Representative Democracy

This is a big topic, and there are a many different ways to frame a question about it, but let me just ask it this way:

What is the duty of an elected representative? To vote according to the will of the people she or he represents? Or to vote according to what she or he believes to be right?

And I'll conveniently put away the option of "vote according to whatever is politically advantageous for the next election cycle", which is what ends up happening.

There are a bunch of subtopics that could be included in this (what if the will of the people you represent is demonstrably idiotic/morally repugnant? or how do you vote according to your own personal beliefs at the expense of the people you represent without being at odds with the idea of a Representative Democracy?), but I'm trying to avoid the dreaded tl;dr.

This thread was prompted by Rep. Mark Kirk's recent switch on his view on climate change legislation. He initially voted for it, but now he says:

I voted for [cap-and-trade] because it was in the narrow interests of my congressional district. But as your representative representing the entire state of Illinois, I will vote no on that bill coming up and that’s because we are a manufacturing, agriculture, and coal state and that’s a path I think we need to build.

There are other ILX threads on democracy (these two are pretty good), but most fizzle out quickly.

The role will only be defined by its structural underpinnings, so it's really up to the elected.

Which is the same for any role, like when they were talking about cops on the G20 thread - any role is defined structurally, through official policy, legislation and de facto policy/law.

I'm gonna be brief cos it's the weekend but I wd say: there's probably an ideal balance between representing your electors and leading them or protecting relevant minorities amongst them from potential intolerant majorities. But imo this ideal, whether realistically achievable or not, is almost always grossly distorted to the point of meaninglessness by the Party system and by the mechanics of the electoral cycle you mentioned.

what determines "the structure"?

xpost

it seems a slightly evasive answer!

Mine? I don't know...this question seems pretty complicated to me. If you think an elected representative's duty is to represent the will of his constituents, how do you measure that will?

Oh maybe you meant bamcquern's which yeah seems evasive and plain wrong to me really.

My straight honest Saturday evening answer to the original questions would be that this is your classic aporia. innit, and the contradictions in the idea of an elected representative are unreconcilable. That brings along a bunch of other hard questions in its wake tho.

xxpost It's not evasive, it's pragmatic! The structure is everything to do with getting and keeping the job, and not going to jail. And that's it. "Keeping" can include getting reelected. And I suppose there are other limitations about what you can do based on whether you want to be happy and comfortable while you have the job - you might want friends among your colleagues, or you might not want to be ostracized. There's obviously public relations work, too.

But choosing between representing your beliefs or your voters' beliefs, that's up to you. If it were defined in some oath and you could be penalized for breaking the oath, then maybe it'd go one way or the other. But that's not the case.

That's not to say though that people in the house and senate are cynical and lacking principles. It's been a sort of surprising thing I've learned binging on CSPAN that our politicians on both sides are often well-meaning, respectful, polite and seem to really believe in what they fight for.

Okay I see what you're getting at then but I read Z S's use of "duty" as having some big picture moral connotations, rather than a strictly functional or legal sense.

There aren't idealistic underpinnings to roles people have. Maybe they internalize them personally, but leadership roles with trend toward the oligarchic and whatever CAN happen within an organizational structure WILL if members within, particularly those with power, want it to.

Yeah. It's just that - where is the duty defined? And those are two pretty positive option. Representing your ideals or representing your constituents' values - those are both pretty positive outcomes of being elected.

positive optionS

Ideally, I would want a representative to listen carefully to all arguments and to consider all reasonable approaches and alternatives, seeking solutions that appear to create the greatest social benefit at the lowest social cost.

Simply looking at public opinion is a greatly flawed approach, because most of the public is both poorly informed and unreflective on any matter that does not immediately touch their lives. Public opinion should only guide a representative in the broadest manner, as an indicator of sentiment. With so much misinformation and outright deception being practised on the public this is more true than ever.

In my view, it is usually easy to tell when a representative votes against the interests of society, in favor of much narrower interests which hold him captive, whether or not he claims otherwise. Few issues turn on pure differences of philosophy, unless the philosophy is so stark and obvious you know from the get-go that a representative won't even remotely represent you.

I read Z S's use of "duty" as having some big picture moral connotations, rather than a strictly functional or legal sense.

For what it's worth, that is what I meant, although I could have picked a more precise word. There are plenty of directions you could go with this topic, and I don't want to stifle any of them. But what I was thinking of when I started this was what Noodle Vague said,

If you think an elected representative's duty is to represent the will of his constituents, how do you measure that will?

Considering low voter turnout, apathy, downright ignorance on the issues, etc.

But Bamcquern brings up a good point with the idea that representatives will act within the defined structure of the institution itself. imo, the tendency of people in power is to give themselves more power over time, not less, and the sheer numbers of people in the world today have made the ideal of Direct Democracy almost impossible on a large scale (Aristotle thought Athens, at around 50,000 people was already too large for a direct democracy). The problematic logistics of direct democracy in a world with so many people, of course, is part of the reason that representative democracies came about. But inherently, elected leaders represent a step toward the "vote according to personal belief" side of the spectrum, and away from "vote the will of the people".

I'm not even sure what I'm getting at, to be honest. I guess I'm just wrestling with how I would actually want a representative democracy to work.

Now, setting aside the ideal, what you are always going to get are a majority of politicians who make complex calculations based on what they think will best keep them in power, with a small floating minority of politicians who make much simpler calculations that include what they think is right among the deciding factors.

Simply looking at public opinion is a greatly flawed approach, because most of the public is both poorly informed and unreflective on any matter that does not immediately touch their lives. Public opinion should only guide a representative in the broadest manner, as an indicator of sentiment. With so much misinformation and outright deception being practised on the public this is more true than ever.

