Elitism, pluralism and democratic participation: theoretical approaches to the problem of representation

Abstract

This exhibition aims to think the problem of representation in contemporary liberal democracies, in the light of pluralistic propositions – defense recognized by this political system model. To build this analysis, it brings up the problematizations performed by elitism, which raises the question of the fate of the government to a minority. The contributions of this work are directed towards reflecting on the political representation – a theme often questioned. For this, it was decided to mobilize what is usually called pluralism, since when addressing the issue of responsiveness, build a model that argues with the liberal political philosophy, suffering the influences of realism of the elitist. In addition to the pluralist critique of elitism, it brings up the center, the critique of the representation of the theorists of democratic participation. The results, although not propose an empirical work, go towards thinking explanatory and methodological model to the problem of political representation.