Who is the ‘Good Representative’ for Women When We Want the Representative Process to be Responsive, Inclusive and Egalitarian? In Defense of a Procedural and Collective Approach to Assessing the Quality of Substantive Representation

In earlier work we argued that theories of women’s substantive representation must be able to cope with the diversity of women’s interests and that that the substantive representation of women (SRW) cannot be limited to the presence of a (likely partial) group of women in our elected political institutions, articulating a particular reading of women’s interests. Against this backdrop, and wanting still to be able to establish the quality of women’s substantive representation we advocated a shift in focus from the actors (women/feminist MPs) and content of representation (legislative and policy outcomes) onto the processes of representation. We identified three sets of conditions, the final set of which specifically permits evaluation of the quality of representational process at the system level. Accordingly, a feminist economy of gendered claims should be understood as an inclusive process: inclusion that is both egalitarian and substantive. In other words, we ask of the representative process: is there responsiveness to all, and not just some, women? Are women’s heterogeneous interests included, or are some excluded? And are all claims accorded equal consideration?
In this paper we reflect further on what this shift to the processes of representation - and more precisely the three sets of conditions for good SRW we thereby identified - imply for assessing the quality of representatives. In other words, we reconsider the role of Suzanne Dovi’s ‘Good Representative’ in our representative process. We subscribe to the appropriateness of the three values that she maintains a democratic representative should have, namely, fair-mindedness, critical trust building, and good gate-keeping. We contend, moreover, that the presence of representatives who embody these are likely critical for a feminist economy of claims, and hence the good SRW. We nevertheless also argue that the enactment of these values is more realizable and sometimes even more desirable at the system rather than individual level.