Party Politics and Symbolic Representation: Playing with Agents and Principals

This paper studies the symbolic representation of gender within the setting of parties as a means to question the definition of agent and principal. Agents might not have been elected, principals might not have elected them, and scholars might struggle on what is good representation, but the literature tends to have a common understanding of who they are. The problematic issue in this context has been the position of parties. This paper argues that looking into symbolic representation allows for questioning who the agent and who the principal is, and that this is important to do. The paper starts from the understanding that symbolic representation involves activity and agency. It adopts Saward’s (2006) argument that representation implies a broader range of actors, such as actors constructing agents or principals, or a public buying – or not – these constructions. From there, the paper analyzes the issue of gender and symbolic representation in party politics. It reflects on the options of who the agent and who the principal is. Is the party the agent, are individual party women the agent, who else is? Related to that, is the party the principal, are (some) women or more citizens the principal, or is the principal a norm, value, or even something else, which shifts us into symbolic politics instead of symbolic representation? Unpacking the options, the paper argues for the need to rethink our current assumptions on agents and principals in order to come to a clearer understanding of who actually gets represented and by who.