Representative Democracy

11 Key excerpts on "Representative Democracy"

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  Understanding Democratic Politics

  An Introduction

  • Roland Axtmann(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  This is normally taken to be an uncontroversial thing to say, but note how much there is to dispute or contest even in that simple sentence – for example, the idea that the people ‘rule’ in any tangible sense when in fact they take no formal part in governing. In the textbooks, Representative Democracy is almost always (a) separated out from other types of dem-ocracy, such as direct democracy, and (b) marked down as the modern form of democracy, the form which operates and is more or less entrenched and accepted in all countries that are regarded as ‘democratic’. There is widespread acceptance of the idea that Representative Democracy is democracy, and that it is thoroughly ‘democratic’ (though, as we shall see, putting representa-tion and democracy together so easily is unusual in historical terms). Representative Democracy is defined pri-marily by its embodying certain institutions and practices, above all the uses of more or less free and fair elections in which citizens of a country are entitled to vote to choose those who will govern them, with their consent, for a limited period: their representatives. Of course, events like those surrounding the contest in Florida in the US presidential elec-tion of 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore raise many questions about what might count as ‘free and fair’ elections, but I leave such issues to one side here. Representative Democracy is also defined by the roles played within it by legislatures, executives, account-able bureaucracies and political parties, among other institutions. The merits and demerits of various models of Representative Democracy, such as the ‘consensus’ and ‘majoritarian’ models, are debated in detail by political scientists. WHAT SHOULD REPRESENTATIVES DO? Delegates or trustees? There is also continuing debate in political science and political theory regarding the proper role of elected representatives.

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  Contemporary Europe

  • Richard Sakwa, Anne Stevens(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Political decisions are made by elected representatives on behalf of the represented. How citizens express their political preferences: direct versus Representative Democracy Democracy, as one textbook author (Heywood, 1997, p. 66) notes, ‘links government to the people’ and adds that ‘this link can be forged in a number of ways: government of, by and for the people’. It is clear that most modern democracies in Western Europe are not governed directly by the people themselves. There are obvious practical reasons for this: many citizens do not have the time, expertise, experience and political judgement to make politi-cal decisions on complex issues themselves. In poli-tics as in all other organizations, delegation of powers to specialists (e.g. elected politicians or civil servants) can be highly beneficial for the citizens. Although there is considerable variation between individual democracies, only a handful of European constitutions allow ‘the people’ to partic-ipate directly and continuously in decisions over public policy, usually in the form of referendums (see below). All European democracies are repre-sentative democracies where elected officials usually act as ‘agents’ who ‘represent’ the interests of a ‘principal’, namely the citizens. Direct participation through referendums Nevertheless, many European democracies do allow some elements of direct popular participation in issues of public policy. The extent to which this is the case varies considerably. In Switzerland and, to a lesser extent, Italy referendums are now used regularly to decide on policy issues. In countries such as Germany or the UK, they are never or only rarely used. In many European countries, popular pressure for stronger citizen involvement in policy making through referendums has increased since the 1970s.

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  Encyclopedia of Governance

  • Mark Bevir(Author)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Direct democracy involves citizens participating directly and equally in collective decisions. However, large numbers of people involved in decision making is cumbersome, if not impossible. Likewise the com-plexity of modern government is beyond the reach of most citizens. Representative Democracy resolves the problems of size and expertise. The challenge for Representative Democracy is to construct a participative policy process that integrates the diverse preferences of the population. One per-spective of representation asserts that representatives must “mirror” the preferences of citizens. An alterna-tive perspective (sometimes known as “agency the-ory”) is that elected representatives make decisions in the “best” interest of the collective, regardless of citizen preferences. Government structures and insti-tutions may support either perspective. Representation is more challenging with a diverse citizenry. A homogenous group that shares interests, preferences, and beliefs may be represented by a small number of like-minded people. A diverse group must have a way to integrate a variety of perspectives if its decision making is to be representative. Institutional structures affect representation. They can favor elites, organized groups, large parties, and Representative Democracy ——— 827 status quo powers, or they can encourage minority representation and new power configurations. This entry explores how governments may be structured to achieve Representative Democracy. It examines govern-ment structure, election foundations, representative selection systems, terms of office, legislative decision rules, and other factors affecting representation. Government Structure In the simplest form of representational government, one person makes decisions for the group. This for-mat may be used by small groups or organizations. However, most groups are reluctant to place absolute power in the hands of a single person.

