Richard Fralin, “The evolution of Rousseau’s view of representative government”, Political Theory, Vol. 6, No. 4, (1978), pp. 517-36.

Excerpt:

Rousseau’s intense opposition to representative  government  in the Contrat  social is one of  the  most  distinctive  features  of  his political  thought.  None of  the  leading  political  thinkers  among  his  contemporaries,  neither  his  fellow  Encyclopedists  nor  Montesquieu  nor  advocates of what has been called enlightened  depotism,  shared his  peculiar  view of representation.  During the nearly  two centuries  since  his death in 1778  his  unique  stance  on this  issue  has often  been  taken  as  evidence  of a radically  democratic  concept  of popular sovereignty;  a  number  of recent  commentaries,  on the  other  hand,  have cited  it as evidence  of Rousseau’s fundamental  conservatism,  as one more  indication  of  his reluctance  to accept  modern  political,  social and economic  institutions.  My contention  is that  Rousseau was far  more  ambivalent  about  representation  than  either  of  these  interpretations  suggests,  and that  his  ambivalence  in turn  stemmed  from  a profoundly  ambivalent  view  of  the  political  capacities  of ordinary  citizen

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