Representing Efficiency: Corporatism and Democratic Theory

Abstract

What follows is an attempt to contribute to the renewal of democratic theory. The argument does not offer yet another substantive definition of “genuine” democracy. Nor does it proceed through the usual method of textual exegesis of the texts of democratic thinkers. Instead, it explores the implications for representative government of the set of political and economic practices to which comparativists have attached the label of corporatism. The central proposition of the argument is that corporatism poses a challenge to traditional notions about the core principles of democratic representation. Part one shows that corporatism can be seen as an alternative to the mode of democratic interest articulation known as pluralism. However, part two will show the ways in which the logic of corporatism implies a significant shift from established conventions of representation. The third section tries to build a defense of pluralism as a more democratic mode of representation than either corporatism or neo-Marxism.