Freedom House's 2015 survey "Freedom in the World",
covering the year 2014. [1]
Representative democracy (also indirect democracy,
representative republic, or psephocracy ) is a type of
democracy founded on the principle of elected officials
representing a group of people, as opposed to direct
democracy .[2] All modern Western-style democracies are
types of representative democracies; for example, the
United Kingdom is a crowned republic and Ireland is a
parliamentary republic .
Representative democracy is often presented as the only
form of democracy possible in mass societies. It arguably
allows for efficient ruling by a sufficiently small number of
people on behalf of the larger number. Representative
democracy has been conceptually associated with and
historically instantiated by the political system known as
"representative government," which was born in the 18th
century with the French and American revolutions. It is a
system in which people elect their lawmakers
(representatives), who are then held accountable to them
for their activity within government. [3]
It is an element of both the parliamentary system or
presidential system of government and is typically used in
a lower chamber such as the House of Commons (UK) or
Dáil Éireann (Ireland), and may be curtailed by
constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber. It
has been described by some political theorists including
Robert A Dahl, Gregory Houston and Ian Liebenberg as
polyarchy. [4][5] In it the power is in the hands of the
elected representatives who are elected by the people in
elections.
Powers of representatives
Representatives are elected by the public, as in national
elections for the national legislature.[ citation needed]
Elected representatives may hold the power to select
other representatives, presidents, or other officers of the
government or of the legislature, as the Prime Minister in
the latter case. (indirect representation).
The power of representatives is usually curtailed by a
constitution (as in a constitutional democracy or a
constitutional monarchy) or other measures to balance
representative power: [citation needed ]
An independent judiciary , which may have the power to
declare legislative acts unconstitutional (e.g.
constitutional court, supreme court ).
The constitution may also provide for some deliberative
democracy (e.g., Royal Commissions) or direct popular
measures (e.g., initiative, referendum , recall elections ).
However, these are not always binding and usually
require some legislative action—legal power usually
remains firmly with representatives. [where? ]
In some cases, a bicameral legislature may have an
" upper house " that is not directly elected, such as the
Canadian Senate , which was in turn modeled on the
British House of Lords.
Theorists such as Edmund Burke believe that part of the
duty of a representative was not simply to communicate
the wishes of the electorate but also to use their own
judgement in the exercise of their powers, even if their
views are not reflective of those of a majority of voters:
History
See also: Democratization
The Roman Republic was the first government in the
western world to have a representative government,
despite taking the form of a direct government in the
Roman assemblies. The Roman model of governance
inspired many political thinkers over the centuries, [7] and
today's modern representative democracies imitate more
the Roman than the Greek models because it was a state
in which supreme power was held by the people and their
elected representatives, and which had an elected or
nominated leader. [8] Representative democracy is a form
of democracy in which people vote for representatives
who then vote on policy initiatives as opposed to a direct
democracy, a form of democracy in which people vote on
policy initiatives directly. [9] A European medieval tradition
of selecting representatives from the various estates
( classes, but not as we know them today) to advise/
control monarchs led to relatively wide familiarity with
representative systems inspired by Roman systems.
In Britain, Simon de Montfort is remembered as one of the
fathers of representative government for holding two
famous parliaments. [10][11] The first, in 1258, stripped
the King of unlimited authority and the second, in 1265,
included ordinary citizens from the towns . [12] Later, in the
17th century, the Parliament of England pioneered some
of the ideas and systems of liberal democracy .[13][14]
The American Revolution led to the creation of a new
Constitution of the United States in 1787. The ' Three-
Fifths Compromise ' allowed the southern slaveholders to
consolidate power and maintain slavery in America for
another eighty years, [15] but through the expansion of
voting rights and liberties over subsequent decades and
centuries the elected government became responsible to
the will of the people . [16]
Representative democracy came into particular general
favour in post- industrial revolution nation states where
large numbers of subjects or (latterly) citizens evinced
interest in politics , but where technology and population
figures remained unsuited to direct democracy. As noted
above, Edmund Burke in his speech to the electors of
Bristol classically analysed their operation in Britain and
the rights and duties of an elected representative.
