This contribution focuses on the issue of political representation aiming to argue in favour of the indispensability of institutional mediation and, specifically, parliamentary mediation. I present two different theoretical paradigms under which political representation can be understood, i.e. that of representation-figuration (description) and that of representation-mandate (construction). If, from a populist point of view, it is this second paradigm of representation that has risen to the status of an unconditional model, the proposal advanced in the present analysis is instead the following: only by holding together the elements of description and construction we can recognize the essentiality of institutional mediation and the positive value of compromise. Here we can find a means to counteract the anthropological reductionism that marks the populist meaning of the people as well as an antidote to the current push towards disintermediation.