The Significance of Symbolic Representation for Gender Issues in Politics

This article argues that many empirical studies in the field of gender and politics reduce symbolic representation to an effect of descriptive representation, which limits our understanding of the relevance of symbolic representation. We claim that we should understand symbolic representation as a dimension in itself, not merely as an effect of another dimension of political representation. In this article we develop this argument showing how symbolic representation presents constituents at the symbolic level, thereby generating dynamics of exclusion similar to the other dimensions of political representation. The relation between the different dimensions of symbolic representation is not unilateral in that symbolic representation is an effect of descriptive representation. The different dimensions are rather entangled in that they are mutually constitutive. We show how symbolic representation provides for a symbolic subtext enabling or constraining the political standing and acting for women—or other social groups. In order to develop our argument we return to Hanna Pitkin’s definition of symbolic representation, and then elaborate upon it relying on Michael Saward’s more recent conceptualization of political representation, also considering the constructivist turn in representation studies.