Williams M.S. Voice, Trust, and Memory

Does fair political representation for historically disadvantaged groups require their presence in legislative bodies? The intuition that women are best represented by women, and African-Americans by other African-Americans, has deep historical roots.
Yet the conception of fair representation that prevails in American political culture and jurisprudence - what Melissa Williams calls "liberal representation" - concludes that the social identity of legislative representatives does not bear on their quality as representatives.
Liberal representation's slogan, "one person, one vote" concludes that the outcome of the electoral and legislative process is fair, whatever it happens to be, so long as no voter is systematically excluded. Challenging this notion, Williams maintains that fair representation is powerfully affected by the identity of legislators and whether some of them are actually members of the historically marginalized groups that are most in need of protection in society.
Contents
Acknowledgments
ntroduction
oice, Trust, and Memory
Problems with Group-Based Views of Fair Representation
The Structure of the Argument
What Is a Marginalized Group?
Substantive Justice, Procedural Faiess, and Group Representation
The Domain of the Argument
One
Representation as Mediation
The Problem of Faiess and the Complexity of Representation
Groups and Representation: The Need for a Political Sociology of Groups and the Flaws of Descriptive Representation
Trust and Political Representation
Burke
Madison
Calhoun
J. S. Mill
Conclusion
Two
Liberal Equality and Liberal Representation
Liberal Equality
Liberal Representation
Liberal Representation, Geographic Districts, and Gerrymandering
The Limits of Liberal Representation
Three
The Supreme Court, Voting Rights, and Representation
oting Rights from Reynolds to Shaw v. Reno: The Concept of Minority Vote Dilution
Difference-Blind Proceduralism and Voting Rights Doctrine
From Restrictive to Expansive Readings of Liberal Representation
Shaw v. Reno and Its Progeny: Back to Difference-Blind Proceduralism
Summary and Conclusion: Beyond Liberal Representation to Group Representation
Appendix: The Racial Bias of Recent Supreme Court Decisions on Minority Vote Dilution
Four
oice: Woman Suffrage and the Representation of "Woman's Point of View"
Women's Claim to Individual Equality
"Woman's Point of View": The Distinctive Virtue of Womanhood
The Functional Advantages of "Woman's Point of View"
Equality and "Woman's Point of View": Hearing Different Voices
Women's Voice and the Dynamics of Legislative Deliberation
Group Representation and the Limits of the Deliberative Ideal
Five
Trust: The Racial Divide and Black Rights during Reconstruction
Reconstruction: From Slavery to Citizenship to Disfranchisement
Early Rhetoric: The Declaration and Color-Blind Equality
The Sense of Betrayal and the Tu to Self-Representation
Trust and the American Scheme of Liberal Representation
Six
Memory: The Claims of History in Group Recognition
Critiques of Group Representation
Memory
History
Memory, History, and Group Representation
Responses to Liberal Critiques of Group Representation
Seven
The Institutions of Fair Representation
Defining Constituencies
Dynamics of Legislative Decision Making
Legislator-Constituent Relations
Summary: Sketch of a Fair System of Political Representation
Conclusion
Descriptive Representation with a Difference
Notes
Bibliography
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