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  The End of Representative Politics

  • Simon Tormey(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  We just haven’t made the switch yet, as analysts, as commentators, indeed as actors, to what this means . This still leaves us with a last puzzle to resolve: what about democ-racy? Where does this waning interest in the politics of the ‘politi-cians’ leave democracy? Doesn’t the ‘end’ of representation mean the end of democracy – or democracy as we know it? The ‘end’ of Representative Democracy Representative Democracy and representative politics were, as we have documented in Chapter 2, the products of a particular moment in time: the emergence of the modern nation state from feudalism, a period that traverses the mid-seventeenth century and culminates in the upheavals of the late eighteenth and early nineteeenth centuries. It can be summarized in the following way: • a system of political authority over a defined geographical terri-tory with (according to Weber) the state exercising a monopoly over the use of legitimate violence – the nation state; • a formal separation between the state and civil society or the people; democracy after representation 127 • a system of regular elections to determine who will represent citizens; • freedom of speech and expression; basic political equality. Many politics textbooks would include some graphic representation of this system in terms of a pyramid showing those governing or in charge at the top, with some intermediate bodies such as interest and lobbying groups in the middle and with the electorate at the ‘bottom’. Some of the diagrams would also show arrows indicating the direc-tion of power and authority. They show that power in a representa-tive democracy doesn’t just flow from top to bottom, but involves a relationship of accountability , ensuring that the bottom also exercises power over the top on the basis of elections and other safeguards of the public interest.

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  Representative Democracy

  Principles and Genealogy

  • Nadia Urbinati(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  { O N E } Representation and Democracy In that it is both an aspect of electoral behavior and a mech-anism for determining government’s responsiveness to the public, representation has acquired the status of a demo-cratic institution in political science. This despite the fact that political representation is not associated exclusively with democracy (it predates modern democratic states and exists in states that are not democratic); in fact, its relation to democracy is permanently subject to debate. Yet the pic-ture becomes more complicated when we move from polit-ical practice and survey analyses to political theory. Indirectness in politics has never enjoyed much cur-rency in democratic theory. Direct rule was generally seen as paradigmatic because it entails a fusion of “talking” and “doing” in political action and the full participation of all citizens in the decision-making process. 1 Rather than nam-ing a political order, “today, in politics, democracy is the name of what we cannot have—yet cannot cease to want.” 2 The modern “discovery” of representation has not seriously challenged this paradigm. Participatory democrats disdain representation because it justifies a vertical relation between the citizens and the state and promotes a passive citizenry and an elected aristocracy. 3 Procedural theorists of democ-racy give representation merely an instrumental justifica-tion and see it as a useful “fiction” that applies the division of labor to governmental functions. 4 Democratic theorists give representation a cold recep-tion because it refers to political processes that are internal 17 C H A P T E R O N E to the state, rather than to a form of democratic participation. Indeed, its democratic credentials come from election in time1 and time2 , events that tell us representation’s inception and termination, not its life span.

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  Representation

  Theory and Practice in Britain

  • David Judge(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  However, even allowing for the technical advances in recent years which facilitate direct participation, there are still those willing to argue in defence of the ‘inevitability’ of indirect forms of democracy in the modern state. Bealey (1988:36), for instance, advances the commonly held view that there are compelling practical reasons for the ubiquity of indirect democracy. First, total participation in decision making is impossible, given the vast numbers of people in the modern nation-state. Second, in handing decision making over to others, this form of democracy allows the citizenry to pursue other necessary daily activities. Underpinning such statements is a conception of a political division of labour where citizens limit their political activity essentially to voting, and so leave a small number of representatives to concentrate their attention on decision making. Indeed, it is the overriding practical consideration of time that leads David Beetham to conclude that: ‘any society with similar requirements to our own in terms of production and reproduction (including the work of domestic care) could only afford to have a relatively small number devoted to full time [deliberation and legislative decision making]’ (1992a:47).

