Preferable Descriptive Representatives: Performing Fairness

The literature on social group representation is characterised by two central insights. The first is that shared lived experiences of discrimination and disadvantage are the most effective starting points for group advocacy. The second is that not all descriptive representatives will promote the political interests of “their” social group. Combined, these two insights have translated into an extensive field of research that seeks to clarify the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation. Within this field of inquiry, descriptive representatives who promote the interests of “their” social group have generally been conceived as preferable over others. While the focus on advocacy is not wrong, it comes at a cost. It deflects our attention away from the broader question of whether descriptive representatives help reconstitute social group relations on more equitable terms (cf. Severs & de Jong 2018). This question is central to the theoretical body of literature that has, since the 1990s, advocated an institutionalised presence for historically disadvantaged groups. This literature pointed to the legacies of historical processes of marginalisation that continually affect some people negatively, and others positively, and identified descriptive representation as a way for dismantling the hierarchical nature of social group relations (Phillips 1995; Williams 1998; Mansbridge 1999; Young 2001). Putting the constitution of social group relations at the centre of our evaluations of what makes some descriptive representatives preferable over others has the advantage of avoiding (potentially biased) definitions of social groups’ interests (e.g., Celis et al. 2008; Schwindt-Bayer & Taylor-Robinson 2011; Reingold & Haynie 2013). It does, however, call for contextualised understandings of the nature of power relations (between and within social groups), and what counts as acts of promoting fairness. Drawing on a set of Belgian newspaper articles (1995-2015), this paper analyses the political performances of parliamentarians with a migration background and seeks to identify criteria for what may be considered acts of promoting fairness.