Ways to learn more about my research: watch my recent talk at the 2018 Harvard Horizons Symposium, listen to my recent interview on The UnMute Podcast with Myisha Cherry, or read my recent interview with the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Current Book Project
Not Just Speaking For Ourselves
I advance and defend a novel account of the political ethics of informal representation.
Dissertation
Informal Political Representation: Normative and Conceptual Foundations. Ph.D. Dissertation. Harvard University. (2018)
It is possible that, as you read this, there is someone out there standing in for you, speaking in your voice, acting in your stead, making agreements on your behalf, or conceding a point you might not have wanted them to. They are not your congressperson, your lawyer, or your spouse—nor anyone else authorized by means of a formal, corporately organized election or selection procedure. There is another sort of representative out there, someone you did not elect, someone you perhaps would not elect, of whom you may never have heard, speaking or acting on your behalf right now—they are an informal political representative.
Formal political representation is a familiar topic within democratic theory. Much less discussed, though no less widespread, is informal political representation: a practice in which a person speaks or acts for a group before an audience, despite never having been elected or selected to do so by means of a corporately organized election or selection procedure. Informal political representation is an everyday feature of our public communicative landscape. It is woven taut into the fabric of our political lives. Malala Yousafzai claims: “I speak not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard.” U2 frontman Bono claims to “represent a lot of people who have no voice at all.” President Trump, before his nomination, was said “to give a voice to those who have long felt silenced."
The informal representative, though neither elected nor selected, is ubiquitous and politically influential. They increase the visibility of marginalized and oppressed groups, give voice to interests not adequately expressed in formal political fora, influence public discourse, and serve as conduits between the represented and policymakers. They can, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., did in Montgomery, negotiate on a group’s behalf. But so far, few have attempted to provide a theory of this phenomenon that gives full attention to both its conceptual and normative foundations. My dissertation provides a theory of informal political representation that does not treat the phenomenon as a mere deviant case of formal political representation, but rather takes informal political representation on its own terms.
Committee: Tommie Shelby (chair), Tim Scanlon, Dick Moran, Eric Beerbohm
Papers
Title Removed (under review)
Informal political representation, the phenomenon of speaking or acting on behalf of others outside of formal political contexts, plays a crucial role in advancing the interests of groups, particularly marginalized and oppressed groups. I advance a new theory of the emergence conditions for becoming an informal political representative and explains how this theory allows us to get at key normative questions that are occluded by existing accounts.
Judicial Representatives: Speaking for Others from the Bench
Judicial representation occurs when, by virtue of what a judge says from the bench they come to speak or act on behalf of the members of a group whose interests are at stake in a case. This paper introduces and develops the concept of judicial representation as it arises in contexts where the represented group's members are, in some sense, unable to speak for themselves. It then advances an account of what a judge must know in order to be a good judicial representative and concludes by considering whether there is an irresolvable tension between judicial representation and judicial impartiality.
This paper was presented at the 2018 Beyond Disadvantage: Disability, Law, and Bioethics Conference at Harvard Law School and has been submitted as a chapter of a proposed volume on same.
Democracy Within, Justice Without: The Duties of Informal Representatives
Informal representation can play an important and distinctive role in promoting a society of equals but, to do so, informal representatives must promote relationships with the represented that foreground such democratic values as respect, publicity, transparency, and openness to criticism, and that eschew domination and suppression of dissent.
The Limits of Similitude and Deference: Reexamining Core Principles of Political Representation
Why should those who speak for us be anything like us? And when should they defer to us about how to speak for us? I argue, contra widely endorsed principles long held by political representation theorists, in many cases, they shouldn't.
The Complaints of the Represented
Doubtless you have heard someone object, at one time or another, You don’t speak for me! or They don’t speak for us! Versions of this complaint are commonplace when represented group members disapprove of their informal representative. However, such complaints do not have the effect of unseating an informal representative. In this paper, I (i) examine these complaints, and others like them, in order to understand the deliberative, dialogical relationship between informal representatives and the represented and (ii) argue that some such complaints can only be sensibly raised by represented group members against those who represent them because they arise out of duties that representatives have to the represented.
