Communitarians within democratic theory, borrowing from classical republicanism, have sometimes overlapped with participatory democrats owing to their focus on active citizenship. Although classical republicanism focused on institutional design—particularly checks and balances—these strains were absorbed by the standard account of representation, leaving contemporary communitarians to focus on closeness rather than distance, and direct engagement rather than indirectness (Arendt 2006;Wolin 2004; Held 1996, ch. 2).