We are pleased to announce the release of all ten interviews in the Visions of Representation series — a set of conversations with leading scholars in democratic theory that explore how political representation is evolving in contemporary democracies. Recorded across conferences and institutions between 2024 and 2025 by Andrew Schaap, the series examines topics ranging from representative claims and constitutional moments to political absence, silence, social intermediation, democratic innovations, and the digital public sphere.

Together, these interviews offer a rich set of perspectives on how representation is being rethought, challenged, expanded, and defended in the 21st century.

Episode 1 — Mihaela Mihai on Representative Claim-Making and Social Ignorance
Recorded in Falmouth on 29 May 2024
Discusses her article ‘Foundational Moments, Representative Claims and the Ecology of Social Ignorance’ (Political Studies 70(4), 2021). Mihai explains how moments of constitutional re-founding may nurture social ignorance despite opportunities for contestation and opinion formation.

Episode 2 — Suzanne Dovi on Representation and Political Absence
Recorded at the ECPR General Conference, University College Dublin, 13 August 2024
Based on ‘What’s Missing: A Typology of Political Absence’ (The Journal of Politics, 2020). Dovi shows why representation must attend not only to presence but also to the production of absence.

Episode 3 — Monica Brito Vieira on Representing Silence in Politics
Recorded at the BIAPT Annual Conference, University of York, 10 January 2025
Drawing from ‘Representing Silence in Politics’ (American Political Science Review, 2020), Vieira argues that silence is not the absence of voice but a potential or actual presence, and proposes criteria for assessing claims to represent silence.

Episode 4 — Anne Phillips on Revisiting the Politics of Presence
Recorded in London, 19 March 2025
Discusses her chapter ‘Descriptive Representation Revisited’ in the Oxford Handbook of Political Representation (2020), revisiting debates about essentialism, group representation, and democratic inclusion.

Episode 5 — Mark Warren on Incentives for Elected Representatives to Use Democratic Innovations
Recorded at the University of Exeter, 19 May 2025
Explores the incentives for elected officials to adopt democratic innovations (e.g., mini-publics, participatory budgeting) and the conditions under which such innovations align with institutional interests.

Episode 6 — Nadia Urbinati on The Need for Social Intermediation
Recorded at APSA, Vancouver, 11 September 2025
Drawing on ‘The decline and the need of the key force of intermediation’ (Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2025), Urbinati shows why addressing democratic disconnects requires strengthening not only parties but broader social intermediary bodies.

Episode 7 — Simone Chambers on Deliberative Democracy and the Digital Public Sphere
Recorded at APSA, Vancouver, 12 September 2025
Based on ‘Deliberative Democracy and the Digital Public Sphere’ (Constellations, 2023), Chambers argues that fragmentation of public life is driven more by authoritarian political strategies than by technology itself.

Episode 8 — Michael Saward on Shape-Shifting Representation
Recorded at Friends’ House, London, 24 October 2025
Discusses ‘Shape-Shifting Representation’ (American Political Science Review, 2014) and the dynamics through which actors make and remake representative claims.

Episode 9 — Philippe van Parijs on Public Intellectuals & Representative Democracy
Recorded at the Bourse, Brussels, 6 December 2025
Reflects on the role of public intellectuals in representative democracy and on interventions in public debate, including campaigns for a universal basic income.

Episode 10 — Alfio Mastropaolo on Representation & the Invention of Modern Politics
Recorded online, 29 February 2024
Discusses the chapter ‘Representation and the Invention of Modern Politics’ from his book Waging War by Other Means: Historical Sociology of Democratic Government.

Date: 20 January 2026
Location: Exeter, United Kingdom
Partner:  University of Exeter (UNIEXETER)
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