Delegation+and+Political+Fetishism

Most importantly, while the theoretically the group creates the representative, in fact, it is often the representative who creates the group. For example, I think of voting districts, that may have nothing in common with one another as a “group” except that they have the same representative. They representative is thus both an “effigy” or a sign of the group at the same time as being a spokesperson of the group.
 * =Title:= || Delegation and Political Fetishism ||
 * =Author:= || Bourdieu ||
 * =Date:= ||  ||
 * =Summary By:= || Kate ||
 * =Summary:= || The article looks at the phenomenon of delegating power. While the person delegating the power generally is thought to hold power over the person to whom power is delegated, Bourdieu points out that often this process is very complex. How can “the delegate … have power over the person who gives him power” (203)?

The politically weak must have a representative to speak for them, and the more disenfranchised a group is, the more they are required to rely on this. The representative largely determines who their constituency is – the constitution of a political movement, of a political group, and of a representative often occur simultaneously, with the representative claiming the authority to speak for a group, and thus constituting it. The representative can be said to “represent” the group if there is no way for another member of the supposed group to protest this claim without forming a break-off faction of the group. The spokesperson gives the people “access to collective existence” (207).

How does the delegate create their position? By abolishing themselves in favor of the group identity. The delegate claims that they have no personal identity except to represent the group. This becomes a “sacred lie” where what is good for the delegate is said to be good for the group – in Nietzsche’s religious metaphor: the one who “calls his own will God”, and in politics “the same could be said of the politician when he calls his own will ‘people’, ‘opinion’ or ‘nation’” (210). This creates a split personality in the delegate where they portray their public face as that of the oracle who speaks on behalf of the group. This creates “the paradox of the monopolization of collective truth” (212).

So why do people buy into it? The stunt works when the self interest of the delegate and that of the group leads them to act in similar ways. If “the interest of the delegate and the interests of the mandators … coincide to a large extent, so that the delegate can believe and get others to believe that he has no interests outside those of his mandators” (214).

This happens as part of a process. In cases where you do start out with a group, you often have a very politically active body to begin with, that slowly becomes less involved as it chooses representatives for itself. Eventually these delegates create their own exclusive language that keeps the people they are representing effectively out of the debate. “The dream of all party officials is an apparatus without a base, without faithful followers, without militants” (219). ||
 * =Discussion points:= || It seems that in some cases there is a preexisting group that weakens in political strength as it empowers its own delegates, whereas in other cases, there are leaders who claim to represent a disparate group and the group in turn eventually agrees to be represented by them. Which of these processes is more prevalent? More powerful?

Aren’t there also cases where a strong and supportive constituency empowers its leader? || = = = = = = = = = = = =

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