Political representation, based on the mandate bestowed on elected and responsible delegates, and applied at regional and national levels, can be considered as one of the major contributions of the western Middle Ages to world history. German historian Otto Hintze identified the conditions necessary for the unique emergence of representative government in western Europe. Hintze saw the extension of monarchical authority over the representative institutions for the development of representation. This chapter deals with the wider concept of representation, which includes forms. It is generally assumed that states or, before their stabilisation, countries or territories formed the system in which representative institutions operated. This chapter focuses on the analytical framework of political systems, starting from the various representative activities themselves, rather than from the territories. Royal elections stimulated the development of representative institutions in Sweden. Fundamental weaknesses of the medieval representative institutions were their lack of continuity in the monarchical model, and their lack of unity in both models.
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