what does it mean to have a representative government

Type of democracy principled on elected representation

Representative republic, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of republic where elected persons represent a group of people, in dissimilarity to straight republic.^[one] Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function equally some type of representative democracy: for example, the United Kingdom (a unitary parliamentary ramble monarchy), India (a federal parliamentary republic), France (a unitary semi-presidential republic), and the United States (a federal presidential republic).^[2]

Representative democracy tin can function every bit an element of both the parliamentary and the presidential systems of government. It typically manifests in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and the Lok Sabha of India, but may be concise past constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber and judicial review of legislation. Some political theorists (including Robert Dahl, Gregory Houston, and Ian Liebenberg) have described representative democracy as polyarchy.^{[3] [4]} Representative democracy places power in the hands of representatives who are elected by the people. Political parties often become primal to this course of commonwealth if electoral systems require or encourage voters to vote for political parties or for candidates associated with political parties (as opposed to voting for private representatives).^[5]

Powers of representatives [edit]

Representatives are elected by the public, every bit in national elections for the national legislature.^[2] Elected representatives may hold the power to select other representatives, presidents, or other officers of the regime or of the legislature, equally the prime government minister in the latter case. (indirect representation).

The ability of representatives is usually concise by a constitution (as in a ramble democracy or a constitutional monarchy) or other measures to balance representative ability:^[vi]

• An contained judiciary, which may accept the power to declare legislative acts unconstitutional (e.g. ramble court, supreme court).
• The constitution may also provide for some deliberative commonwealth (e.one thousand., Royal Commissions) or direct popular measures (e.grand., initiative, plebiscite, recall elections). Yet, these are non always binding and commonly require some legislative action—legal power usually remains firmly with representatives.^{[ where? ]}
• In some cases, a bicameral legislature may accept an "upper house" that is not directly elected, such as the Senate of Canada, which was in plough modeled on the British House of Lords.

Theorists such every bit Edmund Burke believe that part of the duty of a representative was not simply to communicate the wishes of the electorate but too to utilize their own judgment in the exercise of their powers, even if their views are not reflective of those of a majority of voters:^[7]

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a Representative, to alive in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have keen weight with him; their stance, loftier respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his serenity, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. Merely his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to y'all, to any homo, or to any gear up of men living. These he does non 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, only his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you lot, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

History [edit]

The Roman Republic was the get-go known state in the western world to accept a representative government, despite taking the grade of a direct regime in the Roman assemblies. The Roman model of governance would inspire many political thinkers over the centuries,^[8] and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek model, considering it was a state in which supreme ability was held past the people and their elected representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader.^[9] Representative democracy is a form of commonwealth in which people vote for representatives who and so vote on policy initiatives; equally opposed to straight democracy, a form of republic in which people vote on policy initiatives directly.^[x] 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 regime for holding two famous parliaments.^{[11] [12]} The first, in 1258, stripped the king of unlimited potency and the 2d, in 1265, included ordinary citizens from the towns.^[thirteen] Later, in the 17th century, the Parliament of England pioneered some of the ideas and systems of liberal democracy, culminating in the Glorious Revolution and passage of the Neb of Rights 1689.^{[xiv] [fifteen]}

The American Revolution led to the cosmos of a new Constitution of the The states in 1787, with a national legislature based partly on direct elections of representatives every 2 years, and thus responsible to the electorate for continuance in office. Senators were not directly elected by the people until the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Women, men who owned no property, and blacks, and others not originally given voting rights, in most states eventually gained the vote through changes in country and federal law in the grade of the 19th and 20th centuries. Until information technology was repealed past the Fourteenth Amendment following the Civil War, the Three-Fifths Compromise gave a disproportionate representation of slave states in the House of Representatives relative to the voters in free states.^{[16] [17]}

In 1789, Revolutionary France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, although short-lived, the National Convention was elected past all males in 1792.^[18] Universal male suffrage was re-established in France in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848.^[xix]

Representative democracy came into general favour particularly in post-industrial revolution nation states where large numbers of citizens evinced interest in politics, but where technology and population figures remained unsuited to direct commonwealth.^{[ commendation needed ]} Many historians credit the Reform Act 1832 with launching modern representative democracy in the United Kingdom.^{[20] [21]}

The U.Due south. House of Representatives, 1 example of representative commonwealth

Globally, a bulk of the world's people live in representative democracies, including constitutional monarchies and republics with strong representative branches.^[22]

Research on representation per se [edit]

Separate merely related, and very big, bodies of research in political philosophy and social science investigate how and how well elected representatives, such as legislators, correspond the interests or preferences of one or some other constituency. The empirical research shows that representative systems tend to be biased towards the representation of more than affluent classes, to the detriment of the population at big.^{[23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]}

Criticisms [edit]

