Is President George W. Bush, by democratic standards, a good or a bad representative? Who is a better representative according to democratic standards: former Rep. Tom DeLay or Senator Hillary Clinton? Political theorists typically remain silent about the proper standards that democratic citizens should use for selecting their representatives. In The Good Representative, Suzanne Dovi argues that democratic citizens should evaluate their representatives using democratic criteria. In doing so, she provides an account of what it means to represent in a democratic fashion as well as a framework within which citizens can assess the democratic credentials of their representatives. For Dovi, good democratic representatives manifest three virtues: they must be fair-minded, build critical trust, and be good gatekeepers.

Arguing that democratic representation, even good democratic representation, is not always desirable, Dovi also prompts us to think about how democratic representation can be a tool of liberation or a tool of domination.

This timely and provocative book articulates, for the first time, a normative framework within which democratic citizens can fruitfully proceed in assessing their representatives as democratic representatives.