Can the Western form of government really be called representative democracy?

Great Debates
1

So, I’m thinking: political movements, theory, systems, and engagement have always been adapting, evolving, and changing throughout history. Can Western democracy nowadays reasonably be called representative democracy?

Three examples from different countries, deliberately omitting the USA because I’m sick to death of US partisan bickering:
-Western government efforts towards starting a war with Iraq met with record-breaking protests. As in, the February 2003 protests apparently led to the biggest protest in London’s history (up to 1mn), and the biggest anti-war protest in history (Rome, 3mn). The West went to war anyway. The cockup was compounded as, even when the justifications were shown to be bollocks and the opponents outnumbered the supporters of the war and subsequent occupation, governments and some pundits continued to use the justification “we broke it, so now we have to stay there and fix it”.
-The second-biggest party in the Danish government coalition, SF, ran on a campaign that included promises of a reduction of at least 20% in public transport costs to the customer. News came out today that public transport costs will rise by 3.1% next year. Public transport is subsidised by government, so the government’s budget has the power to decrease transport costs; Denmark has the world’s highest tax burden, so it’s not like there’s a lack of funding (hell, the royal family will receive even more money from taxpayers in the new budget); and as one of the major players in the government coalition, SF had the power to promote their major campaign promise in the budget. They did not.
-The British Liberal Democrat party campaign had opposition to tuition fees for university students as one of its main pillars. Once in government – one of the first movements towards a multiparty system in the UK as opposed to the two-party system of recent decades – they joined the Conservative party in voting for an increase in tuition fees.

So: is the West largely living in representative democracies? I would argue, hell no. I get the impression that all governments are trapped in trying to balance interests: public interests on one side, and “what must be done” on the other. So you have conflicts of interest like the following:
Let’s not waste lives and money on a pointless and unjustified war VS We have to go to war to preserve the alliance with, and friendship of, the US
The deadbeat Greeks can bugger off and solve their own damn problems VS We have obligations to the Eurozone/We have to protect irresponsible domestic banks to keep the economic system oiled/Maintaining a close European community in both good times and bad, even with morons, is an end in itself
Let the banks foot the bill for their irresponsible behaviour VS If we let our banks go bankrupt, our economic system might be taken over by foreign banks instead; if we introduce a Tobin tax, banking and investment will flee to countries without one

I’d argue that these conflicts of interest are an insurmountable problem. If our representatives fought only for the majority popular interests, the morons would win even more often (e.g. free health care with low taxes would be popular, but unsustainable); and if government ruled only according to what may be the best policy, it would often run counter to public opinion (e.g. let’s raise the pension age to 70), not to mention the colossal potential for corruption or dictatorship. By trying to run this balance, it seems that government policies based on popular opinion are either social issues (gay marriage or prohibition of same, abortion) or where an issue is opposed because it’s politically harmful in the short term, but would be beneficial in the long term (nuclear energy), so that only subsequent governments would benefit. The main policies passed – generally economic, on generally rational principles – are then debated and signed into law by people who are not experts, and who are often career politicians with little real-world experience. Government is then also run for short-term apparent benefit instead of long-term results (e.g. various countries supporting housing bubbles because it seems great now).

I’d also note that proposals for democracy that I’m familiar with (e.g. Rousseau’s), and Aristotle’s polity, tend to be proposed only for small states or communities; fair representation doesn’t have any reasonable way to work in a country the size of Brazil, for example, while in the Swiss cantons there is much more direct involvement – and a real chance of reflecting the popular will without being watered down by diversity.

I don’t know of a fair way to fix the system, assuming we can’t just break all states down into smaller, autonomous, bits. Perhaps by having elections be for selecting policy priorities by popular will rather than for electing rulers or representatives, while professionals run the government (Belgium, that fictional conspiracy of cartographers, seems to have done fine the last year or two without a government, with the public servants running things on their own), with the military as a semi-independent force subject to some kind of election system to keep the government machine honest? No idea.

Lots of ways this debate can go and develop. What do you all think?

2

So? Perhaps more people were not opposed to war?

