Representative Performative Acts in Between Symbolic and Substantial Political Effects: an Explorative Normative Account

The constructivist notion of political representation, in Michael Saward’s terms, understands this phenomenon as a continuous performative process of claim-making from which representative relations emerge. Such performative acts, offered to audiences and subject to acceptance, rejection or challenging, do also contribute to the constitution of publics and interests and are, therefore, a fundamental step for the constructive conception of representation. In this view, the establishment of representative relations are not necessarily enacted by an authorisation moment, but by a performative act. However, performances are often regarded as dramatic and symbolic political dimensions and hence not a suitable analytical unity for normative discussion purposes. Taking this debate into account, this article is aimed at discussing some of the normative implications of adding performance to the analysis of political representation in a constructivist lens. The first question guiding this proposal is regarded the validity of considering the performative level in normative discussions of political representation. If the performative act can be thought of as a pre-representative stage that occurs before an implicit or explicit authorization moment, then performance does not equal and/or essentially leads to representation. Consequently, why should performance be included as part of normative debates? Opening a dialogue with the field of performance studies, I argue that even on a symbolic plan, performances participate in imagining constituencies and forging the political subject. Performances are, in this sense, not only aesthetical statements, but creative representations of realities that in turn operate actions. Based on that, I further contend that the creative power of representation contained in the performance is able to produce substantive political results, by means of constituting communities, making sense of political preferences and enacting affections that lead to political effects. Acknowledging that performances can be added in normative debates about political representation, I propose an explorative framework to analyse and interpret representative performative acts. In order to that, I claim that performances are entangled in symbolic and material conditions that should be taken into account for such an assessment. Even if performances are originally put forward as an aesthetical pronouncement, by means of oral and bodily communicative formats, they are also placed in existing political and social conflicts that are publicly negotiated and performatively mediated. Therefore, the contents of representative performative acts will unravel political values and goals that can be analysed by its proximity or distance from democratic norms. Moving towards a conclusion, some considerations will be drawn about the potential substantive effects of performances, mainly taking into account the structural issues of representative democracy. Considering that political inclusion is a pressing challenging for representative relations and institutions, the article proposes the inauguration of an investigate direction that pursue potential ways by which performative acts could counteract exclusion within political representation.