Abstract
Modern democracies are definitely linked to the concept of representation. We do not have any democracy which operates without resorting to representative governance. This principle is solely the fact of our modern times, it seems to have been necessary every time human being tried to implement a democratic system within a nation or a country, "pure democracy" has never been experimented by reason of the incapacity in conciliating the individual and the people.
This system requires autonomy and a specialization of the political sphere, thereby it results a strict division between the governed and the rulers. The political scientist Hanna Pitkin gives us maybe the clearest definition of what is the political representation: "taken generally, [it] means the making present in some sense of something which is nevertheless not present or in fact." On this definition, representation is the activity of making citizens' voices, choices and wishes present in the public policy making processes. In this manner, Hanna Pitkin discerns two aspects of the representative: making present an absent object and acting for it. So, the representatives are the people and can act for the people.
