Kent Puckett's scintillating study of the electoral imagination illuminates both the history of the novel and political theory. While a growing group of literary critics have probed the relationship between the novel and democracy, most focus on the expanding franchise, setting aside key mechanisms of democracy, from districting to modes of voting (in caucuses, divisions, oral votes, or written ballots). What Puckett shows is just how difficult—and how critical—it is to discern the will of “the people” through this complex machinery. Puckett traces the surprising history of ideas of electoral legitimacy in political theory in tandem with literary texts. The resulting examination highlights both the necessary fiction of the democratic election as discerning the will of the people—and the problems and paradoxes that bedevil the enterprise.
It may seem odd to study the paradoxes of electoral choice by reading fiction, but The Electoral Imagination makes a compelling case for the...