Current Book Project
Not Just Speaking For Ourselves
I advance and defend a novel account of the political ethics of informal representation.
Dissertation
Informal Political Representation: Normative and Conceptual Foundations. Ph.D. Dissertation. Harvard University. (2018)
It is possible that, as you read this, there is someone out there standing in for you, speaking in your voice, acting in your stead, making agreements on your behalf, or conceding a point you might not have wanted them to. They are not your congressperson, your lawyer, or your spouse—nor anyone else authorized by means of a formal, corporately organized election or selection procedure. There is another sort of representative out there, someone you did not elect, someone you perhaps would not elect, of whom you may never have heard, speaking or acting on your behalf right now—they are an informal political representative.
Formal political representation is a familiar topic within democratic theory. Much less discussed, though no less widespread, is informal political representation: a practice in which a person speaks or acts for a group before an audience, despite never having been elected or selected to do so by means of a corporately organized election or selection procedure. Informal political representation is an everyday feature of our public communicative landscape. It is woven taut into the fabric of our political lives. Malala Yousafzai claims: “I speak not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard.” U2 frontman Bono claims to “represent a lot of people who have no voice at all.” President Trump, before his nomination, was said “to give a voice to those who have long felt silenced."
The informal representative, though neither elected nor selected, is ubiquitous and politically influential. They increase the visibility of marginalized and oppressed groups, give voice to interests not adequately expressed in formal political fora, influence public discourse, and serve as conduits between the represented and policymakers. They can, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., did in Montgomery, negotiate on a group’s behalf. But so far, few have attempted to provide a theory of this phenomenon that gives full attention to both its conceptual and normative foundations. My dissertation provides a theory of informal political representation that does not treat the phenomenon as a mere deviant case of formal political representation, but rather takes informal political representation on its own terms.
Committee: Tommie Shelby (chair), Tim Scanlon, Dick Moran, Eric Beerbohm
Papers
Title Removed (under review)
Informal political representation, the phenomenon of speaking or acting on behalf of others outside of formal political contexts, plays a crucial role in advancing the interests of groups, particularly marginalized and oppressed groups. I advance a new theory of the emergence conditions for becoming an informal political representative and explains how this theory allows us to get at key normative questions that are occluded by existing accounts.
Judicial Representatives: Speaking for Others from the Bench
Judicial representation occurs when, by virtue of what a judge says from the bench they come to speak or act on behalf of the members of a group whose interests are at stake in a case. This paper introduces and develops the concept of judicial representation as it arises in contexts where the represented group's members are, in some sense, unable to speak for themselves. It then advances an account of what a judge must know in order to be a good judicial representative and concludes by considering whether there is an irresolvable tension between judicial representation and judicial impartiality.
This paper was presented at the 2018 Beyond Disadvantage: Disability, Law, and Bioethics Conference at Harvard Law School and has been submitted as a chapter of a proposed volume on same.
Democracy Within, Justice Without: The Duties of Informal Representatives
Informal representation can play an important and distinctive role in promoting a society of equals but, to do so, informal representatives must promote relationships with the represented that foreground such democratic values as respect, publicity, transparency, and openness to criticism, and that eschew domination and suppression of dissent.
The Limits of Similitude and Deference: Reexamining Core Principles of Political Representation
Why should those who speak for us be anything like us? And when should they defer to us about how to speak for us? I argue, contra widely endorsed principles long held by political representation theorists, in many cases, they shouldn't.
The Complaints of the Represented
Doubtless you have heard someone object, at one time or another, You don’t speak for me! or They don’t speak for us! Versions of this complaint are commonplace when represented group members disapprove of their informal representative. However, such complaints do not have the effect of unseating an informal representative. In this paper, I (i) examine these complaints, and others like them, in order to understand the deliberative, dialogical relationship between informal representatives and the represented and (ii) argue that some such complaints can only be sensibly raised by represented group members against those who represent them because they arise out of duties that representatives have to the represented.