Mexico is a country whose global political and economic significance is rapidly increasing. This book offers the first in-depth English-language analysis of its politics of representation. Through innovative conceptual work and original case studies, it explores important trends in Mexican politics and governance through the lens of representation, including who speaks and stands for whom, on what grounds and in what domains and the challenges they face. Revealing a significant portrait of major tensions in, and challenges to, democracy across Mexico, this book will be of interest to those researching current trends in the theory and practice of political representation, and readers looking for new perspectives on Mexican politics and governance.

Democratic Innovation is an original look at the political future of democracy, exploring the latest ideas aimed at renewing popular power.
Featuring new writings by leading European, American and Australian democratic theorists, this book explores the following themes:
* the importance of public deliberation in democracies
* how effective representation for all might be acheived
* the role that voluntary associations can play in democratic governance

Representation is more than a matter of elections and parties. This book offers a radical new perspective on the subject. Representation, it argues, is all around us, a dynamic practise across societies rather than simply a fixed feature of government. At the heart of the argument is the straightforward but versatile notion of the representative claim. People claim to speak or stand for others in multiple, shifting, and surprising patterns. At the same time they offer images of their constituents and audiences as artists paint portraits. Who can speak for and about us in this volatile world of representations? Which representative claims can have democratic legitimacy?
The Representative Claim is set to transform our core assumptions about what representation is and can be. At a time when political representation is widely believed to be in crisis, the book provides a timely and critical corrective to conventional wisdom on the present and potential future of representative democracy.

This text looks at the political future of democracy, exploring the latest ideas aimed at renewing popular power. Featuring new writing by leading European, American and Australian democratic theorists, this book explores the importance of public deliberation in democracies, how effective representation for all might be achieved, and how associations outside government may be at the heart of democracy's future. The contributors examine issues such as how our political systems can be revitalized; how ordinary people can be empowered when issues are so complex; whether the interests of marginalized groups, or of the natural world, can be effectively represented; and the role which voluntary associations can play in democratic governance. Through clear and rigorous debate, they consider the new institutions and attitudes which will be needed if democracy is to rise to the many challenges confronting it. This volume offers searching and accessible critiques of the latest thinking on deliberative democracy.

What does it mean to be a European citizen? The rapidly changing politics of citizenship in the face of migration, diversity, heightened concerns about security and financial and economic crises, has left European citizenship as one of the major political and social challenges to European integration. Enacting European Citizenship develops a distinctive perspective on European citizenship and its impact on European integration by focusing on 'acts' of European citizenship. The authors examine a broad range of cases - including those of the Roma, Sinti, Kurds, sex workers, youth and other 'minorities' or marginalised peoples - to illuminate the ways in which the institutions and practices of European citizenship can hinder as well as enable claims for justice, rights and equality. This book draws the key themes together to explore what the limitations and possibilities of European citizenship might be.

What does it mean to be a European citizen? The rapidly changing politics of citizenship in the face of migration, diversity, heightened concerns about security and financial and economic crises, has left European citizenship as one of the major political and social challenges to European integration. Enacting European Citizenship develops a distinctive perspective on European citizenship and its impact on European integration by focusing on 'acts' of European citizenship. The authors examine a broad range of cases - including those of the Roma, Sinti, Kurds, sex workers, youth and other 'minorities' or marginalised peoples - to illuminate the ways in which the institutions and practices of European citizenship can hinder as well as enable claims for justice, rights and equality. This book draws the key themes together to explore what the limitations and possibilities of European citizenship might be.

Democracy faces stern tests around the world in the twenty-first century. Democratic Design argues that to respond effectively and creatively, democrats need to work with a versatile new toolkit of concepts and institutions. The book assembles this toolkit - the democratic design framework - through an original blend of design thinking and democratic theory and practice. It shows how to use the framework to renew and enliven our ideas of democracy across a range of contexts. The book explores a wide range of institutions, from the familiar (such as parliamentary procedures) to the innovative (such as citizens' assemblies). It underlines the importance of systemic and contextual design, and the practical enactment of democratic values such as equality, freedom and participation. Democratic Design shows how a comprehensive approach to rethinking the present and future of democratic governance is possible, indeed essential. It draws together, and moves beyond, the best of existing theories and models by devising a new framework that is both practical and theoretically robust.

In the past decade, the way we look at political representation has changed. A new wave of thinking shows how representation rises from claims to speak for others, and how the claims are performed and received. The claim-based approach has introduced new characters to the drama of representation, such as non-elective representatives, and provided tools to analyse representation across the borders of nation-states. Written by the originator of this new approach, Making Representations responds to critical questions about the practice and the legitimacy of political representation in today's politics. It also expands the scope of the representative claim approach by exploring innovative themes including performances of representation, the place of 'shape-shifting' representatives in our politics, and how equality is (and is not) realised through representation.