tivist turn.
The article is in five parts. First, I present Saward’s contribution within the construc-
tivist turn and argue that the main aspect of this movement is the shared idea that pol-
itical representation as ‘stepping in someone’s place’always implies an aesthetic and
performative representation, which becomes clear in Spivak’s distinction between Vertre-
tung and Darstellung. Second, I highlight the current disillusionment with representative
politics and present examples of political discourses that reject political representation –
what I have called ‘post-representative claims’–that emerged in the recent demon-
strations. Third, focusing on empirical examples, and specially on publicly recorded
claims by demonstrators in 2013 demonstrations in Brazil, I argue that there are difficul-
ties in using Saward’s framework to analyse these claims and conclude that not all claims
imply representation as Vertretung. In the fourth part, I develop this insight to argue that
Darstellung may exist without Vertretung. The fifth and last part discusses how Saward’s
representative claim is a species in a genus discourse and is distinguished from other
claims according to the distance between the claim’s‘subject’and the centre of the dis-
cursive formation.
The Constructivist Turn and the Representative Claim
In German, there are many translations for the word ‘representation’, which provides
nuances that help one to understand the constructivist turn. As Spivak argues, an impor-
tant distinction is that between Vertretung and Darstellung (Spivak, 1988, pp. 275–78,
1990, p. 108; see also Disch, 2012, pp. 210–11). Spivak sees Vertretung as referring to pol-
itical representation in a narrow sense. These include ‘stepping in someone’s place, […]
to tread in someone’s shoes’, for example, in the representative’s activities in parliament
(Spivak, 1990, p. 108). In different terms, for Hanna Pitkin Vertretung is representation as
‘acting for’(Pitkin, 1967, p. 59). In its turn, Darstellung is linked to the aesthetic and per-
formative representation –for example, when one describes the activity of an actor, or
when one says that a portrait represents a woman’s mysterious smile. It is representation
as ‘standing for’, i.e. symbolic representation.
1
Although Spivak claims that ‘these two senses of representation […] are related but
irreducibly discontinuous’(Spivak, 1988, p. 275), she grasps the core of the constructivist
turn when she states that ‘in the act of representing politically, you actually represent
516 T. ZICMAN DE BARROS
yourself and your constituency in the portrait sense, as well’(Spivak, 1990, p. 108). The
constructivist turn has done its utmost to show that these two dimensions of the action of
representing are not separable in politics and that to represent in the sense of ‘stepping in
someone’s place’always implies representation in the aesthetic and performative sense.
The constructivist turn challenged the idea that the constituency existed in an objective
way and that its identity and interests could be determined before representation (Disch,
2011, p. 100). For constructivists, the constituency is to be actively constructed. When the
representative speaks in the name of the ‘people’, for example, he is simultaneously con-
structing this ‘people’, giving it a name, an identity and transforming it into a political
actor.
This new theoretical perspective has important normative consequences. Pitkin
claimed that a legitimate representation would depend on the correct transmission of
pre-given identities and interests of a constituency by the representative. She classified
those attempts to ‘create’the represented through symbolic representation as the
‘fascist theory of representation’and identified it with fostering ‘belief, loyalty, satisfac-
tion with their leaders, among people’(Pitkin, 1967, p. 107). However, if constructivists
saw symbolic representation as an inescapable dimension of politics, they had to question
Pitkin’s point of view. As a result, they put forward other criteria for political legitimacy,
such as the acceptance of a discursive construction and the mobilisation of those impli-
cated in it (Disch, 2015) or the character of the political identities that are constructed –
whether they are compatible with a democratic ethos or not.
Saward can be included in the constructivist turn because he claims political represen-
tation depends on a discursive act. In his framework, every act of representation starts
with a claim: someone who takes the floor and tries to establish a relation between
two entities, implying that one of them represents the other. From this perspective, he
proposes a theory of representation in which the identities of the representative and
the represented are seen as the result of a performance, of a dynamic process of the pro-
duction and reception of claims (Saward, 2010, p. 198).
Four elements are present in every representative claim: the maker, the subject, the
object and the audience (Saward, 2010, p. 36).
2
As each one has its own complexity,
the best way to understand them is through concrete examples.
One example is that of Brazilian presidential elections in 2010. On that occasion,
former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a charismatic politician, campaigned to
elect his still unknown chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, as his successor. Lula da Silva
depicted her in his efforts as the ‘mother of the people’and associated her personally
with the success of his government’s social programmes. Therefore, using Saward’s
elements, one can say that, in 2010, president Lula da Silva (maker) claimed that the can-
didate Dilma Rousseff(subject) represented Brazilian workers and their interests (object)
and that he addressed this message to voters (audience).
