Citizen Participation as Social Representation: Widening the Meaning of Political Representation in the EU

The aim of the paper is to explore the way recent approaches (Urbinati, Rosanvallon, Saward) to the concept of democratic representation give us a different understanding of political participation in contemporary democracies. Instead of reinforcing the opposition representative democracy versus participatory democracy, they help to envision citizen participation as a core component of the system of representation. Seen from this perspective, they reinforce the nuances introduced in a more empirically oriented literature on political participation (Fung, Smith). And when applied to the discourses on the democratic deficit of the UE, based on the lack of citizen’s influence, they give us some normative insights to assess institutional mechanism to involve citizens and citizen organizations.