Wendy Salkin

In this essay, I respond to both David Estlund’s “But Do They Speak for Black People?” (this issue, 211–215) and Anne Iavarone-Turcotte’s “Speaking for Others Beyond Representation” (this issue, 217–228), commentaries on my book, Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation (2024). Estlund asks whether my definitions of “representation” and “speaking for” stretch the meanings of these terms too far beyond their ordinary uses. In reply, I explain the senses of “speaking for,” “representation,” and “representative” I use in Speaking for Others and show that my use is not novel. I further introduce what I call “the speaking for spectrum,” which accommodates a variety of related phenomena. I conclude by restating the main aim of Speaking for Others: to understand better the familiar but undertheorized social practice of informal political representation, whereby people speak or act for others despite having been neither elected nor selected to do so by means of a systematized election or selection procedure. Iavarone-Turcotte explores how the “novel principles and criteria” I introduce in Speaking for Others apply to contexts “outside the core of” the book’s central focus (217–218). She does so by raising questions concerning the relationship between representation and speaking for, self-appointed spokespersons, intragroup marginalization, and two principles I introduce and examine in Speaking for Others: the descriptive preference principle and the nonmember deference principle. In answering these questions, I reaffirm the scope of the argument advanced in Speaking for Others and welcome the application of my theory to novel contexts beyond that scope.

In Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation, I provide a novel conceptual and normative theory of informal political representatives (IPRs), who speak or act for others despite having been neither elected nor selected to do so by means of a systematized election or selection procedure. IPRs are everywhere. Some are internationally recognized leaders of social movements. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. informally represented Black Montgomerians during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Black Americans generally throughout the course of the civil rights movement. Me Too movement leader Tarana Burke informally represents survivors of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. Greta Thunberg informally represents Generation Z or, as she has put it, “we who have to live with the consequences” of climate change. Others are just our neighbors and friends. But when they go to the city council meeting to give voice to our neighborhood’s shared interests, they become our representatives, too. Despite IPRs’ ubiquity and significance to our political lives, their role is conceptually puzzling, morally troubling, and markedly undertheorized. The central ethical challenge of informal political representation is that IPRs can provide valuable political goods to those they represent; yet they are neither institutionally nor procedurally constrained in the ways formal political representatives (FPRs) like legislators are. Moreover, IPRs are often the only political actors working to advance the interests of oppressed and marginalized groups, meaning these groups rely on their IPRs. As a result, relationships between represented groups and their IPRs can be inegalitarian and oppressive. How may IPRs permissibly undertake activities central to their roles without thereby wronging those they represent? This is the question that drives my book.

An underexamined insight of W. E. B. Du Bois’s John Brown is that John Brown worked for much of his life to cultivate democratic relationships with the Black Americans with and for whom he worked. Brown did so through practicing deference and deliberation, and by seeking authorization. However, Brown’s commitment to these practices faltered at a crucial moment in decision making: when he raided Harpers Ferry absent widespread support. Examining this aspect of John Brown brings into relief an overlooked tragic choice Brown made: To act in accordance with his own substantive vision of what justice required, Brown eschewed democratic ideals and practices that grounded the distinctive relations of equality he had cultivated with the Black communities with and for whom he worked.

A political philosopher dissects the duties and dilemmas of the unelected spokesperson, from Martin Luther King, Jr., to Greta Thunberg. Political representation is typically assumed to be the purview of formal institutions and elected officials. But many of the people who represent us are not senators or city councilors—think of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Malala Yousafzai or even a neighbor who speaks up at a school board meeting. Informal political representatives are in fact ubiquitous, often powerful, and some bear enormous responsibility. In Speaking for Others, political philosopher Wendy Salkin develops the first systematic conceptual and moral analysis of informal political representation. Salkin argues that informal representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups that are denied representation in formal political institutions. Yet informal political representatives exert outsized influence over the ways these groups’ interests are understood by the public, without the represented having much recourse to hold them accountable. And many informal political representatives are selected not by the groups they represent but by outsiders, sticking these groups with representatives they would not choose but cannot shake. The role of informal political representatives is therefore fraught with moral questions. What exactly are their duties and to whom are they owed? Should they be members of the groups they represent? When is informal representation permissible and when is it best avoided? Informal political representation is taking place all around us. In fact, you yourself may be an informal political representative without knowing it. Speaking for Others explores the tensions central to this pervasive yet underexamined practice, bringing light to both its perils and its promise.

