The Concept of Representation in Emergency

In emergency situations, when democratic procedures are suspended or curtailed, governments often continue to claim political legitimacy by invoking representation—asserting that they act in the name of the people. Yet political theory has largely neglected how such representative claims can be evaluated outside of formal democratic mechanisms. This thesis addresses that gap by asking: How can we assess the legitimacy of representation during states of emergency? Building on the work of Hanna Pitkin and more recent descriptive and constructivist accounts, the thesis reconceptualizes representation as justified interest-alignment: a relationship in which an actor’s behavior substantively advances the interests of others and is accepted, tacitly or explicitly, by those affected. From this foundation, it develops a normative framework for assessing representation claim independent from democratic norms, consisting of three interdependent criteria: Acceptance, Responsiveness, and...Show moreIn emergency situations, when democratic procedures are suspended or curtailed, governments often continue to claim political legitimacy by invoking representation—asserting that they act in the name of the people. Yet political theory has largely neglected how such representative claims can be evaluated outside of formal democratic mechanisms. This thesis addresses that gap by asking: How can we assess the legitimacy of representation during states of emergency? Building on the work of Hanna Pitkin and more recent descriptive and constructivist accounts, the thesis reconceptualizes representation as justified interest-alignment: a relationship in which an actor’s behavior substantively advances the interests of others and is accepted, tacitly or explicitly, by those affected. From this foundation, it develops a normative framework for assessing representation claim independent from democratic norms, consisting of three interdependent criteria: Acceptance, Responsiveness, and Reversion. These tests evaluate whether a representative claim is behaviorally grounded, substantively justified, and credibly temporary. The framework is applied to two contrasting case studies from the COVID-19 pandemic: the United States under Donald Trump and China under the Chinese Communist Party. The analysis shows how representative legitimacy can falter in democratic settings and endure in authoritarian ones-depending not on procedure alone, but on the quality of the representative relationship.Show less

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The Concept of Representation in Emergency