Representation
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2 main types of democracy
1. Direct
2. Representative
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Direct (historically earlier form): citizens themselves govern
 Example: Switzerland
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5W45Va0cPE&featur
e=pyv
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Representative
 Government by citizens’ representatives
The main principles:
 The state is distinct from society, has authority over it
 The state derives its authority from citizen consent
 State officials have an autonomy from society, but are
accountable to it
 State officials are bound by rule of law
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The concept of representation
1. Rulers are elected, granted authority to govern - but may
not necessarily do what citizens want:
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“painful but necessary” reforms
2. Rulers are not elected, but govern in such a way that
citizens do feel that their interests are taken into account
 kindly kings, benevolent dictators seeking citizen support
Obviously, electoral democracy is a better form of
representation
But major problems remain
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unfulfilled promises
elites may claim they know better
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1. Electoral mechanisms: how well do they communicate
society’s demands to the state
2. Channels of citizen influence on the government between
elections – in the policy-making process
3. The contents of policy
Some of these problems can be solved through
improvements in the mechanisms of representation
But there are strong arguments in favour of reinforcing
representation with robust institutions of direct democracy
The political process
The political process can be described as the flow of
political power
This flow never stops
It has its own patterns, reproduced over and over
again in a systematic way
It moves through institutions, links, channels which
connect society with the state
The Political Process
Government
Interest
Groups
Executive
Political
Parties
Assembly
Media
Judiciary
Demands
Supports
Social impact of laws and policies
SOCIETY
THE STATE
LAWS AND POLICIES
INTERESTS
Elections
Some interests have more weight than others
Such disparities of power are reflected in every part of
the political process
Some interests need the state more than others
Different interests need the state for different things
The flow of power has a dual nature
Power flows in two directions:
from society to the state
from the state to society
Overall, the dominance of the society-to-state flow
should be a sign of democracy: the government
heeds societal demands
But if one looks at the unequal distribution of power, the
picture looks different
Dominant classes exert dominant control over both
flows of power
The rise of economic inequality in society is a sign that
the political process works primarily for those at the
top, creating a DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT
Interest Groups and Interest Articulation
The basic actor in the political process is the individual
citizen
The range of individual political impact From letters to MPs and newspapers
To being a Bill Gates – or a Prime Minister’s close
friend
But most individuals can have any impact only by acting
through interest groups – created to articulate
(formulate and express) group interests
In modern societies, they are numerous
They vary in structure, goals, style, financing, support
base
Channels used to transmit citizen demands
Legal access channels:
Personal connections
Mass media
Political parties
Legislatures
Government bureaucracies
Protest demonstrations, strikes
Coercive methods:
Protest demonstrations, strikes
Boycotts
Riots
Terrorism
Coup d’etat
Interest Aggregation
The process through which demands are translated into
policy proposals
The key pre-modern (feudal) mechanism for IA is
the patron-client network (the crony system):
who knows whom, who is obliged to whom, who serves
whom – personal, informal, and flexible tools of power
In modern democracies, generally considered ineffective.
Rule of law, active citizenry, media freedom,
competitive elections limit the usability of cronyism.
The main modern interest aggregation mechanism is
the political party. Some interest groups (institutional
and associational) also perform interest aggregation
tasks.
But patron-client networks have not disappeared from
modern democracies
They continue to serve as unofficial - but not
necessarily illegal - mechanisms interlocking with
official institutions
When a patron-client network is used in violation of the
law, this is called corruption. But the lines between
the legal and the illegal are often blurred
Political Party
An interest group seeks to influence the state
A political party seeks to capture control of the state
Functions of political parties:
provide links between the rulers and the ruled
formulate programs to govern society
help organize the process of policy-making
recruit and train citizens for political leadership roles
How are political parties created?
