How can political scientists reconsider the ideals attached to representation? What impedes the realization of those ideals in practice? How can we address these questions with a focus on renewal? Exploring these questions and many others related to the theme “Representation and Renewal” will be the focus of the 2012 Annual Meeting. Developed by program chairs Lynn Vavreck, University of California, Los Angeles, and John Carey, Dartmouth College, the 2012 theme statement calls for research that addresses questions about representation, asks what representative relationships can and cannot achieve, and explores how these relationships might be renewed, reformed, or retooled.