Key Concepts - The REpresentative DIsconnect: diagnosis and strategies for RECTification

REPRESENTATIVE ECOLOGY
A detailed theoretical and empirical analysis of how the representative system is embedded in a broader representative ecology. The interaction between these two areas provides the grounds for political trust and legitimacy in democratic societies.

THE FLOW OF DEMOCRACY
A more rounded view of what is regarded as the crisis of representative democracy and of its state of flux. The changing attitudes and behaviour of the citizens and the political elites are to be regarded as mutually constitutive.

DUAL FOCUS OF REPRESENTATION
REDIRECT understands that the working of democratic representation has a dual focus. One the one hand, it presents deliberative and institutional features. On the other hand, it also has an emotional and affective dimension.

SYSTEMATIC AND CONTINGENT
REDIRECT strives for a careful assessment of the current sense of crisis of representative democracy, torn between more popular demands and the more technocratic imperatives of governance

RECONNECTION
One strategy is intended for re-establishing, when possible, the efficacious functioning of those mechanisms and processes that are part of the established system of democratic governance and representation. In such a case, this strategy tends to reconnect representatives and represented, repairing their relationship.

REDIRECTION
The other strategies of rectification are instead intended as a form of redirection of the overall system of representation by changing the constellation of mechanisms and instruments within the representative ecology, and introducing new institutions or processes aimed at revitalising the relationship between citizens and government.