The affective turn in the construction of representation

Political representation is facing several threats. From citizens' distrusts and apathy toward politics, to increased political and social polarization, democratic deconsolidation, and democratic backsliding. The constructivist turn in representation provides a theoretical shift that can shed light on such challenges and developments in representation by understanding political representation as a social, relational, and interactive process that is constructed through communication between representatives and the represented. In this article, I suggest an extension to this development and argue that we need an affective turn in the construction of representation. Such a turn allows for a theoretically informed and empirically valid approach to studying new developments in political representation. My argumentation for such a turn rests on six highly interconnected observations. In my first observation, I start out by highlighting the inherently psychological nature of the current threats to political representation. Following I show how political representation is affectively charged in the brain. Political events, political leaders, and political communication stir up feelings among citizens, and citizens' feelings also influence their political attitudes and behavior. Building on these two observations I make the observation that the construction of representation is essentially a communication process, which relies on an affective processing of representative claims. Following is the observation of how feeling represented is essential in this communicated construction. The constructivist turn has also led to an expansionism of representation, in which unelected representatives, i.e political activists makes policy demands on behalf of self-created constituencies. This highlights the need for psycho-social concepts, such as marginalization, identity, and power in political representation. And finally, both emotions and representation are constructed from unique experiences and contexts. I conclude my paper by tying these observations together and providing directions for future research.