In his book Political Parties, written in 1911, Robert Michels argues that about representative systems deteriorate towards an oligarchy or particracy. This is known as the iron law of oligarchy.^[31] Representative democracies which are stable take been analysed by Adolf Gasser and compared to the unstable representative democracies in his book Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung Europas which was published in 1943 (commencement edition in High german) and a 2d edition in 1947 (in German).^[32] Adolf Gasser stated the following requirements for a representative democracy in guild to remain stable, unaffected past the fe constabulary of oligarchy:

• Society has to be congenital up from bottom to top. As a result, society is built upwardly by people, who are free and take the power to defend themselves with weapons.
• These free people join or class local communities. These local communities are independent, which includes financial independence, and they are free to make up one's mind their own rules.
• Local communities bring together into a higher unit east.g. a canton.
• At that place is no hierarchical bureaucracy.
• In that location is competition between these local communities east.chiliad. on services delivered or on taxes.

A drawback to this type of government is that elected officials are non required to fulfill promises made earlier their election and are able to promote their own self-interests once elected, providing an incohesive organization of governance.^[33] Legislators are too under scrutiny every bit the organization of bulk-won legislators voting for bug for the large grouping of people fosters inequality among the marginalized.^[34]

Proponents of direct democracy criticize representative democracy due to its inherent construction. As the fundamental basis of representative republic is not inclusive organisation, in which representatives turn into an elite form that works backside closed doors, as well as the criticizing the elector arrangement as being driven by a capitalistic and authoritarian system.^{[35] [36]}

Proposed solutions [edit]

The system of stochocracy has been proposed equally an improved organisation compared to the system of representative democracy, where representatives are elected. Stochocracy aims to at to the lowest degree reduce this degradation by having all representatives appointed by lottery instead of by voting. Therefore, this system is also called lottocracy. The organisation was proposed by the writer Roger de Sizif in 1998 in his volume La Stochocratie. Choosing officeholders by lot was likewise the standard practice in aboriginal Athenian commonwealth^[37] and in ancient India. The rationale behind this practice was to avert lobbying and electioneering by economic oligarchs.

The system of deliberative democracy is a mix between a majority ruled system and a consensus-based system. It allows for representative democracies or direct democracies to coexist with its organization of governance, providing an initial advantage.^[38]

References [edit]

