Political representation and participation from the Middle Ages to the present time: Preliminary observations

The essay deals with the history of representation and political participation from the late Middle Ages practically to the present day. In particular, it follows the changing nature of the representative system through that of its agents, i.e. the representative assemblies of the country in which they met and constituted themselves as a body before the rulers; it follows the changing character of the representative mandate and the relations between representative and represented; it follows the changing composition, internal organisation and functioning of representative institutions and their competences in addition to the representative in a more general sense.