Voice, Trust, and Memory

by Melissa S. Williams

Does fair political representation for historically disadvantaged groups require their presence in legislative bodies? The intuition that women are best represented by women, and African-Americans by other African-Americans, has deep historical roots. Yet the conception of fair representation that prevails in American political culture and jurisprudence--what Melissa Williams calls "liberal representation"--concludes that the social identity of legislative representatives does not bear on their quality as representatives. Liberal representation's slogan, "one person, one vote," concludes that the outcome of the electoral and legislative process is fair, whatever it happens to be, so long as no voter is systematically excluded. Challenging this notion, Williams maintains that fair representation is powerfully affected by the identity of legislators and whether some of them are actually members of the historically marginalized groups that are most in need of protection in our society.

Williams argues first that the distinctive voice of these groups should be audible within the legislative process. Second, she holds that the self-representation of these groups is necessary to sustain their trust in democratic institutions. The memory of state-sponsored discrimination against these groups, together with ongoing patterns of inequality along group lines, provides both a reason to recognize group claims and a way of distinguishing stronger from weaker claims. The book closes by proposing institutions that can secure fair representation for marginalized groups without compromising principles of democratic freedom and equality.

330 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 1998

Reviews

[Jeff Swift]

Williams's book defends the need to have societal structures that are thought out beforehand in order to advance toward equality. Of course, she does not address the causes of equality, only proposes procedural fixes for legislative representation. Assuming that equality can be alleviated through more representative legislative procedures is ambitious but short-sighted in a political time that money speaks louder than words and donations mean more than votes. On the other hand, her proposed reforms in chapters 7 and 8 do have the potential to bring more oppressed voices into the political system, allowing the previously suppressed speech by racial, economic, physical, and social minorities to advocate for substantive changes. These changes may or may not address the causes of equality, but I think Williams would be fine with this risk: we will never know for sure until we give these voices a chance at representation.