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 be represented by women, African Americans should be represented by African Americans, etc.

Some [Ulbig 2005] 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.

References

• Ulbig, Stacy G. (2005) "Political Realities and Political Trust: Descriptive Representation in Municipal Government". Southwestern Political Science Association Meeting. Retreived from [1] on July 19, 2005.