Representative-capacity-making: The strategic backstage work of political representation

The work of being an elected representative today is increasingly demanding as they seek to perform representation amid political distrust, polarised electorates, and rising populism. In response, elected representatives and their teams invest heavily in developing and showcasing their capacities to represent. This variously involves constructing representative personas, designing participatory events, curating diverse digital content, and communicating evidence on how and where they are representing. Extending Saward’s representative claim-making framework, this article develops the concept of representative-capacity-making to better understand this overlooked (‘backstage’) aspect of modern representation. The article explores – in concept only – the work involved in developing and demonstrating four key representative capacities. The normative implications of representative-capacity-making in an era of democratic strain are considered. While representative-capacity-making can be read as a response to the challenges of democratic representation today, the extent to which it can be a solution is mixed, in specified ways.