1. BY COMPETING ELITES
The first parties, usually created in early parliaments,
were elite factions with narrow popular bases, divided
by ideology and interest, fighting each other for power
With the rise of democracy, they are forced to reach out
into broader society to seek voter support
Example of an elite party which successfully adapted to
mass politics – the British Conservative Party
1653: Cromwell expels the Lords from Parliament
2. BY CIVIL SOCIETY
Organized by citizen activists, interest groups seeking
to reduce the power of elites - or overthrow the elites
altogether
The influence of these mass parties comes from the
numbers of their supporters. They are interested in
mass participation, and their programs are built
around popular demands
NOT ALL MASS PARTIES ARE DEMOCRATIC TOTALITARIANISM IS A FORM OF MASS POLITICS
2 basic types of party systems:
Competitive (in democracies)
Non-competitive (in authoritarian states)
In non-competitive systems, one party rules, allowing
no challenges to its control of the state
Competitive systems:
One-and-a-half party systems (Japan until recently)
2-party systems (USA)
Multiparty systems (most European states, Canada)
Parties in government
In one-party authoritarian systems, the party, organized
as a military-type command structure, controls both
state and society
In two-party systems, the majority party has a high
degree of control over government
In multiparty systems, government is often formed on
the basis of several parties (bloc, coalition).
Differences between parties in a coalition may
undermine the government
Elections
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Democracy is much more than elections
But it is impossible without elections
Electoral (formal, procedural, representative) democracy is
the foundation of all democratic systems
An election is an act through which citizens create public
power which they accept as legitimate, to which they submit
Historical sequence:
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Primitive democracy – the state – the democratic state
We started with democracy, then deviated from it for about
5,000 years, and now, for the past couple of centuries, have
been trying to return to it – because the other methods have
been found wanting
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What are the other methods?
A person may inherit the post of ruler, or:
A person may conquer, seize by force the power to rule
Problems with the quality of the result: how good a ruler?
 Quality of the person?
 Issue of legitimacy?
The first issue is addressed more effectively through
choice.
The second, through wide participation in the act of
choosing
The hereditary method
 Through the millennia of monarchic rule - considered the
normal, legitimate option.
 The few elements of choice:
 choosing an heir
 marrying another royal (or non-royal)
 A wider group, representing some diverse interests, is
always involved in the decision-making (kingmakers)
 Still, the role of choice is severely limited
 And the circle of participants is extremely narrow
The method of conquest
 No choice
 Huge problems of legitimacy
 Who would be the conquerors?
 Foreigners (no legitimacy)
 Members of the ruling family – through a coup (some
legitimacy)
 “The people” – through a revolution (new legitimacy)
 After a revolution, a new state is organized, and the
issues of choice and legitimacy arise again
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Enabling citizens (all or at least some of them) to choose
the rulers through a peaceful, rule-bound process of
elections looks like the simplest and most natural way of
creating a government, which will have legitimate authority
immediately after the election – provided the election was
free and fair
This assumption holds only if the true purpose of an
election is to create a representative government…
In a stable democracy, citizens take it for granted
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Even though 2/3 of the governments in the world today are
created through an electoral process,
Electoral democracy as a political institution is facing
massive challenges:
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A large part of humanity still doesn’t have it (China, many
Muslim states)
Imitations of democracy (Russia)
Rollbacks of democracy (Pakistan under military dictatorship)
Impositions of democracy (Iraq)
Erosion of democracy (USA)
The issue: can democracy be limited to elections only?
If the egalitarian mechanism keeps producing results which
are deeply unsatisfactory for the majority, what does this
contradiction do to the mechanism itself?
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So, the main purpose of an election is to choose a ruler or
a group of rulers
Other purposes?
 Recruitment and training of elites
 Policy-making:
 Leaders run policy proposals through the electoral
process to test (and also manipulate) public opinion
 Referendums and plebiscites (voting for policy
proposals, not candidates)
 A means to confirm and strengthen the legitimacy of the
state*
---------------------------Phillips Shively, Power and Choice, McGraw-Hill, 2003, pp.223-226
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Key requirements of an effective electoral democracy:
 Participation
 Contestation
Can one work without the other?
Civil and political rights and liberties, rule of law as essential
tools to assure both requirements - to enable the citizens to
collectively create a new government
Electoral systems
 1. Constituency: who will be represented?
 Entire country
 A part of the country
 Balance between national and local
 2. Apportionment: how to organize representation?
 Geography (where you live)
 Equal representation of individual citizens
 3. Franchise:
 Who may vote?
 Who may run for office?