Globally, a majority of the world's people live in
representative democracies including constitutional
monarchies and republics with strong representative
branches.
Research on representation
per se
Further information: Representation (politics)
Separate but related, and very large, bodies of research in
political philosophy and social science investigate how
and how well elected representatives, such as legislators,
represent the interests or preferences of one or another
constituency.
Criticisms
In his book Political Parties , written in 1911, Robert
Michels argues that most representative systems
deteriorate towards an oligarchy or particracy . This is
known as the iron law of oligarchy . [17] Representative
democracies which are stable have been analysed by
Adolf Gasser and compared to the unstable representative
democracies in his book "Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung
Europas" which was published in 1943 (first edition in
German) and a second edition in 1947 (in German). [18]
Adolf Gasser stated the following requirements for a
representative democracy in order to remain stable,
unaffected by the iron law of oligarchy:
Society has to be built up from bottom to top. As a
consequence, society is built up by people, who are free
and have the power to defend themselves with weapons.
These free people join or form local communities.
These local communities are independent, which includes
financial independence, and they are free to determine
their own rules.
Local communities join together into a higher unit e.g.
a canton.
There is no hierarchical bureaucracy.
There is competition between these local communities
e.g. on services delivered or on taxes.
A drawback to this type of government is that elected
officials are not required to fulfill promises made before
their election. [ citation needed]
Proposed solutions
The system of stochocracy has been proposed as an
improved system compared to the system of
representative democracy, where representatives are
elected. Stochocracy aims to at least reduce this
degradation by having all representatives appointed by
lottery instead of by voting. Therefore, this system is also
called lottocracy. The system was proposed by the writer
Roger de Sizif in 1998 in his book La Stochocratie.
Choosing officeholders by lot was also the standard
practice in ancient Athenian democracy .[19] The rationale
behind this practice was to avoid lobbying and
electioneering by economic oligarchs.
References
1. ^ Freedom in The World 2015 (PDF)
2. ^ "Victorian Electronic Democracy, Final Report –
Glossary" . 28 July 2005. Archived from the original
on 13 December 2007. Retrieved 14 December 2007.
3. ^ Bernard Manin, The Principles of Representative
Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University
press,1996
4. ^ Houston, G F (2001) Public Participation in
Democratic Governance in South Africa, Pretoria: Human
Sciences Research Council HSRC Press
5. ^ Dahl, R A (2005) 'Is international democracy
possible? A critical view'. In Sergio Fabbrini (editor)
Democracy and Federalism in the European Union and the
United States: Exploring post-national governance: 195 to
204 (Chapter 13), Abingdon on Thames: Routledge
6. ^ The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
Volume I . London: Henry G. Bohn. 1854. pp. 446–8.
7. ^ Livy, 2002, p. 34
8. ^ Watson, 2005, p. 271
9. ^ Budge, Ian (2001). "Direct democracy". In Clarke, Paul
A.B. & Foweraker, Joe. Encyclopedia of Political Thought .
Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-19396-2 .
10. ^ Jobson, Adrian (2012). The First English Revolution:
Simon de Montfort, Henry III and the Barons' War .
Bloomsbury. pp. 173–4. ISBN 978-1-84725-226-5 .
11. ^ "Simon de Montfort: The turning point for
democracy that gets overlooked" . BBC. 19 January
2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015; "The January
Parliament and how it defined Britain" . The Telegraph.
20 January 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
12. ^ Norgate, Kate (1894). " Montfort, Simon of
(1208?-1265) ". In Lee, Sidney . Dictionary of National
Biography . 38 . London: Smith, Elder & Co.
13. ^ Kopstein, Jeffrey; Lichbach, Mark; Hanson, Stephen
E., eds. (2014). Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities,
and Institutions in a Changing Global Order (4, revised
ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 37–9.
