Notes on representation - while we are waiting for electoral reform

Abstract

New crises call for new ideas. The practice of politics and the nature of representation gradually changed throughout the postwar period, with the introduction of new technologies, with the development of the European project, with globalization. With the effect of the financial crisis of 2008 and, in Europe, the eurozone crisis that started 2010, there was a new faster change which consequences are not yet fully digested. The debate on electoral reform in Portugal, however, comes back, and still stuck always to the same issues and proposals. The Portuguese debate on electoral reform was likely to already be delayed by the time it started, and is today quite probably overtaken by recent events. Therefore, we should be examining the question of what has essentially changed in politics in recent years, and refocus the debate on electoral reform on the need to solve the real problems of lack of representation we have today, such as those arising from excessive rigidity of leadership in contemporary political parties and especially by the very incomplete mechanisms of democratic transmission at European level (that can, however, be partially corrected in national reforms). Then we will be able to ask ourselves how can representatives meet today with the range of roles we expect of them, and create the tools that would help perform these functions and revitalize democracy. This would be a good reflection to engage on while we are waiting for electoral reform.