Electoral formulas
A. Electing a single executive officer – President, Governor,
Mayor, dogcatcher, etc.). Options:
 Elected by citizens themselves
 Elected by members of the legislature
 If elected by citizens, the options are:
 Simple majority rule (the winner is the candidate
receiving the highest percentage of votes cast)
 Absolute majority rule (the winner is the candidate who
got more than 50% of the votes cast)
 Level of participation (in some countries, an election is
valid only if more than half of the registered voters took
part)
B. Electing a group of officials – a legislature
 2 basic systems
 1. Majoritarian
 2. Proportional representation (PR)
 Mixed systems (combinations of 1 and 2)
 Majoritarian (UK, US, Canada, India, France, Japan,
Australia – over 40 countries)
 Every electoral district elects one representative
 Simple (absolute) majority rule - need to get 50% +
(more than all the rest) – or, more often:
 Plurality (relative majority) rule (first-past-the post) - need
to get more than any other candidate
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Proportional representation (Austria, Denmark, Finland,
Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia,
Spain and others):
 Competition between parties, not individual candidates
 Distribution of seats in the legislature according to the
%% of the votes cast for each party
For example…
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A country has a parliament with 100 seats
5 parties are competing in elections
Under a majoritarian system:
The country s divided into 100 districts (ridings)
In each, it is a race between individual candidates from
different parties
Results in Riding No.1:
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Candidate from Party No.1 got 10% of votes
No.2 – 15%
No. 3 - 25%
No. 4 – 20%
No. 5 – 30%
The winner is No.5, with 30% support
He/she represents a minority of voters in the riding
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Imagine that the same results came up in each of the 100
ridings…
 It would mean that 1 of the 5 parties,
 having received 30% of the total vote,
 would capture 100% of the seats in the parliament
It would:
 obtain monopoly control of the legislature
 easily form a government
 and have a lot of freedom to govern as it wants
In real life:
majoritarian systems do favour large, established, betterfunded parties and make it easier for elites to govern a
country
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Imagine that the same country switched to the PR system.
 In each of the 100 ridings, voters choose between the
same 5 parties
 But each party is represented not by an individual
candidate, but by a nationwide party list of candidates
Imagine that the distribution of votes in Riding No.1 is the
same:
 Party No.1 got 10% of votes
 No.2 – 15%
 No. 3 - 25%
 No. 4 – 20%
 No. 5 – 30%
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After the election, the votes cast for each party in all 100
ridings are added up to determine each party’s nationwide
share of parliamentary seats
The individual candidates to fill the seats are then selected
from the party lists
Imagine that across the country, the popular vote was
distributed in the same proportion as in Riding No.1:
 Party No.5 gets only 30% of the seats
 It’ll have a hard time forming a government
 And an even harder time governing
 The parliament is split into 5 factions
 Need for coalitions
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Makes it harder to govern – but is more democratic
 More fairly reflects society’s political preferences (though
usually involves limits on smaller parties)
 Fosters multiparty systems
 More diverse voices are heard in debates
 But: Ties between citizens and representatives are more
distant – no individual link, like in majoritarian systems
Mixed systems
Participation
 The paradox:
 Individually, voting doesn’t seem to make sense: 1 person
can’t change the course of a country, my vote doesn’t count
 Makes sense only as a collective act
 But a collective act can only take place thrugh individual
acts
 Through the act of voting, political power is created in
society from individual political wills
 The long struggle for voting rights
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Still, some people who do have voting rights refuse to vote
 when the link between their individual and collective
interests is broken
 Some are alienated from society, lack sense of civic
responsibility
 Others don’t vote when they don’t believe that anything
can be changed through elections
Right or duty?
20th century debate: Is mass participation desirable?
Resolved in favour of mass participation: it does lead to a
better government and a better society
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An election as a challenge to the powers that be
Ways to defeat the challenge:
 Don’t hold an election – but if you have to:
 Limit participation
 Arrange the voting rules to favour your side
 Limit the opposition’s access to the public (control of media is key)
 Eliminate the opposition physically
 Intimidate voters
 Limit public access to the voting places, where necessary
 Stuff ballot boxes with your ballots
 Make sure who counts (be inventive with computers)
 Be well prepared for court challenges
 Make sure the police and troops will obey your orders to disperse
the crowds of protesters
 Declare a state of emergency
 Keep a helicopter ready for your rapid evacuation if everything else
goes wrong
Equality of voting rights vs. social inequality
 The power of concentrated wealth
 Big corporations go to great lengths to control the political
process
 It is a major cause of public cynicism about electoral
democracy
 Attempts at reform
 Struggles for true representation