It is worth noticing that the subject of a claim is not necessarily an individual (it can be
a party, an idea, or any other symbol), and that the object is not necessarily a group of
people (it can be a single individual, a concept, and even ‘nature’) (Saward, 2010,p.
37). Either way, by formulating a representative claim, the maker discursively constitutes
the identities of the subject and the object. From this point of view, neither the subject
nor the object have an objective existence independent from the discourse: they are inter-
pretative constructions of a directly inaccessible concrete reality that, at the same time,
REPRESENTATION 517
shapes this reality. That is why Saward affirms that ‘there is an indispensable aesthetic
moment in political representation’for the claim-maker must ‘mould, shape, and in
one sense create that which is to be represented’(Saward, 2010, p. 74).
In a nutshell, to go back to Spivak’s categories, ‘stepping in someone’s place’political
representation (Vertretung) implies an aesthetic representation (Darstellung) of both the
subject and the object. In our previous example, when Lula da Silva claimed that ‘Dilma
Rousseff’represented ‘Brazilian workers’, these two terms were not treated in a neutral
and transparent way. Dilma Rousseffcan be presented in many ways: as a woman, as
a political activist, as someone who had been tortured, as a minister. One could add
an infinity of adjectives to each of these terms. In other words, the signifier ‘Dilma
Rousseff’can have many meanings, none of which can describe the ‘true’candidate. Ver-
sions are always partial and incomplete (Saward, 2010, p. 205). The same reasoning
works even better for the object ‘Brazilian workers’. They can be described as fighters,
brave, humble, suffering and loyal people. Even the composition of this group can be
defined in a more precise way. The limit that separates those who are and those who
are not ‘workers’is blurred and it is up to the maker to play with this lack of definition.
For Saward, the elements that constitute political representation are not transparent.
They must be ‘read’in one way or another and constructed by attributing some interests
to them. Therefore, it is clear that these interests cannot precede the political represen-
tation (Saward, 2010, pp. 77–78).
If there is no transparency in the elements of the representative claim, it can be argued
that the institutional validation of a claim is itself a discursive construction. Hence,
Saward’s constructivist approach permits the extension of the political representation
analysis to extra-institutional representation. More important than any institutional vali-
dation, Saward believes representation exists if a claim is accepted by a constituency
when it succeeds in mobilising citizens, ‘in soliciting individuals to identify with a
larger group or principle’(Disch, 2011, p. 102). Therefore, it seems that the most impor-
tant aspect of the representative claim is that it creates and recreates points of individual
or collective identification.
The Crisis of Representation and the Post-representative Claim
Saward’s approach is productive, but can it help one to analyse claims associated with the
so-called ‘crisis of representation’, i.e. the feeling that there is a division between civil
society and political elites? Several political theorists have recently discussed this disillu-
sionment. Simon Tormey lists a series of statistical data to prove that, if as Hannah Pitkin
claimed in the 1960s ‘almost everyone wants to be governed by representatives […]; every
political group or cause wants representation’(Pitkin, 1967, p. 2), the situation is the
opposite today. He says that abstention rates are rising in countries where voting is
optional and that there is a significant decline in the levels of partisan identification
and affiliation to the political parties. The voters also no longer trust the politicians
who are often seen as being distant from the citizens they are supposed to represent
(Tormey, 2015).
In tandem with this diagnosed dissatisfaction, a number of countries have recently
seen the emergence of demonstrations of indignation that demanded some sort of
‘real democracy’(Gerbaudo, 2017, p. 62). I am referring to movements such as
518 T. ZICMAN DE BARROS
Occupy Wall Street, the Indignados in Spain in 2011, the protests in June 2013 in Brazil,
and the Nuit Debout and Gilets Jaunes in France in 2016 and 2018–19, among others
(Thomassen & Prentoulis, 2014, pp. 213–15; Tormey, 2012a, pp. 132–34). The
meaning of this ‘real democracy’remains unclear. However, it is related in every case
to a new political paradigm that Tormey called ‘post-representation’(Tormey, 2012a),
and which I associate with a new type of political discourse: what I call the post-repre-
sentative claim.
In fact, the notion of post-representative claim brings together different kinds of state-
ments classified into two categories. First, some post-representative claims are purely
‘anti-representative’, i.e. defending an immediate or direct democracy. As Tormey
said, those who reject political representation understand that ‘[we] don’t want to be rep-
resented –or more’s the same, we don’t want much to do with those who think they rep-
resent us’(Tormey, 2009, pp. 93–94). Lasse Thomassen and Marina Prentoulis, in their
account of demonstrations in southern Europe in 2011, say that ‘one of their main issues
was precisely the way in which this system did not represent the voices of ordinary
people’(Thomassen & Prentoulis, 2014, p. 220). The authors say the protestors were
‘searching for an immediate –or at least a more immediate –form of politics’, describing
themselves ‘as leaderless networks or platforms without a centre’(Thomassen & Prentou-
lis, 2013, pp. 169–70). Tormey has noted the central role of signifiers such as ‘Not in my
name!’in Occupy Wall Street, associating them with a post-representative project in
which demonstrators ‘turn their face on parties, elections, and manifestos in favour of
the immediacy of action, of doing, in the here and now’(Tormey, 2012a,p. 133). As
the Nuit Debout demonstrators in France stated:
Neither listened to, nor represented, persons from all horizons retake possession of the
reflection on the future of our world. Politics is not a matter of professionals; it is a
matter of us all (Nuit Debout, 2016b).
