Representation is a re-presentation of someone or something that is in some sense absent. A country may send an ambassador to another country and a delegate to an international body (such as the United Nations), and those persons are said to represent that nation. The governing officials who decide the foreign policy of that nation are not (typically) present in person, but the delegate speaks for the decision makers in their absence and, by extension, for the nation itself. (The commitments made by such delegates do not oblige the delegate personally but the nation.)

Representation, therefore, often is understood as a process engaged in by persons who "stand in" or "stand for" others. Such representatives may stand in for the nation, a government, or even a single individual (as occurs when a person is represented by a lawyer in a court of law). Representation in the broadest sense...