Exactly. And I already know the answer to this question, I think, but is there any conceivable way you can be elected while making it clear that you intend to vote according to your own will, and that of your constituents? You can butter it up and say something like "I will always thoroughly research the issue and let the public know exactly where I stand and why", but in the end it still translates as "I am smarter than you, and you are very often wrong. I am 1337, you are a L4m3r.". Which may be true, but doesn't win votes. And again, a great number of people believe that their elected representatives are there to vote according to the majority's beliefs.

It may be true, but I don't see tons of historical evidence for elected representatives being especially 1337 or smart.

I attended a forum for candidates put on by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, where they described what you had to do to get elected. They basically stressed grassroots, grassroots and more grassroots. But they also made it clear that voters mostly look for someone with whom they share a broad agreement on fundamental values, and they spend very little time on deciding how to vote.

In any election there are only a few hot-button issues where voters care about the exact particulars of a candidate's position. After you form your response to those few issues, its just "character" all the rest of the way to the election.

What I draw from this is that, hot buttons aside, voters don't expect you to kowtow to their whims. They want to be able to ignore you and trust you'll do a good job for them.

xpost I suspect that most elected representatives in high up positions are at least of above average intelligence. And some of them are just whip smart.

It may be true, but I don't see tons of historical evidence for elected representatives being especially 1337 or smart.

I just meant that a politician who actually was deeply concerned about voting properly on the issues, even when that meant voting at odds with the district, and was willing to convey that to her constituents, would have a hard time being elected.

And Aimless, I agree with what you're saying as a description of what is. But I'm trying to figure out what should be, and not only what should be but also what is plausible. Most people, I think, would agree that a system where politicians bow to the will of their constituents on hot button issues, even when they're dead rong, and then vote on other issues based largely on future political advantage, is flawed.

Look at George Bush, fer crynig out loud.

But seriously, Dubya is both smarter than most people realize and much dumber than he thinks he is. The fact that he is borderline dyslexic and was a popular cheerleader provides a good clue to his strengthes and weaknesses.

That was an xpost, btw.

As to how to get from what is to what should be, the path leads through a long period of local grassroots organizing, development of talent, and creation of effective organizations to control elections. With much, much more emphasis on "local" than is currently the case.

as jefferson understood (and said many times), local democracy is really the only democracy worth the name. the farther away from your constituents you get, the less accountable you are to anyone.

i think kirk's dismissal of his own constituents' concerns as "narrow" is despicable. and inaccurate -- he wasn't elected "to serve the entire state," just that district. that's what representatives are FOR.

he wasn't elected "to serve the entire state," just that district. that's what representatives are FOR.

But that's where things get tricky. Kirk initially voted for the climate change bill because that's what he thought his district wanted. Later, he considered what he thought was the interests of the entire state of Illinois, and voted against it (totally rong because I'm pretty sure Illinois won't be exempt from the impacts of climate change, but whatever). But if he would consider the interests of the United States, he might change his mind again. And it's pretty clear that the world as a whole is in favor of strong climate legislation.

When Jefferson was advocating for local democracy, he wasn't living in a globalized world with instant international communication, economies intertwined across continents, and greenhouse gas emissions that are produced locally but impact globally.

The game has changed, and how that affects the way democracy works (or doesn't work, more accurately), I'm not sure.

It means this is why non-fish people better not make any long term plans imo.

Kirk initially voted for the climate change bill because that's what he thought his district wanted. Later, he considered what he thought was the interests of the entire state of Illinois, and voted against it (totally rong because I'm pretty sure Illinois won't be exempt from the impacts of climate change, but whatever). But if he would consider the interests of the United States, he might change his mind again. And it's pretty clear that the world as a whole is in favor of strong climate legislation.

surely this is what the federal structure of the united states is meant to do — balance the wishes of citizens at the local level against the needs of the country as a whole. but it kind of gets mucked up if representatives start trying to 'represent' the whole country against the explicit wishes of their constituents. i'm not saying that they shouldn't take the bigger picture into account -- it's the "narrow interests" quote that irks me.

Arundhati Roy raises some interesting questions, although she offers no answers..

The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasized into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximizing profit?

Is it possible to reverse this process? Can something that has mutated go back to being what it used to be? What we need today, for the sake of the survival of this planet, is long-term vision. Can governments whose very survival depends on immediate, extractive, short-term gain provide this? Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race? Could it be that democracy is such a hit with modern humans precisely because it mirrors our greatest folly -- our nearsightedness?

To go back to the original question...

What is the duty of an elected representative? To vote according to the will of the people she or he represents? Or to vote according to what she or he believes to be right?

I reckon it could be either of these, but the only true judge of an elected representative's duty are the people who vote for him or her.

Any party system usually explicitly works against democratic ideals and local interests, and in Ireland particularly it's the one aspect of political reality that leaves me feeling that nothing significant will change for the better in my lifetime.

I'm not sure about the intrinsic anti-democraticness of political parties. I think they are probably necessary for elections to be about anything bigger than the most parochial of issues.

Maybe elections being about anything bigger than parochial issues is anti-democratic. At least we needn't assume that the utility or inevitabilty of large political parties makes them good or democratic.

I voted for [cap-and-trade] because it was in the narrow interests of my congressional district. But as your representative representing the entire state of Illinois, I will vote no on that bill coming up and that’s because we are a manufacturing, agriculture, and coal state and that’s a path I think we need to build.

This strikes me as exceedingly weasely. Did he change jobs in the interrim?

I think the real question raised here is a much narrower one - is a congressman supposed to vote the narrow interests of his district or those of his entire state?

(does anyone else get annoyed by the not-inaccurate-but-misleading equivalence often drawn between "congressman" and "representative"?)

https://www.mikelofgren.net/1-percents-contempt-democracy/