This chapter provides an analytical history of political representation, aiming above all to look at the concept from a standpoint that is not limited to its usual association with electoral representative democracy and is enlightening to contexts of peace processes, especially when it comes to thinking about the relationship between representation, political inclusion, and conflict. The chapter provides three accounts of political representation. The first interprets representation as an essential pillar of the fiction of the state and its social contract. The second account, representation as state politics, discusses the transformation of representation into the main organizing political tool of modern states. The third account, finally, tracks recent debates, with an emphasis on representative expressions outside the state realm.