This paper aims to criticize the elitist/aristocratic theory of political representation, according to which representation is designed to balance people’s participation with the rule of an expert elite. However, an internal and an external criticism of this theory can be respectively developed that revolve around the notion of “lay expertise”. Indeed, the article clarifies that this elitist theory goes hand in hand with a top-down understanding of expertise itself. This connection erroneously reinforces the opposition which is unjustifiably drawn between inclusion and expertise, closing the door to the culturally embedded inputs that lay-experts can provide (internal criticism). Moreover, the analysis shows that the elitist theory erroneously ignores a set of political dynamics defining political representation, thus reducing representation to an exclusionary device (external criticism). Lay expertise shows that representation has a wider political potential which, crucially, enables the possibility to mediate between different kinds of knowledge and interests.