And they add: ‘[…] our mobilisation aims first of all to gather and to liberate an inaudible
citizeńs speech in the narrow frameworks of traditional political representation’(Nuit
Debout, 2016a).
These ‘anti-representative’claims are frequently accompanied by a rejection of the
political class. It is summarised in expressions such as ‘They can’t represent us!’(Sitrin
& Azzellini, 2014). Tormey says these criticisms have existed since the revolts of May
1968, in France, and had also been expressed in various forms of activism and in move-
ments such as the World Social Forum and the Zapatistas (Tormey, 2009, pp. 93–95).
However, the rejection of the political class does not necessarily imply a total rejection
of representation. Unlike the ‘anti-representative’version, the second kind of post-repre-
sentative claim affirms that representation are still necessary but that the existing repre-
sentatives are unable to play their roles because of a distance between the representatives
and the represented, or a dysfunctional political system that can be improved. Keane sees
an increasing demand for a ‘monitory representation’, for representatives to be further
controlled in their roles (Keane, 2011). Teivainen pleads for non-state prefigurative rep-
resentation to democratise political life (Teivainen, 2016). Thus, one also finds state-
ments in the indignation movements demanding a new or a better representation. For
example, some Occupy Wall Street protesters aimed to construct a political represen-
tation not corrupted by corporations (Gitlin, 2012). Many of the Gilets Jaunes
REPRESENTATION 519
demonstrators in France defended moving on from what they saw as a trustee model of
representation to a delegate concept of political representation. They believe the elements
of direct democracy should be used to control their representatives, reducing their auton-
omy and possibly even revoking their tenure.
The two main kinds of post-representative claims –those which reject representation
tout court and those that demand a better representation –often coexist and are hardly
distinguishable. Moreover, the two kinds of post-representative claims can also be com-
bined with classical representative claims. In this sense, even Tormey conceded that ‘“We
are the 99%”is a quintessential representative claim’(Tormey, 2009, pp. 96–98, 2012b,p.
16). It seems accurate: the indignant demonstrators (maker) claim that the indignant
demonstrators (subject) stand for the 99% of the exploited population (object), addres-
sing this claim to the world (audience).
What matters is that the post-representative paradigm is strongly linked in any of its
versions to a critique of representative democracy, at least in its current form. In a nut-
shell, the post-representative claim refers to a discourse that criticises political represen-
tation –if nothing else, as it exists today –as antidemocratic. It is sceptical about
leadership, and supports elements of direct democracy and horizontality as a way to
reclaim citizenśright to freedom of speech (Tormey, 2015). Moreover, even in its some-
times incoherent plurality, the post-representative claims are useful to the extent that
they invite one to question the constructivist turn’s merging of Vertretung and Darstel-
lung in general and Saward’s framework in particular.
Not All Claims are Vertretende Claims
At first sight, one could be tempted to think that the post-representative claims are only a
rhetorical tool which could be analysed according to Saward’s theoretical system. This is
an impression that can be reinforced wrongly by Tormey’s correct assessment that state-
ments surrounding indignation movements such as ‘We are the 99%’fit in well with
Saward’s framework. However, as I will argue in this section, the post-representative
claim breaks away from the category of representative claim.
To see how the post-representative claim disrupts Saward’s framework, I will analyse
statements that are closer to the first kind of post-representative claim –the strong rejec-
tion of representation, at least as Vertretung. I will do so by concentrating on a piece of
research in which I studied publicly recorded political claims that were made during a
series of demonstrations against higher public transport fares in Brazil in June 2013.
This case is inspiring because of the posture of the claim-makers. Their way of perform-
ing this first kind of post-representative claim not only did not lead them to occupy the
role of subject, but also kept this position vacant. Hence, it provided an example of how
the object of a claim can have an independent existence. Based on this, in the next section
I show that the second kind of post-representative claim –the idea that a better represen-
tation is possible –also depends on the independent existence of the object.