  With such considerations in mind, Lijphart argues that there is thus one major amendment that needs to be made to the literal meaning of democracy as ‘government by the people’:

  that the acts of government are usually performed not directly by citizens but indirectly by representatives whom they elect on a free and equal basis. Although elements of direct democracy can be found even in some large democratic states, democracy is usually Representative Democracy: government by freely elected representatives of the people.

  (Lijphart 1984:1)

  Representative Democracy

  If indirect democracy is taken essentially as a synonym for Representative Democracy (Holden 1974:29), then decision making is no longer conceived in terms of direct participation by the collectivity of citizens. Instead, it becomes the preserve of a few ‘decision makers’—leading some to talk of ‘rule by the politician’ rather than ‘rule by the people’ (Schumpeter [1943] 1976:269). But on what grounds can such a system be described as democratic?

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  The European Union and British Democracy

  Towards Convergence

  • J. Mather(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  This does not necessarily indicate that a representative system is also a democratic system. It was argued above that a polity needs to deliver democratic benefits if it is to be awarded the term "democratic". Not all 5 for example, a system providing proportionality amongst its representatives would allow essential than active representation. 24 The EU and British democracy: towards convergence representative systems have the same capacity to deliver democratic benefits. 3.4. Types of elections within representative systems An election that provides significant expression of the popular will should meet the following criteria: • Regularity (to avoid conferring indefinite hence corruptible mandates). • Frequency (to enable changing electoral preferences to be reflected) • Constitutionality (under a constitution not wholly subject to the will of current office holders) • Choice (preferably among representatives and political programmes). Elections that are frequent, regular, constitutional and which offer effective choices to voters furnish better prospects for popular power than rare, irregular elections held at the whim of the current leaders. The status of the election is also important because it is the only certain opportunity for voters to exercise a form of political power, thenceforth delegated unconditionally to the elected representatives until the next election. Voting is both a significant act - since it is the only act - of the wielding of political power, and an insignificant act - since the political power which it represents is usually very limited. Much debate about the ideal electoral system has been engendered amongst political theorists. On the one hand single member constituencies link electors to their representatives making the latter more responsive and accountable towards the former. This makes the single member system a better vehicle for active representation.

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  Democracy in Latin America

  The Failure of Inclusion and the Emergence of Autocratization

  • Francisco Valdés-Ugalde(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  60 they coexist and stimulate representation. So far, Representative Democracy has incorporated additional mechanisms, in some cases successfully, and are maintained as institutions in which the public interest and citizen control thereof prevail. In other cases, for example in populist experiences, they have fallen prey to manipulation by those in power.

  The theory of Representative Democracy has the greatest capacity to balance the virtues and defects of what are generically called “parliamentary democracies”. Theoretical debate on Representative Democracy has developed significantly based on the academic and public attention that the worldwide expansion of this form of government has attracted. Theories of representation have come under close scrutiny to demonstrate that in many contemporary trends, citizen participation in multiple manifestations, the tumultuous proliferation of specialized or lay public opinion in all media and its spread in the digital universe, the discrediting of traditional modes of political representation, the crises of democracies, and the return of autocracies are all phenomena that have forced a rethinking of the relationship between democracy and representation, and the very idea of “Representative Democracy.”

  The dichotomy between the two terms was born with “census suffrage”, which reserved the right to vote to the owners of considerable wealth and restricted political representation to certain issues that were not reserved for the crown. In other words, Representative Democracy began in the modern era with the monarchy’s recognition of the right of the nobility, the wealthy, or the enlightened classes to vote to elect rulers, but limiting the issues on which their opinion was taken into account for decisions. Thus, the further development of democracy is inextricably linked to the idea of citizenship and its extension to new groups previously excluded, to the incorporation of matters on which citizens can make decisions; in other words, the transfer of sovereignty from the various elites to the people, establishing a germinal tendency to subsume the elites to the sovereignty of the people as a whole, under the principle of one individual, one vote. This was a first stage of equality of all citizens before the ballot box that, in the end, seeks to extend itself to new territories of the public sphere. Democratic representation neither begins nor ends with elections. It requires elections as a precondition of existence; the electoral decision authorizes certain individuals to legislate and make government decisions for a period after which they must alternate through new elections. The tradition of the moderns claimed that, once elected, representatives had autonomy with respect to the electors and acted according to their judgment and reason in matters they had to resolve. Representation was a total surrender of sovereignty. In this view, there was no need and even less an obligation to maintain a relationship, whether sporadic or constant, with constituents. However, this definition was always surpassed by a “surplus of politics”, which is behind its constant evolution (Urbinati, 2006

