Le ragioni della rappresentanza politica. Una prospettiva storica

The problems that come from the current crisis of representation go back to the process of creating the notions and institutions of representative democracy. Through historical analysis we can better comprehend this complexity. This article aims to analyze the link between representation, participation and decentralization by focusing on the 1789 debates on the Municipality of Paris and Condorcet’s constitutional model, which still stands as a theoretical point of reference. The continuity in practical and theoretical issues concerning representation is also explored with regard to Condorcet’s claims in favor of women’s political rights intrinsically linked to his concept of representation. They are compared to the current gender parity arguments, which led in 1999 to the revision of art. IIII of the French Constitution encouraging the equal access to representative institutions. Stemmed from different contexts both these sets of arguments maintain that only parity between men and women renders the representation of national sovereignty effective.