The Brazilian protests were initially organised by an anarchist-influenced group called
Movimento Passe Livre (MPL), freely translated as ‘Free Fare Movement’. The protests
started initially with small demonstrations with a limited set of demands but succeeded
in attracting hundreds of thousands to the streets after violent scenes of police brutality
shocked the country (Ortellado, Judensnaider, Lima, & Pomar, 2013, p. 104). When the
520 T. ZICMAN DE BARROS
demonstrations expanded, the original demands ended up being overtaken by events and
the protest became a broad nationwide and ideologically diverse movement against those
in power (Singer, 2013, pp. 33–34).
In this context, the MPL is particularly interesting as the group wanted to spark a
popular uprising but stressed, at the same time, that it did not want to control or rep-
resent the citizens in the streets. In a public interview during the events, Caio Martins
Ferreira, an activist from this group said:
We [the MPL] are not the owners of the movement. The leadership does not belong to us.
[…] We called for [the struggle against the increase] but we are only one of the groups
involved [in the struggle]. It is a big popular struggle in which the people are revolting
(Martins Ferreira, 2013a, 16:13–21:50).
This position confirms what he said to a journalist on the first day of demonstrations,
when protestors clashed with the police: ‘We don’t control who is a demonstrator and
who is not but [the confrontation with the police] was a popular uprising’(Martins Fer-
reira, 2013b).
Mayara Longo Vivian, who also was part of the group, reaffirmed this distrust of lea-
dership and representation when she stated to a filmmaker:
We don’t put ourselves forward as the leadership. We have neither the intention, nor the
desire, nor the political dimension to want to be a movement that could be representative
of the masses or the people who are on the streets. No! We don’t want to represent
anybody. The people can represent themselves very well, better than we can. We don’t
see ourselves as an authority but as a reference (Vivian, 2014, 25:16–25:36).
The group claimed victory when the rise was revoked. Privately, some described the
result as bittersweet: the triumph came when the movement had been partially co-
opted by new players. It is not my goal here to discuss the consequences of the MPL’s
self-denying leadership, but its unintended negative results may be indicated. Many
authors highlight the appearance of diverse singularities within collective identities in
contemporary protest movements (Mendonça, 2017). Yet, in June 2013 diversity went
beyond the simple expression of singularities. The MPL’s self-denying leadership
emptied the demonstrations of a well-defined orientation. It allowed for a lack of cohe-
sion, and even open contradiction between sections of protesters (Alonso & Mische,
2017, p. 12; Pinto, 2017, pp. 134–35). Eventually, the marches were transformed by a
large number of novice demonstrators with right-wing views. Upset, the MPL even pre-
ferred to stop calling new demonstrations to avoid further co-optation. Nevertheless, the
group’sofficial statements to broader audiences continued to eulogise its self-denying
leadership. As another activist, Lucas Monteiro de Oliveira, said in a public statement:
Our aim was to let the struggle against the higher fares escape from our control and it
escaped. On Wednesday [19 June 2013], when the rise was cancelled, six demonstrations
took place in São Paulo. None of them was called by the MPL. Some were called by our part-
ners from the MTST [the Homeless Workers’Movement], but others were not. It was the
people who revolted.
[…] [The authorities cancelled the rise] because the people organized itself and went onto the
street and took the leading role in the biggest mobilization of the last twenty years in Brazil
[…]. The three biggest parties in the country retreated politically when faced with the force
of the people (Monteiro de Oliveira, 2014,04:12–04:38, 08:55–09:37).
REPRESENTATION 521
What is the specific point of this discourse in relation to Saward’s framework? One could
say that, although the MPL rejects representation, it nevertheless occupied a representa-
tive function in practice, as it was the maker and subject of its claims simultaneously.
However, even if one accepts the MPL’s practical leadership, being a de facto leader –
or an accepted ‘reference’, as Mayara said –that makes political claims is not necessarily
the same as being a de facto representative. Saward formulates a theoretical distinction
between maker and subject and the difficulties in finding the latter do not mean it is
merged with the former. Ethnographic studies on Occupy Wall Street have shown that
even in horizontal ‘leaderless’movements prominent figures acquire more claim-
making power. They are a product of the internal dynamics of the movement but they
also implement identity building mechanisms (Kang, 2012). These tensions between hor-
izontality and verticality were also present in Brazil. However, the MPL’s privileged pos-
ition did not mean that they were representatives ‘stepping in someone’s place’in any
way. They were claim-making leaders but not leaders qua subject.
If one accepts that the MPL as claim-maker leader did not put itself into the position of
leader qua subject, a first attempt to insert these claims into Saward’s framework consists
of seeing the maker move away from the subject and try to couple it with the object. I
would call this hypothesis ‘fusion hypothesis’. Applying this approach to the Brazilian
example, one could say that the MPL (maker) claims that the demonstrators (subject)
represent themselves (object), addressing this message to the citizens of the city of São
Paulo (audience).