In this article, I introduce and examine the novel concept of bench representation. Jurists and scholars have extensively examined whether judges are or ought to be considered symbolic representatives of abstract concepts (for instance, the law, equality, or justice), representatives of society as a whole, or descriptive representatives of the social groups from which they hail. However, little attention has been paid to the question whether judges act as representatives for the parties before them through their everyday work on the bench. This article examines that question. Bench representation occurs when a judge, through statements or actions undertaken during the performance of official duties, speaks or acts for a party to the proceeding before them. I argue that serving as a bench representative is a common and valuable feature of what it is to be a judge and, despite appearances, usually undermines neither impartiality nor fairness.

Informal political representation—the phenomenon of speaking or acting on behalf of others although one has not been elected or selected to do so by means of a systematized election or selection procedure—plays a crucial role in advancing the interests of groups. Sometimes, those who emerge as informal political representatives (IPRs) do so willingly (voluntary representatives). But, often, people end up being IPRs, either in their private lives or in more public political forums, over their own protests (unwilling representatives) or even without their knowledge (unwitting representatives)—that is, they are conscripted. None of the few theories of informal political representation extant accommodate conscripted IPRs. The account detailed here introduces the phenomenon of conscripted informal political representation and explains its place in a complete theory of informal political representation. Conscripted IPRs can, like their voluntary counterparts, come to have significant power to influence how various audiences regard those for whom the conscripted IPRs speak or act. Upon attaining such power to influence, conscripted IPRs, like their voluntary counterparts, come to have pro tanto duties to those they represent—duties that arise despite IPRs’ unwittingness or unwillingness. Understanding the phenomenon of conscripted informal political representation allows us to surface essential normative questions about informal political representation that are otherwise occluded.

Informal political representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups. Such representation can give these groups some say, however mediate, partial, and imperfect, in how things go for them. Coeval with the political goods such representation offers these groups are its particular dangers to them. Mindful of these dangers, skeptics challenge the practice for being, inter alia, unaccountable, unauthorized, inegalitarian, and oppressive. These challenges provide strong pro tanto reasons to think the practice morally impermissible. This paper considers the question: On what conditions is the informal political representation of oppressed and marginalized groups permissible? By responding to skeptics’ challenges, I develop a systematic account of moral constraints that, if adopted, would make such representation permissible. The account that emerges shows that informal political representatives (IPRs) must aim to fulfill two sets of sometimes conflicting duties to the represented: democracy within duties, which concern how the representative treats and relates to the represented, and justice without duties, which concern how the representative’s actions advance the aims of the representation.

It is possible that, as you read this, there is someone out there standing in for you, speaking in your voice, acting in your stead, making agreements on your behalf, or conceding a point you might not have wanted them to. They are not your congressperson, your lawyer, or your spouse—nor anyone else authorized by means of a formal, corporately organized election or selection procedure. There is another sort of representative out there, someone you did not elect, someone you perhaps would not elect, of whom you may never have heard, speaking or acting on your behalf right now—they are an informal political representative. Formal political representation is a familiar topic within democratic theory. Much less discussed, though no less widespread, is informal political representation: a practice in which a person speaks or acts for a group before an audience, despite never having been elected or selected to do so by means of a corporately organized election or selection procedure. Informal political representation is an everyday feature of our public communicative landscape. It is woven taut into the fabric of our political lives. Malala Yousafzai claims: “I speak not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard.” U2 frontman Bono claims to “represent a lot of people who have no voice at all.” President Trump, before his nomination, was said “to give a voice to those who have long felt silenced." The informal representative, though neither elected nor selected, is ubiquitous and politically influential. They increase the visibility of marginalized and oppressed groups, give voice to interests not adequately expressed in formal political fora, influence public discourse, and serve as conduits between the represented and policymakers. They can, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., did in Montgomery, negotiate on a group’s behalf. But so far, few have attempted to provide a theory of this phenomenon that gives full attention to both its conceptual and normative foundations. My dissertation provides a theory of informal political representation that does not treat the phenomenon as a mere deviant case of formal political representation, but rather takes informal political representation on its own terms. Committee: Tommie Shelby (chair), Tim Scanlon, Dick Moran, Eric Beerbohm