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REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
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- 1What are the two problems that Wolff claims are overcome by representation?first, the total citizenry may be too numerous to meet together in a chamber or an open field
Second, the business of government may require a continuous attention and application which only the idle rich or the career politician can afford to give it - 2We may distinguish a number of types of representation, ranging from the mere relegation of the right to vote a proxy to a complete turning over of all decision-making functions. What is the question to be answered?Whether any of these forms of representation adequately preserve the autonomy which men exercise through decisions taken unanimously by the entire community.
- 3what is the simplest sort of representation?strict agency: if i am unable to attend the assembly at which votes are taken, I may turn over my proxy to an agent with instructions as to how to vote. In that case, it is obvious that I am as obligated by the decisions of the assmebly as though I have been physically present.
- 4However, in practice...?it is impossible for representatives to return to their districts before each vote in the assembly and canvass their constituents. Many of the issues which come before the assembly may not have been raised in the community at the time the representative was chose. When matters have reached this degree of removal from direct democracy, we may seriously doubt whether the legitimacy of the original agreement has been preserved. Even if the parliament is unanimous in its adopting of some new measure, that fact can only bind the deputies and not the general citizenry who are said to be represented by them. A parliament whose deputies vote without specific mandate from their constituents is no more the expression of their will than is a dictatorship which rules with kindly intent but independently of its subjects.
- 5What has happened since WWII?Governments have increasingly divorced themselves in their their decision making from anything which could be called the will of the people. The complexity of the issues, the necessity of technical knowledge, and most important, the secrecy of everything having to do with national security, have conspired to attenuate the representative function of elected officials until a point is reached which might be called political stewardship or, after Plato, 'elective guardianship'. The president of the US is merely pledged to serve the unspecified interests of his constituents in unspecified ways
- 6What 3 arguments are used to customarily defend the right of such a system?1. the rulers are chosen by the people from a slate which includes at least 2 candidates, for each office
2. the rulers are expected to act in what they conceive to be the interest of the people
3. the people periodically have the opportunity to recall their rulers and select others - 7However...?the geneaology of the term 'democracy' need not concern us, as it suffices to note that the system of elective guardianship falls so short of the ideal of autonomy and self-rule as not even to seem a distant deviation from it. Men cannot meaningfully be called free if their representative votes independently of their wishes, or when laws are passed concerning issues which they are not able to understand. Nor can men be free who are subject to secret decisions, based on secret data, having unannounced consequences for their well-being and their very lives
- 8the assumption which underlies the practice of representation is that the individual citizen has an opportunity, through his vote, to make his preference known: the citizen who makes use of his ballot is present in the chamber through the agency of his representative. But, what does this assume?that at the time of the election, each man had a genuine opportunity to vote for a candidate who represented his point of view. But, if the number of issues under debate during the campaign is greater than one or two and there are, as there are sure to be, a number of plausible positions which might be taken on each issue, then the many alternative total platforms will be vastly greater than the number of candidates. There are more possible stands a man can take on a variety of issues than there are people to vote for. If a citizen cannot even find a candidate whose views coincide with his own, then there is no possibility at all that he will send to the parliament a genuine representative. So, in practice, voters are offered a handful of candidates and must make compromises with their beliefs before they ever get to the polls.
- 9According to Wolff, where can the most biting rejection of representative democracy be found?In Rousseau's social contract, who is in opposition to writers such as Locke. He says sovereingty cannot be represented for the same reason it cannot be alienated: its essence is the general will, and that must speak for itself or it does not exist: it is either itself or not itself. There is no intermediate possibility
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- Fichas sobre REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY, creado por Phoebe Malone el 04/06/2019.
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