Tormey referred to this idea in a discussion paper. Nevertheless, his argument was
based on another perspective. He claimed it was not the criticism of representation
which coupled both but the representation which separated them in the first place. He
describes representative politics as ‘a politics that enshrines the uncoupling of the
subject and object of the political itself, and that makes disjuncture a virtue, not
merely a necessity’(Tormey, 2012b, p. 15).
The issue with this hypothesis is that, if the fusion actually takes place, it makes little
sense to talk about a subject. The subject may be implicit in sentences such as ‘the people
can represent themselves very well’, but in practice this catachrestic moment involves
only a reference to the object. ‘People’here is the name of the object not of an external
subject ‘stepping in someone’s place’. When subject and object totally overlap in the dis-
cursive construction of a claim, the very conceivability of the subject is jeopardised.
Hence, the fusion hypothesis must be put aside.
In this sense, what I call the ‘disappearance hypothesis’may be more helpful in under-
standing the post-representative claim. Lucas’and Caio’s statements are informative
here. They do not even use the word representation but they attribute certain qualities
to these people –in this case, the quality of rising in revolt. The disappearance hypothesis
to interpret discourses that reject representation indicates that the post-representative
claim is marked by the exclusion of the subject from the analytical scheme and by a
maker who restricts itself to discursively constructing the object. Taking this approach,
one could say that, during the Brazilian demonstrations in June 2013, the MPL
(maker) claimed that the demonstrators or the ‘people’had certain interests, demands
and characteristics (object) by addressing this message to the citizens of São Paulo
(audience).
522 T. ZICMAN DE BARROS
If, on the one hand, the distance between the maker and the subject is not a problem
for Saward, on the other hand, the disappearance of the subject appears to destabilise his
system. Indeed, without a subject there can be no Vertretung. How can one speak of pol-
itical representation in these cases?
Saward seems never to have discussed this type of claim thoroughly. He approached
these questions in a short passage in which he refers to the Zapatista group. As Saward
said, these militants reject the position of representative of the communities they control
politically. They claim they only want to listen and to make peoples’voice heard
(Tormey, 2006, p. 151). The problem is that Saward does not analyse this case in
greater depth and briefly inserts it into his category of mirroring claim –even if he
affirms that the Zapatistas are mirroring ‘in a quite different sense’when compared
with his main examples of mirroring claims which support their legitimacy on the
descriptive resemblance between the representative and the represented (Saward, 2010,
pp. 99–100). Because Saward does not discuss the tensions between maker, subject
and object that could emerge in post-representative discourses, he suggests that experi-
ences of anti-globalization movements also remain in the non-problematic class of repre-
sentative claim.
Pieter de Wilde well diagnosed the issue with the concept of representative claim. He
claims the breadth of the usages of Saward’s categories puts different discourses under the
same label. He raises the question: ‘what distinguishes a representative claim from a
(non-representative) political claim?’(De Wilde, 2013, p. 287). It seems that Saward
never completely responded to objections such as de Wilde’s. He dealt briefly with this
problem in a working paper from 2013, during a discussion on the way in which the dis-
courses construct the objects:
The variety manifested by representative claims and therefore by invoked object effects
raises the question of where the boundary lies between statements which are representative
claims and those which are not (Saward, 2013, p. 6).
Saward’s answer is that everything depends on the context. He explains it by using the
example of the comedian Beppe Grillo who turned Italian politics upside down in
2013. Saward says that under normal conditions the sentence ‘I am only a comedian, I
am not a politician’would be interpreted as if it meant that, since Beppe Grillo was
not a politician, he could not do anything for his fellow citizens. However, in the
Italian electoral context, a new meaning was attributed to this sentence: since Beppe
Grillo was not a politician, he would not repeat the politicians’errors –thus constituting
a representative claim (Saward, 2013, pp. 6–7).
Saward is right: the context is important. However, the problem with this answer is
that it does not touch on the core of the question. This answer provides no room for
‘(non-representative) political claims’. Either one is inside the representative claim’s fra-
mework or one is outside it and cannot produce politically relevant speeches. Outside the
political-electoral context, Beppe Grillo’s sentence does not constitute new collective
identities. It is not a representative claim. It is not even a politically engaged claim.
The only political dimension it can have is that of our repetitive daily lives which natur-
alise things as they are.
One could counter-argue that I am being unfair by raising a problem over Saward’s
framework because it attributes to him an intention of encompassing all political
REPRESENTATION 523
discourses that it does not have. Saward himself affirmed that ‘there are more things in
the political world than claims […] and not all claims are representative claims […]’
(Saward, 2010, p. 43). It seems to me, however, that his response does not contribute
to explaining what these ‘(non-representative) political claims’could be.
In short, the question is how to know if there are political discourses which can con-
stitute political identities and to establish interests but which are not linked to a subject
that would represent an object. I believe it is obvious that these discourses exist.
