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[edit] Theories of representation
The most groundbreaking work on this subject was done by Hanna Fenichel Pitkin who established four theories of representation[1]:- Formalistic Representation, including:
- Authorization
- Accountability
- Symbolic Representation
- Descriptive Representation, and
- Substantive Representation
- Interest Model of Representation
[edit] Burke
British politician Edmund Burke in his 1774 Speech to the Electors at Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll was noted for his articulation of the principles of representation against the notion that elected officials should be delegates who exactly mirror the opinions of the electorate: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 unbiased 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.[2]Pitkin points out that Burke linked the district's interest with the proper behaviour of its elected official, explaining, "Burke conceives of broad, relatively fixed interest, few in number and clearly defined, of which any group or locality has just one. These interests are largely economic or associated with particular localities whose livelihood they characterize, in his over-all prosperity they involve."[3]
[edit] Representation by population
In this method, elected representatives will be chosen by more or less numerically equivalent blocks of voters (See also Proportional Representation). This is not always practical for historical and current political reasons, and sometimes is impractical purely on the basis of logistics, as in regions where travel is difficult and distances are long. The shortened term "rep-by-pop" is used in Britain but is relatively uncommon in U.S.Historically rep-by-pop is the alternative to rep-by-area. However, in the colonial countries, the geographic realities made a necessity of low-population electoral districts in order to give meaningful representation to remote communities, and only in urban and suburban areas has there been any success with applying rep-by-pop more or less evenly.
In the United States and other democracies, typically the lower house of a bicameral (two-chamber) system is based on population—more or less—while the upper House is based on area. Or, as it might be put in the United Kingdom, on title to land, as was originally the case with the old pre-Reforms House of Lords. In the Senate or the Lords, it does not matter how many people are living in your jurisdiction, it matters that you have the jurisdiction (by election, heredity or appointment—the US, the UK and Canada respectively).
[edit] Representation by area
The principle of rep-by-pop, when brought in and promoted publicly, removed many archaic seats in the British House of Commons although some northern and rural counties necessarily still have variably lower populations than most urban ridings. Former British colonies like Canada and Australia also have rural and wilderness areas spanning tens of thousands of square miles, with fewer voters in them than a tiny urban-core riding. In the most extreme case, one riding of the Canadian parliament covers more than 2 million square kilometres, Nunavut, yet has less than one third the average number of voters for a riding, with a population of about 30,000. Making the riding larger would be difficult for the elected member, as well as for campaigning and also unfair to remotely rural constituents, whose concerns are radically different from those of the medium-sized towns that typically dominate the electorate in such ridings.The American Constitution has built into it a series of compromises between rep-by-pop and rep-by-area: two Senators per state, at least one Representative per state, and representation in the electoral college. In Canada, provinces such as Prince Edward Island have unequal representation in Parliament (in the Commons as well as the Senate) relative to Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta, partly for historical reasons, partly because those electoral allotments are constitutionally guaranteed, and partly because governments have simply chosen to under-represent certain voters and over-represent others. In the United States, Baker v. Carr (1962) established the "one-person/one vote" standard, that each individual had to be weighted equally in legislative apportionment.
In Canada, until recent reforms, there were still many federal and provincial electoral districts in British Columbia and other provinces that had less than a few thousand votes cast, notably Atlin, covering the province's far northwest, with no more than 1,500. The area of the riding was about the size of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia combined, and larger than many American states. In practicality, the voters of the tiny communities scattered across the subarctic landscape, less than the population of a city block, had as much electoral clout as two Fraser Valley municipalities totaling up to 60,000 in population. The population imbalance between largely rural areas and overwhelmingly urban areas is one reason why the realities of representation by area still have sway against the ideal of representation by population.
[edit] Descriptive representation
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Sometimes voting systems that obtain proportional representation may achieve descriptive representation as well. However this can be guaranteed only to the extent that voting patterns reflect descriptive characteristics of the voters. If a particular trait is not a concern for voters or prospective candidates (for instance, eye color), then, if the system does not introduce other biases, an elected body will resemble a random sampling of the voters instead.
Some [Ulbig 2005] argue that cynicism and distrust towards government of disadvantaged minorities is partly due to not having representatives with similar characteristics. Supporters of this argument point out that as descriptive representation increases, distrust decreases. This can be the basis of laws imposing that half the candidates on a given list be women (for example in France since 2001) or of voluntary measures (Spain's current government has eight women and eight men). Opponents of such logic argue that political interests as already addressed by the political system may play a larger role. For example, only 2% of African-Americans supported the Bush administration[citation needed] despite the high-profile Bush nominations of the African Americans Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
[edit] Interest Model of Representation
In his masters thesis, Uno proposed what he called an Interest Model of Representation that relied less on descriptive, authorization, accountability representation or how responsive a representative was to the represented than how well a representative acted in a interest of the represented. His Interest Model used as its basis Pitkin (1980) definition of representation, "Representing here means acting in the interest of the represented, in a manner responsive to them." He posited that for representation to have substance and moral strength rather than just descriptive value, representation needed to be based on the capacity of the represented, the nature of interest, and the political context in which representation took place.[edit] See also
- Apportionment and redistricting
- Gerrymandering
- Taxation without representation
- Proportional Representation
- Representative Democracy
- Substantive Representation
[edit] References
- ^ Political Representation - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- ^ The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke. Volume I (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), pp. 446-8.
- ^ Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, The concept of representation (1972) p. 174
[edit] Bibliography
- Mansbridge, Jane. (1999) "Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent `Yes'" Journal of Politics, vol. 61(3): 627-657.
- Pitkin, Hannah. (1967) The Concept of Representation. University of California Press.
- Phillips, Anne. 1995. The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Smith, Michael A. Bringing Representation Home: State Legislators among Their Constituencies (2003)
- Ulbig, Stacy G. (2005) "Political Realities and Political Trust: Descriptive Representation in Municipal Government". Southwestern Political Science Association Meeting. Retrieved from [1] on July 19, 2005.
- Uno, Tab (1986) The Communication of Representation Between Legislators and Constituents. Masters Thesis, University of Utah.
- Williams, Melissa S. 1998. Voice, Trust, and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
