Representation vs. Democracy

Not all representative bodies are democratic, and not everything should be democratized.

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U.S. Capitol Dome. (Photo from Getty Images)

Please forgive a little shoptalk up front. I just got back from Houston for a Dispatch meet-up. It was great fun. We met a bunch of really wonderful people, and their heartfelt appreciation for what we’re doing was profoundly encouraging. Thanks again to our sponsors and hosts and everyone who came out. 

I didn’t watch Trump last night, but—while there’s always more to argue about when so many people start from the conclusion and argue backward—nothing has really changed since I wrote last Friday’s “news”letter. 

So let’s talk about something more serious. 

I had a great conversation with my AEI colleague Philip Wallach last week on his new book, Why Congress. As longtime readers know, I’ve been obsessed with Congress’ dysfunction for a long time now. But Wallach’s book added a dimension I hadn’t fully thought through before.  

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  1. Cegriffith3

    It's a minor point, but perhaps a valid one: the earls and dukes who agreed to the Magna Carta likewise understood a few things about the deal. On the one hand, they had no expectation the king would consult them on every issue, or even make concessions to a majority of them on a regular basis. Further, these noblemen understood that they held their titles and lands in trust – they did not "own" them and were not theirs to risk or otherwise use to their personal advantage. They belonged to their families, and so held in trust. They knew they were mere "representatives" of their families and in that capacity representative of all who depended on their families – from relatives to vassals.

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    Cdm807

    Great! Political theory pieces a nice release. Nice to read essay not mentioning Trump.

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  3. Constantinemanthous

    Hard to disagree with these concepts. But reality has become so divorced from the intellectual exercise that - in our country - there is no practical application. There are essentially two tribes who see each other as enemies. Even if politicians cared about the will of the people AND citizens were well informed/cogent, I'm not sure any of our three branches of government place the kind of deliberation you're describing into daily practice. Each year we evolve further and further from the ideal you're describing.

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    Ben Connelly

    As usual, I agree with every word.

    “ Hyper transparency and democracy removes agency from the people tasked with doing what’s best for the country. We all understand this about all sorts of other important endeavors. No serious person would argue that generals should plan military maneuvers on C-SPAN. Who would want a surgeon to check with voters mid-operation?”

    If we ever start televising Supreme Court hearings, it’s time to start stocking up on the ammo and the canned food.

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  5. Frederich.Perrin

    Excellent article. The fact that few people nowadays even dare raising these questions is quite telling. Democracy works very well in small communities, but not so well in large populations. This is why Americans trust their local politicians more than their state politicians, and why they don't trust politicians in DC (rightly so). The reverse is also true, which is why Chinese people trust their local governments the least, their provincial governments a bit more, and the central government ("federal equivalent") the most.

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  6. Paxson Guest

    Elected officials as poll-takers v. fiduciaries. I agree they should act mostly as fiduciaries. In cases where there is an overwhelming indication of popular support for a particular measure, an elected official must carefully consider whether the measure is actually in the best interest of the people. If not, he or she must act in accordance with conscience and reason. We should vote people into office based on their character and guiding principles/philosophies, then let them do their jobs. If we don't like how that turns out, vote them out of office and try again. The whole idea of representative democracy is that public opinion/will is often flawed and that it's practically impossible for each of us to engage in day-to-day political happenings. We need good people to act on our behalf.

    The problem, of course, is that elected officials are constantly seeking their electoral interests over the interests of the people, and these interests are often in conflict. They seek to elevate themselves over the institutions within which they're supposed to be working. They're more interested in performing than in doing the business of governing. And we incentivize this behavior by consuming political media like other forms of entertainment and treating them like celebrities. We monitor our social media accounts for the latest political controversy and expect our elected officials to do our bidding in the culture wars. They're giving us what we demand and it's not working.

    So, what's the solution? More representation and less democratization. More distance. Less responsiveness. In other words, the republic the founders intended. They understood that too much democracy, like any other good thing, is a bad thing. Jonah's correct.

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  7. Mctaglieri

    Is this is an argument to get rid of C-Span and all other electronic media that contemporaneously inform the public about what members of Congress are doing? That's probably the only thing that would work to make Congress a deliberative body again instead of a performative spectacle. We now have a federal government in which every member of Congress or the executive branch can be digitally captured at any moment, and any carelessly uttered words used to end that person's career.

    So it's unsurprising that Congress attracts candidates with those skills, even if the results are catastrophic. (We had a reality-TV star as president and look how great that turned out).

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  8. Kevin Ford

    A large part of our system comes from Madison’s Presbyterian education at Princeton. Our government shares many similarities with Presbyterian church polity. And one of the basic principles is that humans are capable of depravity, so you need layers of representation in the hope that good people will rise to the top—and you need checks and balances because sometime bad (or foolish) people will rise instead. I think they also hoped that the dignity of their office might reform some scoundrels.
    These Presbyterian principles go all the way back to Augustine’s “City of God”. Burke too was probably familiar with its preface of “the power of rule creates the lust to rule”.

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  9. David Miller

    But has this wonderfully-intentioned and hammered-out democratic republic experiment run its course because those who are elected no longer care about what’s best for the republic but for the power, privileges, perks and prestige it affords them?

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  10. Ken Motamed

    "In short, let [politicians] represent the interests of the country as they see them." Yes, that's the idea behind representative democracy. But politicians' obsession with reelection and the advent of opinion polls have turned representative democracy into democracy by instant referendum.

    But representative democracy only guards against the electorate's short-term whims; in the long run, they get their wish. To wit, opposition to vitally necessary entitlement reform.

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