All Claims are Darstellende Claims
Before continuing, I must say a word on the ideological content of the movements pro-
ducing post-representative claims. If the criticism of representation and defence of hor-
izontalism were often associated with anarchist ideas, the indignation movements were
not purely anarchist as they see the state in a pragmatic way ‘as a structure to be
reclaimed’(Gerbaudo, 2017, p. 17). In fact, Paolo Gerbaudo sees two dimensions in
the protests that have erupted across the world since 2011: an anarchist dimension
and a populist dimension. These dimensions come from traditions that were already
associated in the past –for example, in Russian Narodnichestvo –but that constituted
antithetic orientations in the last century. Gerbaudo says their latest encounter led to
the appearance of ‘citizenism’–an ‘anarcho-populism’which ‘is populist in content,
but libertarian or neo-anarchist in form’(Gerbaudo, 2017, p. 17).
The paradoxical nature of this combination stems from the fact that, if on one hand,
there is a demand to go beyond representation (Vertretung), on the other hand the notion
of the ‘people’(even a ‘leaderless people’) against an oligarchy, which is central to popu-
lism, highlights the fact that one cannot escape representation (Darstellung).
With this idea in mind, Saward’s assertion that not all claims are representative claims is
qualified. Let us accept that in post-representative claims such as ‘the people is not rep-
resented’, the claim-maker is constructing this ‘people’in a certain way. It is aesthetically
representing this non-represented entity –andquite often constructing this ‘people’in oppo-
sition to their official representatives. So, if on one hand,Saward is right when he says that not
all claims are representative claims (in the sense of Vertretung, what one may call vertretende
claims), on the other hand he is ontologically wrong: indeed, every claim is a representative
claim (in the sense of Darstellung, what one could call darstellende claim).
For example, the MPL group was once described as the ‘anti-party’thanks to ‘its ability
to organise without representing’(Ortellado, 2014, p. 35). Even if one accepts this inten-
tion, it is clear that the group has not stopped playing its role of making representation in
the aesthetic and performative sense of the term. In view of the lack of objectivity of social
reality, every discourse has a representative dimension in the sense of Darstellung,and
every representation of this kind carries a value judgement in itself. As Lasse Thomassen
and Marina Prentoulis said: ‘[there] is necessarily an element of representation where the
representation is constitutive of what is represented’(Thomassen & Prentoulis, 2014,p.
220). It has to do with the unavoidable symbolic dimension of social reality, with the
fact that ‘language […] is a system of representation. Words stand in for, “signify”or rep-
resent objects’(Tormey, 2015). Therefore, one can say that the MPL makes various
claims which the context makes politically important and it succeeds in constructing
an object, in mobilising the citizens and in constructing collective identities but they
524 T. ZICMAN DE BARROS
do not express any will to establish a relationship of political representation as ‘stepping
in someone’s place’.
The constructivist turn has been successful in showing that the verb vertreten is always
conjugated with the verb darstellen, emphasising the aesthetic and performative charac-
ter of political representation. What the first kind of post-representative claim shows is
that the opposite is not necessarily true –i.e. one should not amalgamate the aesthetic
and performative representation present in every discourse with the political represen-
tation strictly speaking. It is worth noticing, for example, that this is not exclusively a
characteristic of post-representative claims. The media, for example, often constructs
the ‘people’without issuing representative or post-representative claims but rather
other kinds of ‘(non-representative) political claims’(Moffitt, 2017, p. 108). Actually, fol-
lowing Nina Santos (2019), one understands how, during the Brazilian protests, the
mainstream media tweaked the MPL’s post-representative discourse to make their
own claims about the ‘people’.
The idea that the ‘people’can be constructed beyond representative claims as ‘acting
for’is ignored almost everywhere by constructivists. Nevertheless, they touch on these
issues occasionally. As Saward said, the very description of a subject as a delegate or a
trustee, or even as an agent in relation to a principal, is discursively constructed itself
(Saward, 2010, pp. 72–73). This may encourage one to consider a scenario in which
this kind of construction does not take place at all or is rejected.
In an inspiring passage, Saward establishes a logical distinction between two moments
of the representative claim. Firstly, the maker attributes values –the aesthetic dimension
–while constructing the subject and the object. Only afterwards would he claim the link
between the values attributed to the subject and object so that a representative relation-
ship can be justified (Disch, 2015, p. 487). As Saward says:
If I allege that you, a potential constituent of mine, possess key characteristic X, and if I can
get you to accept this characterization, I can then present myself as a subject possessing
capacity or attribute Y that enables me to represent you by virtue of a certain resonance
between X and Y (Saward, 2010, p. 47, emphasis added).
