The Collective Responsibility of Democratic Publics

<jats:p>Towards the end of her seminal work on the notion of representation Hanna Pitkin makes the following observation:</jats:p><jats:p><jats:disp-quote><jats:p>At the end of the Second World War and during the Nuremberg trials there was much speculation about the war guilt of the German people. […] Many people might argue the responsibility of the German people even though a Nazi government was not representative. We might agree, however, that in the case of a representative government the responsibility would be more clear-cut.</jats:p></jats:disp-quote></jats:p>