Rappresentanza politica

This lexicon entry examines the tensions affecting political representation in intercultural societies. After some definitional premises, it discusses representation in liberal democracies and the challenges posed by the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity linked to migration. It then considers how the nexus between democracy and representation has been rethought beyond the West, where participatory and communitarian democracy emerge as autochthonous alternatives to political representation. The conclusions describe Andean intercultural democracy as a conditioned, weak form of inclusion, and call for rethinking both citizenship and the forms of political representation from an intercultural perspective.