These are the two stages. Firstly there is the aesthetic and performative representation of
the representative and the represented then the establishment of the link between these
two discursive entities –a step that is also performative, but secondary. The post-repre-
sentative claim invites one to consider that these two stages are not mutually necessary.
More precisely, the first stage can take place without implying the second.
Saward gets closer to this type of reflection, but he does not take an in-depth look. Dis-
cussing the fact that the representative claims can silence the represented by reinforcing
their absence from the political sphere, Saward says:
Representative claims can activate and empower recipients or observers, even if that is not
the intention of the makers. Recipients or audiences are ‘on the map’by being invoked in
representative claims, even if an initial effect of a claim is a silencing one. One needs an iden-
tity as a prior condition of being silenced by a claim to represent one. Once established, […]
that very identity can be a resource for dissent. This can empower those on the receiving end
of claims, for example, to ‘read back’the nature of the claim (Saward, 2010, p. 55).
One finds the idea that both stages are independent here. Saward does not go any further.
In his report, he uses a comparison between the political representation and the
REPRESENTATION 525
representation of charts and paintings, in which the distinction between the two stages is
less clear. However, one can imagine citizens adopting an identity even if they reject those
who claim to represent them politically. In this passage, Saward deals with the rejection of
a claim in a particular way. The claim is rejected not because one does not accept or
identify with it, but because one only partially accepts or identifies with it –‘those on
the receiving end of claims’can accept the object or identify with it, but see the
subject as inadequate.
The idea of an inadequate subject leads me to an underlying topic: does the second
kind of post-representative claim –the idea that there could be a better representation
–impact the argument presented here? In each case of post-representative claims one
is dealing with different approaches to the inadequacy of the subject. The first kind
wants to get rid of the idea of a subject as such –for the people would not need represen-
tation –while the second believes that a more adequate subject can be found. A careful
analysis, however, shows that the second kind of post-representative claim does not jeo-
pardise the bedrock of the main argument. Both the rejection of representation tout court
and the one-offrejection of this particular representative –in the idea that this person
does not represent us, but perhaps somebody else could do it, in a different institutional
arrangement –imply that a discourse can construct an object independently from the
construction of a subject. In every case, there can be Darstellung without Vertretung.
All Claims are Discursive Constructions
Considering the limitations of the representative claim framework to incorporate ‘(non-
representative) political claims’, in this section I argue for a more general analytical
frame. In this perspective, all kinds of claim are species of a genus discourse, varying
according to the distance between the subject and the centre of the discursive formation.
To explain this idea, I will discuss three possible relations between object and subject –
and how Darstellung relates to Vertretung in each case. These different relations are
found in post-representative claims, in what I briefly introduce as ‘embodying’claims,
and in typical representative claims.
In the post-representative claim the object’s discursive construction does not depend
on the discursive construction of a subject. The relation between subject and object is
non-existent or blurred at the most. One is claiming that the object has certain charac-
teristics, aesthetically constructing it, but not establishing a relation with an external dis-
cursive entity. The ‘people’exist without a sovereign. and somehow in opposition to it.
For example, in the streets, the ‘people’emerges as a discursive construction, and there is
no leader qua subject linked to it.
Although what I now call the ‘embodying’claim appears to be the exact opposite of the
post-representative claim, paradoxically it also lacks a subject as such. I am referring to a
Hobbesian situation in which the leader qua subject embodies the ‘people’. In more con-
crete terms, one could consider classic populist experiences in Latin America in which
‘the identity of both the populist leader and the people are constituted in a unique
relationship’(Zac & Sayyid, 1998, pp. 250–51). Examples of this are Vargas in Brazil
and Perón in Argentina. Curiously enough, the ‘fusion hypothesis’that I had rejected
earlier reappears here in an inverted way. In this moment of catachresis, there is no
‘people’without the figure of the sovereign. Subject and object are one and the same.
526 T. ZICMAN DE BARROS
Not only does the subject discursively constitute the object and put himself in relation to
it but the subject embodies the object. He is the gathering element that allows for the
existence of the object that names it. In this situation, without any formal representative
there would be no represented. Saward’s two-stage process discussed above –the con-
struction of the representative and of the represented and their subsequent mise en
relation –would actually be one single monolithic process. In fact, as suggested when
I rejected the fusion hypothesis, one gets to a point in which it would probably be incor-
rect to distinguish between subject and object in this case. This is because it would treat
the object as a referent –something that Saward himself rejected –ignoring the fact that,
in this situation, leader qua subject and ‘people’are co-constitutive. They are both part of
the object. There is no subject representing an object, but an object whose name is the
name of the leader (Laclau, 2005, p. 100). Of course, the democratic status of this kind
of embodiment is not uncontroversial (Urbinati, 2019, p. 33).
