As a consequence of these developments, the standard account has been stretched to the breaking point. Among the most fundamen- tal of problems, ironically, is the very element that ushered in democratic representation— residency-based electoral representation. The claim of any state to represent its citizens— its claim to sovereignty on behalf of the people—is contestable, not because states do not encompass peoples, but because collective issues only partially admit of this kind of con- stituency definition. Electoral representation continues to provide an ultimate reference for state power. But whereas Burke (1968, cf. Manin 1997) imagined that representatives could monopolize considered opinion about public purpose through the use of delibera- tive judgment, representative assemblies to- day must reach ever further to gather politi- cal legitimacy for their decisions. Judging by the declining trust in governments generally and legislative bodies in particular, represen- tative claims based on territorial constituen- cies (under the standard model) continue to weaken (Pharr & Putnam 2000, Dalton 2004). Electoral representation remains crucial in constituting the will of the people, but the claims of elected officials to act in the name of the people are increasingly segmented by issues and subject to broader contestation and deliberation by actors and entities that likewise make representative claims. Politi- cal judgments that were once linked to state sovereignty through electoral representation are now much more widely dispersed, and the spaces for representative claims and dis- courses are now relatively wide open (Urbinati 2006). In complex and broadly democratic so- cieties, representation is a target of competing claims.