ISBN 1139991388 . "Britain pioneered the system of liberal
democracy that has now spread in one form or another to
most of the world's countries"
14. ^ "Constitutionalism: America & Beyond" . Bureau of
International Information Programs (IIP), U.S. Department
of State. Retrieved 30 October 2014. "The earliest, and
perhaps greatest, victory for liberalism was achieved in
England. The rising commercial class that had supported
the Tudor monarchy in the 16th century led the
revolutionary battle in the 17th, and succeeded in
establishing the supremacy of Parliament and, eventually,
of the House of Commons. What emerged as the
distinctive feature of modern constitutionalism was not
the insistence on the idea that the king is subject to law
(although this concept is an essential attribute of all
constitutionalism). This notion was already well
established in the Middle Ages. What was distinctive was
the establishment of effective means of political control
whereby the rule of law might be enforced. Modern
constitutionalism was born with the political requirement
that representative government depended upon the
consent of citizen subjects.... However, as can be seen
through provisions in the 1689 Bill of Rights, the English
Revolution was fought not just to protect the rights of
property (in the narrow sense) but to establish those
liberties which liberals believed essential to human dignity
and moral worth. The "rights of man" enumerated in the
English Bill of Rights gradually were proclaimed beyond
the boundaries of England, notably in the American
Declaration of Independence of 1776 and in the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789."
15. ^ "We Hold These Truths to be Self-evident;" An
Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Roots of Racism & slavery
in America Kenneth N. Addison; Introduction P. xxii
16. ^ "Expansion of Rights and Liberties" . National
Archives. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
17. ^ Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen
Demokratie. Untersuchungen über die oligarchischen
Tendenzen des Gruppenlebens (1911, 1925; 1970).
Translated as Sociologia del partito politico nella democrazia
moderna : studi sulle tendenze oligarchiche degli aggregati
politici , from the German original by Dr. Alfredo Polledro,
revised and expanded (1912). Translated, from the Italian,
by Eden and Cedar Paul as Political Parties: A Sociological
Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern
Democracy (Hearst's International Library Co., 1915; Free
Press, 1949; Dover Publications, 1959); republished with
an introduction by Seymour Martin Lipset (Crowell-Collier,
1962; Transaction Publishers, 1999, ISBN 0-7658-0469-7 );
translated in French by S. Jankélévitch, Les partis
politiques. Essai sur les tendances oligarchiques des
démocraties, Brussels, Editions de l'Université de
Bruxelles, 2009 (ISBN 978-2-8004-1443-0 ).
18. ^ Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung Europas. Grundlinien
einer ethischen Geschichtsauffassung. Verlag
Bücherfreunde, Basel 1947. In 1983 republished under:
"Gemeindefreiheit – kommunale Selbstverwaltung" (Adolf
Gasser/Franz-Ludwig Knemeyer), in de reeks "Studien zur
Soziologie", Nymphenburger, München, 1983.
19. ^ "1,5". Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece . Josiah
Ober , Robert Wallace , Paul Cartledge , Cynthia Farrar (1st
ed.). 15 October 2008. pp. 17,105. ISBN 978-0520258099 .
External links
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Representative democracy
...it ought to be the happiness and
glory of a representative to live in the
strictest union, the closest
correspondence, and the most
unreserved communication with his
constituents. Their wishes ought to
have great weight with him; their
opinion, high respect; their business,
unremitted attention. It is his duty to
sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his
satisfactions, to theirs; and above all,
ever, and in all cases, to prefer their
interest to his own. But his unbiassed
opinion, his mature judgment, his
enlightened conscience, he ought not
to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to
any set of men living. These he does
not derive from your pleasure; no,
nor from the law and the constitution.
They are a trust from Providence, for
the abuse of which he is deeply
answerable. Your representative owes
you, not his industry only, but his
judgment; and he betrays, instead of
serving you, if he sacrifices it to your
opinion. [6]
“
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