what should be represented in representative democracy

Democracy simply means ‘rule by many’. Although this may not be sufficient enough, it takes on more useful meaning when qualified by other words with which it is associated, for example, direct democracy, representative democracy, liberal democracy and so on….

In direct democracy, every citizen is able to participate directly in decision making. In representative democracy citizen elect representatives to make decision for them. For example Britain has representative democracy, as the country as a whole cannot attend on day-to-day basis policy making, so they elect Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent them in and take decision and make policies on their behalf. The machinery of policy making is the Parliament, as the House of Lords is not an elected body of Parliament they have no role to play with regard to representation function.

To what extent MPs and House of Commons they represent their constituency, depends on what type of representation being sought.

The term of representation in everyday language means, to ‘portray’ or make present. As a political principle, representation is the relationship through which an individual or a group stand for, or act on behalf of a larger body of community. In other words, the election of a person or a small number of politicians who will reflect the wishes, interests and/or social background of their voters.

Now, most of people taken ‘representation’ to mean that as they elect a person or a group, the elected person/ group will carry out their wishes. This raises the question of principle and practicality, other and broader interpretation of representation that widely used.

There are different types and degrees of political representation, each of which is based on particular ideology and political assumption.

The first principle model of representation is trusteeship. A trustee is a personal is vested to formal responsibility of others property or affair. Edmund Burke identified this model and explains representation in his famous speech in Bristol:

“your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and his betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

  This interpretation of representation implies that representative should not, typical of the population, but better than them, wiser than them and more responsible   to his/her own political judgement.  This view has strongly elitist implication. Since elitists would argue that this is the best way to govern and represent the people. Knowledge unequally distributed in the society, not all citizens know what the best is for them, and it is good to let the person who knows take decision on their behalf.

On the other hand, this view has criticised ad being undemocratic and undemocratic implication. If politician should think of them, and take approaches where they think is right or wrong, just because the public are ignorant and poor educated or deluded, then it is a clear mistake to allow public to elect their representative at the first place.

The second principle model of representation is delegate model. A delegate is a person who chosen to act on another behalf on the basis of clear guidance or instruction.  Delegates expected to act what they asked to do, while they have little or no capacity to exercise his or her own judgement.  Many trade unions, for example, the British Medical Association (BMA) send delegate to the Labour Party conference who are instructed, in other words ‘mandated’ in advance on how to vote on every resolution. Those who favour this model of representation supports the mechanism that ensures that politicians are bound as closely as possible to the views of represented.

Delegate representation provides a broader opportunity for the popular professional politician. Short term election for the office holder or the delegate is a way of checking on the delegate. On the other hand, its disadvantage is that politicians are forced to reflect the views of their voters and are not able to mobilize the people by providing vision and inspiration.

The third principle model of representation is mandate. This is a modern political representation model. A mandate is a set of policies introduced by a political party during the General election campaign, and it’s the policies where they will introduce if they get in power. Individual candidate rarely elected on the basis of their personal qualities and talent; mostly seen as party delegate as they actually campaigning on the basis of their party manifesto. It might be an effective way of representing the wishes of voters, firstly because the voters give authority to a particular party manifesto to implicate their policies by voting to their candidate. Secondly, it is imposing some kind of meaning to the election result, as well as keeping the politician on their word.  Nevertheless there are criticisms to this doctrine. Firstly, voters are well informed about the policies or they might not understand the policies, so they might take the wrong decision.  Secondly, it can be influenced by range ‘irrational’ factors, such media, and the personalities of leader. For example when asked people ‘if they know the name of their MP’ only 42% of them said ‘yes’ and 58% of the people said ‘no’. This means that more half of the population votes on party label. This is a danger of losing connection between MPs and their constituency.

To sum up, representation can take wide range of interpretation and different political ideology. Talking about representation can mean any of these ideology explained above or others which is not been mentioned. If our MPs are not delegate, nor free agent, nor social- economically typical of their voters, and if he/she principally follow the party head quarter, then there no need for election and it is not representative democracy anymore.