These two scenarios are far from the third discursive formation one should consider:
Saward’s typical representative claim. A representative claim implies the construction of
an independent but related –or relatable –subject. Neither the leaderless assembled
‘people’nor the Hobbesian sovereign who incarnates the ‘people’fit his framework.
Centrality is the most important idea to take into account here. It was used in studies
distinguishing between nationalistic discourses –in which the ‘nation’is the master
signifier at the centre of a discursive formation –and populism –in which the
‘people’occupies this position (Stavrakakis, Katsambekis, Nikisianis, Kioupkiolis, &
Siomos, 2017). I now want to apply this category to determine the position of the
subject –for example, the leader –in relation to the centre of the discursive articulation
that creates an object, such as the ‘people’. In a typical ‘post-representative’claim, the
‘people’would crystalise around a symbol that has no positive relation with a leader
qua subject. If the entities that often play the role of ‘subject’(politicians, representatives)
have a place in the discursive formation, it is probably as an antagonistic other –that
which the ‘people’is organised against. However, there is no subject at the centre of
the discursive formation but just an object. That said, the subject also disappears in
the Hobbesian scenario. Because of the centrality of the sovereign’sfigure in the discur-
sive articulation, the subject turns out to be unconceivable as such, simply becoming the
very name of the object.
In Saward’s typical representative claim one is dealing with an intermediary case. The
subject –the leader, the representative, etc. –will be part of the discursive formation,
close to its centre. Nevertheless, another discursive entity –an independent object –
would occupy the latter.
Returning to the Brazilian electoral example mentioned at the beginning of this article,
when one says that Dilma Rousseffrepresents Brazilian workers, the term ‘Brazilian
workers’is itself symbolising the object. It synthesises and represents an entity without
being imperatively associated with the figure of a ‘sovereign’subject. In this case, with
the figure of Dilma Rousseffwho was not widely known to the public at that time.
Additionally, one could say that the image of the claim-maker, Lula da Silva, was
much more central than his successor’s in the creation of this popular identity, even if
in this situation he was not presenting himself as a subject.
To sum up one can say that post-representative claims, ‘embodying’claims and typical
representative claims are species of the genus discourse. From the post-representative
REPRESENTATION 527
claim in particular, one learns that the subject is not a necessary moment of a discursive
formation. The claim-maker discursively constructs an object that is independent from
any subject –to the point that there is no subject in the discursive articulation. In a repre-
sentative claim, however, the subject will be constructed and increasingly apparent the
more it occupies a central position in the discursive formation. In the extreme case,
when it becomes a nodal point, one approaches a Hobbesian situation in which the iden-
tity of the ‘people’depends on the figure of the sovereign.
Conclusion
Returning to a distinction put forward by Spivak, the aim of this article was to go further
into the idea of ‘construction’and conjugate darstellen without conjugating vertreten.
This exercise solves the difficulty in establishing the limits of the representative claim
–adifficulty that originates from the confusion caused by the different meanings of ‘rep-
resentation’. It shows that even a post-representative claim ‘represents’in the sense that it
aesthetically and performatively constructs collective identities but that it is not a repre-
sentative claim in the sense that articulates a subject and an object.
I cannot stress enough the Saward’s approach is the main contribution to the discus-
sion about political representation in recent times. It is useful to the extent that he shows
how the discourse constructs collective identities in frequent cases. What was missing
was an articulation between an already broad theory on political representation as
‘acting for’and an even more general theory on discursive formations. In this sense, I
suggest that the representative claim’s framework should be seen as a set of analytical
tools that work to understand situations that involve political representation as ‘acting
for’(Vertretung)–in the sense that a subject and an object are both present in the dis-
cursive formation. In other words, the representative claim is a specific case in a con-
structivist discourse theory –a theory that is compatible with the idea that not all
claims are vertretende claims but that all claims are darstellende claims.
Notes
1. Hanna Pitkin associates Darstellung both with descriptive and symbolic representation
(Pitkin, 1967, p. 59). I argue that one is dealing in all cases with symbolic representation,
as every description implies a symbolic choice.
2. In the first version of his framework, Saward presents a fifth element: the referent. However,
he removed it in a recent working paper (Disch et al., 2012, pp. 111–114; Saward, 2013, p. 1).
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Lasse Thomassen for his valuable comments on an earlier version of this
paper, as well as Samuel Hayat for the exchanges that enriched my text. I also express my
sincere gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
528 T. ZICMAN DE BARROS
Notes on contributor
Thomás Zicman de Barros is a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris. His research activity focusses on the
interdisciplinary articulation between Political Theory and Psychoanalysis, studying populist
experiences, movements that criticise mechanisms of political representation, and reflecting on
the role of political leadership in the construction of collective identities. E-mail: thomas.
zicmandebarros@sciencespo.fr; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasdebarros/
ORCID
Thomás Zicman de Barros http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1657-6939
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