ABSTRACT
A recurrent theme of this book is that ‘theory’ often reflects the political practice of representation at any given time. Indeed, political practice might usefully be likened to geological sedimentary layers stacked-up on top of each other with veins of ‘theory’—indicating waves, rifts and fissures —permeating successive deposits of practice. One notable feature of the ‘geology’ of British representative practice since medieval times has been the ‘representation of interests’. If, as argued in Chapter 1, representation is conceived in part as the legitimation of the power of decision making, then material or functional interests were long regarded as the source of that legitimation in British politics. Only with the rise of the mass franchise and the emphasis upon legitimation derived from ‘the people’ was the primary focus of representation redirected away from the representation of ‘particular interests’ to the ‘general will’. Yet, in practice, the former mode of representation continued alongside the latter. On the one side, this allowed proponents to advance the case that the representation of specific material interests enhanced the determination of the general/national interest. On the other side, it allowed opponents to advance the counter case-that the general interest was undermined by the specific representation of functional interests.