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  Direct Democracy Or Representative Government? Dispelling The Populist Myth

  • John Haskell(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Both aim to take full advantage of new technologies in their proposals to transform American politics. Representative Democracy is a "thin democracy," as Barber puts it. Actually his criticisms are far more devastating than what is implied by that term; Barber suggests that representative government is really more akin to monarchy than to democracy It destroys participation and citizenship and encourages a passivity among voters who cede their sovereignty to experts who proceed to bureaucratize, overorganize, and shunt over to the court system much of the policy-making on issues of importance. The core reason that representative systems are not democratic, according to Barber, is that ordinary people are not permitted to make collective public judgments. Their participation is limited to a vote that they make in private, that is expected to be based on private interests, and that is influenced by manipulative ad campaigns largely paid for by corporate entities. The elected representatives, in turn, proceed to govern by self-interested bargain and exchange, not by a search for the public good. 3 In our system, writes Barber, this private-interest ethic is so pervasive that it even seeps into plebiscitary decision-making, where such measures are permitted. During initiative and referendum campaigns conducted in the states the public has no reasonable opportunity to learn about the issues that are foisted on them to decide; instead, they are subjected to an endless barrage of ads funded by private interests. Voters then proceed to vote on the basis of their private judgments, not after a healthy public debate involving interaction and democratic participation

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  Deliberative Systems

  Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale

  • John Parkinson, Jane Mansbridge(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Thus, the fundamental distinction is between the status of being a citizen within a political community and the often negative status of being merely a non-citizen bearer of human rights with claims against the political community. The body of citizens cannot really directly decide what is to be done, and for this reason Thomas Christiano ( Chapter 2, this volume) sees the citizens as only determining the ends of the polity and not its means, where public officials may act as their trus- tees. Thus, there is an unavoidable gap between the ideal of self rule and the requirements of representation, so that, in their role as citizens at least, the people do not actually transform communicative freedom into com- municative power. Discursive forms of representation in fact gain their appeal through the lack of a well defined people at certain levels of com- plexity and scale. At the very least this suggests that having only one form of representa- tion, electoral or otherwise, is insufficient for the task of self rule under con- ditions of large scale and wide diversity. A variety of devices must be used to connect delegates and agents to their principals, and representatives to their constituents. These ties may become more tenuous as the community grows larger and multilevelled, and generally the legitimacy of international insti- tutions is often thought to come entirely through the executive function of national governments, over which citizens have little democratic control. Such institutions have in fact developed to the point that they are neither deliberative nor easily influenced by electoral control except in the long run, so that they may often be sources of domination.

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  The Concept of Representation

  • Hanna F. Pitkin(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  And, as with De Grazia and Gosnell, the way in which that consent or support is en- gineered and achieved seems totally irrelevant: one may adjust POLITICAL REPRESENTATION 229 the ruler to the ruled, but one may equally adjust the ruled to what he wants of them. Representative governments defined by the degree of their popularity need not have elections or other democratic institutions. The will on which a government rests may be democratic, even if oligarchic or plutocratic influences are powerful in cre- ating it. It is quite possible that an interested minority may so con- trol the avenues of information and suggestion that a majority will suffer persuasion contrary to their own interests. The decision of a leader may induce millions to support measures which they would have opposed if his prestige had been thrown to the other side. 29 And all this seems perfectly compatible with representation and representative government. Finally, some writers argue that a government is representa- tive to the extent that it pursues the interest of its subjects and looks after their welfare, as distinct from merely being popular with them. "All government is somewhat representative," a writer tells us, "insofar as it identifies itself with the people's inter- ests. . . ," 30 A representative government might, however, be distinguished, under such an approach, as one that pursues its subjects' interests to a very high degree. But none of these senses in which one can say that (some) governments represent is what we mean when we speak of repre- sentative government. Whether governments have legitimate au- thority to bind their subjects, whether the subjects are obligated to obey, are largely philosopher's questions. For the ordinary layman or politician they simply are not problematical; laws are the kinds of things that ordinarily oblige and bind, just as promises are the kinds of things that one keeps.

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