Philosophical coffee:Democracy and representation - a difficult relationship

When we talk about democracy today, we usually mean representative democracy. This has not always been the case, as a look at the history of ideas shows. The relationship between democracy and representation has always been controversial: Some see representative democracy as the only pragmatic alternative to ancient direct democracy, which is no longer feasible in modern times due to the size of territorial states. For others, representative democracy is an oxymoron and should be replaced by a ‘real’ democracy as soon as possible. In the current debate on representation, both interpretations are challenged by the so-called constructivist turn. According to the thesis of the lecture, this enables a decisive shift in perspective, namely from representative democracy to democratic representation.