1. ^ "Victorian Electronic Commonwealth, Final Report – Glossary". 28 July 2005. Archived from the original on 13 December 2007. Retrieved 14 December 2007.
2. ^ ^{a b} Loeper, Antoine (2016). "Cantankerous-edge externalities and cooperation among representative democracies". European Economic Review. 91: 180–208. doi:x.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.ten.003. hdl:10016/25180.
3. ^ Houston, K F (2001) Public Participation in Democratic Governance in Southward Africa, Pretoria: Human Sciences Inquiry Council HSRC Printing
4. ^ Dahl, R A (2005) "Is international republic possible? A critical view", in Sergio Fabbrini (editor): Commonwealth and Federalism in the European Union and the Usa: Exploring mail service-national governance: 195 to 204 (Chapter 13), Abingdon on the Thames: Routledge.
5. ^ De Vos et al (2014) South African Ramble Police – In Context: Oxford Academy Press.
6. ^ "Ramble Republic". www.civiced.org . Retrieved eighteen November 2019.
7. ^ The Works of the Correct Honourable Edmund Shush. Volume I. London: Henry Thou. Bohn. 1854. pp. 446–8.
8. ^ Livy; De Sélincourt, A.; Ogilvie, R. M.; Oakley, Southward. P. (2002). The early history of Rome: books I-V of The history of Rome from its foundations. Penguin Classics. p. 34. ISBN0-14-044809-8.
9. ^ Watson, 2005, p. 271
10. ^ Budge, Ian (2001). "Direct democracy". In Clarke, Paul A.B.; Foweraker, Joe (eds.). Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-415-19396-2.
11. ^ Jobson, Adrian (2012). The Showtime English language Revolution: Simon de Montfort, Henry III and the Barons' War. Bloomsbury. pp. 173–4. ISBN978-1-84725-226-5.
12. ^ "Simon de Montfort: The turning point for democracy that gets overlooked". BBC. 19 Jan 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015 ; "The January Parliament and how it defined Uk". The Telegraph. xx January 2015. Archived from the original on 11 Jan 2022. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
13. ^ Norgate, Kate (1894). "Montfort, Simon of (1208?-1265)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 38. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
14. ^ Kopstein, Jeffrey; Lichbach, Marker; Hanson, Stephen East., eds. (2014). Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order (4, revised ed.). Cambridge Academy Press. pp. 37–9. ISBN978-1139991384. Britain pioneered the organisation of liberal republic that has at present spread in one form or another to most of the globe'south countries
15. ^ "Constitutionalism: America & Beyond". Agency of International Data Programs (IIP), U.S. Department of State. Archived from the original on 24 Oct 2014. Retrieved thirty October 2014. The primeval, and peradventure greatest, victory for liberalism was accomplished in England. The ascent commercial form 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 every bit the distinctive feature of modernistic constitutionalism was not the insistence on the idea that the king is subject to the constabulary (although this concept is an essential attribute of all constitutionalism). This notion was already well established in the Center Ages. What was distinctive was the institution of constructive 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 denizen subjects... Even so, as tin be seen through provisions in the 1689 Bill of Rights, the English language Revolution was fought not just to protect the rights of holding (in the narrow sense) but to establish those liberties which liberals believed essential to human being 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 Human in 1789.
16. ^ "Nosotros Hold These Truths to be Self-evident;" An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Roots of Racism & slavery in America Kenneth N. Addison; Introduction P. xxii
17. ^ "Expansion of Rights and Liberties". National Archives. 30 October 2015. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
18. ^ "The French Revolution II". Mars.wnec.edu. Archived from the original on 27 August 2008. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
19. ^ French National Assembly. "1848 " Désormais le bulletin de vote doit remplacer le fusil "" (in French). Retrieved 26 September 2009.
20. ^ A. Ricardo López; Barbara Weinstein (2012). The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History. Duke UP. p. 58. ISBN978-0822351290.
21. ^ Eric J. Evans, The Forging of the Modernistic State: Early on Industrial U.k., 1783–1870 (2nd ed. 1996) p. 229
22. ^ Roser, Max (15 March 2013). "Democracy". Our Earth in Information.
23. ^ Jacobs, Lawrence R.; Page, Benjamin I. (February 2005). "Who Influences U.S. Foreign Policy?". American Political Science Review. 99 (i): 107–123. doi:ten.1017/S000305540505152X. S2CID 154481971.
24. ^ Bernauer, Julian; Giger, Nathalie; Rosset, January (January 2015). "Mind the gap: Do proportional electoral systems foster a more equal representation of women and men, poor and rich?". International Political Science Review. 36 (ane): 78–98. doi:ten.1177/0192512113498830. S2CID 145633250.
25. ^ Gilens, Martin; Page, Benjamin I. (September 2014). "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Involvement Groups, and Average Citizens". Perspectives on Politics. 12 (three): 564–581. doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595.
26. ^ Carnes, Nicholas (2013). White-Collar Regime: The Hidden Office of Class in Economic Policy Making. University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-08728-3. ^{[ folio needed ]}
27. ^ Carnes, Nicholas; Lupu, Noam (January 2015). "Rethinking the Comparative Perspective on Class and Representation: Testify from Latin America". American Journal of Political Science. 59 (i): 1–18. doi:10.1111/ajps.12112.
28. ^ Giger, Nathalie; Rosset, Jan; Bernauer, Julian (April 2012). "The Poor Political Representation of the Poor in a Comparative Perspective". Representation. 48 (ane): 47–61. doi:10.1080/00344893.2012.653238. S2CID 154081733.
29. ^ Peters, Yvette; Ensink, Sander J. (four May 2015). "Differential Responsiveness in Europe: The Effects of Preference Deviation and Electoral Participation". West European Politics. 38 (three): 577–600. doi:10.1080/01402382.2014.973260. S2CID 153452076.
30. ^ Schakel, Wouter; Burgoon, Brian; Hakhverdian, Armen (March 2020). "Real merely Unequal Representation in Welfare Land Reform". Politics & Society. 48 (one): 131–163. doi:x.1177/0032329219897984. S2CID 214235967.
31. ^ 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, past Eden and Cedar Paul as Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Republic'" (Hearst'due south 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 past 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).
32. ^ 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.
33. ^ Sørensen, Eva (25 April 2016). "Enhancing policy innovation past redesigning representative democracy". Policy & Politics. 44 (2): 155–170. doi:10.1332/030557315X14399997475941. ProQuest 1948833814.
34. ^ Thaa, Winfried (three May 2016). "Problems and images – new sources of inequality in current representative republic". Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. nineteen (iii): 357–375. doi:10.1080/13698230.2016.1144859. S2CID 147669709.
35. ^ Razsa, Maple; Kurnik, Andrej (May 2012). "The Occupy Movement in Žižek'southward hometown: Direct republic and a politics of becoming: The Occupy Motility in Žižek's hometown". American Ethnologist. 39 (2): 238–258. doi:ten.1111/j.1548-1425.2012.01361.x.
36. ^ Heckert, Jamie (2010). "Anarchist roots & routes" (PDF). European Journal of Ecopsychology. 1: 19–36.
37. ^ "1,5". Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Josiah Ober , Robert Wallace , Paul Cartledge , Cynthia Farrar (1st ed.). 15 October 2008. pp. 17, 105. ISBN978-0520258099. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
38. ^ Bohman, James (1997). Deliberative Democracy (PDF). MIT Printing.

External links [edit]

• Representative democracy at Curlie

hemingwaycoma1958.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

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