ABSTRACT
It might be better to simply require proportional representation of interests where presence will be increased by the public funding of historically disenfranchised groups. How would we decide which groups qualify? Not unlike the way in which Phillips comes to her conclusions about who should qualify for special representation rights: the groups will shift in response to the political and social context, but in many cases it will be based on an observable history of unjust treatment that continues to have a clear impact on life chances.
We can worry endlessly about intra-group difference and essentialism, but at the end of the day we know that some differences make a difference, and providing additional resources to those who share those differences in order that they might more effectively organize seems eminently wiser to me than engaging in minimal, strictly institutional reforms, the fruits of which are likely to be co-opted by the existing power structure. There are no definitives without context, and many of the questions surrounding who counts will have to be decided as a matter of politics, as Iris Marion Young attempts to explicate through an understanding of groups as structural phenomena that confer identifiable social perspectives that can and should be represented.
