Descriptive representation

In politics, descriptive representation, sometimes called passive or symbolic representation, is the idea that candidates in democratic elections should be elected to represent ethnic and gender constituencies, as well as other minority interest groups, rather than the population at large. According to this idea, women should only represent women, African Americans should only represent African Americans, farmers should only represent farmers, etc.

Some[1] argue that cynicism and distrust towards government of disadvantaged minorities is partly due to not having representatives with similar characteristics. Supporters of this argument point out that as descriptive representation increases, distrust decreases.