So? It’s a coalition government. The Lib Dems clearly thought it not worth breaking the coalition over this matter. Politics is the art of the possible. And the Coalition isn’t a movement towards a multi-party system. IMO they want power, that’s all

I can’t speak for elsewhere but here in the U.K., it seems to me that we now have a professional political class. Precious few of the current leadership of either major party have had a significant career outside politics.

3

I think you answered your own question. We do have representative democracy. Representative just means we elect “representative” instead of voting directly. The representatives aren’t necessarily supposed to do exactly what the people want. Sometimes, they must do what they think is best for the country even if it is counter to popular opinion. The risk is for them being thrown out in the next election.

What system do you propose that is better?

n.b.: In the US, we have the complications of a federal system where states are given equal status in some instances and the popular vote in others. That makes it much harder to get things done, even if there is a popular mandate to do so. This is a feature, not a bug.

4

I know you said you didn’t want to talk about US, but originally, US system was set up (at least in principle) brilliantly (IMO) to work in the best manner by basically setting up N (today N=50) political laboratories which would compete with each other in a loosely federal setup, and the systems that would win (that is, work the best) would supposedly be imitated and duplicated by others, or the people would vote with their feet.

Of course, that brave experiment ended when the federal government monster gobbled up all states’ functions, resulting in current mess.

5

Represent democracy is NOT mob rule, democracy to truly work must work within constitutional boundaries.

6

Representative democracy is a PC term for oligarchy.

But even theoretically speaking, where representatives take up the torch “for the people,” there’s this idea that 300 million people of varying interests spread over a continent can be helped by this or that broad policy. And whose aims could change dramatically every couple years on a whim. That’s bananas. Which is why no one does that.

7

No. You lose the democracy part if the elected do what they want and not what the people want. Again, the word represent means to speak for someone, which means they have to say what we would say.

Voting people out is our way of punishing those people who violate this.

8

You’re ignoring the “representative” part. We elect them, and if we don’t like what they do we elect someone else. That’s the “democracy” part. If elected officials had to “say what we would say” there would be no point holding elections, just go with mob rule.

9

So, you’d say that we in the US have a two and a quarter century tradition of electing oligarchs? And our friends on the other side of the pond have been electing oligarchs for centuries as well? I’d say the term “oligarchy” kind of loses its sting if the alleged oligarchs are subject to voter approval every couple of years. It’s like calling me a slave, even though I’m paid a good salary and I can leave my job at any time.

I am reminded, however, of the quote about democracy being the idea that the people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

10

No. You lose the democracy part when you can’t vote them out of office.

That’s one definition, but not the only definition.

Yes and no. It’s also about bringing other people in who we think will do a better job.

11

Representatives are supposed to represent our interests and not our opinions. If we wanted someone to represent our opinions the representatives could be replaced by pollsters. Representatives were supposed to be a specialized person who could devote enough time to have intelligent opinions on the issues. The trouble is that our society has become so complex that our representatives are as incompetent as the citizens they represent.

When I think about issues like climate change, the number of members of Congress that would have an intelligent opinion on the issue could meet in a phone booth. At best, members of Congress are prisoners of their own staff, or even worse, dependent on the last lobbyist who got to them. The real decisions are coming from people who are not accountable to the electorate.

In Europe it is even worse. Since the formation of the European Union, most of the decision-making authority is shifted away from the national governments to the bureaucrats in Brussels. Even individual states are so dependent on their own bureaucrats that the actual representatives of the people are almost irrelevant.

I do not know of any real solution to this problem. The best idea I have is to shift as much decision-making authority away the national and supranational authorities and shift it down to the state and local level. Frankly there are too many issues that are decided at the national level, that would the better off being decided at the local and state level.

12

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13

It would help immensely here, Toffe, if you would provide us an example – in the world today, preferably – of something you consider real representative democracy.

14

The last time I went to vote, I had to choose between candidates who each promised some things I would like, and others that I wouldn’t. I also knew full well that they had limited ability to deliver on their “promises”, sometimes because they were vague, sometimes because the promises were mathematically impossible when taken together, and sometimes because the individual politician has only so much power. I chose the candidates that I thought had the best combination of promises, credibility, and character that I could find, but also considered party loyalty, because if the particular Republican is closes to my interests, he is going to still vote the party line most of the time, and if the Republicans get control of the house or senate, they are going to have control of the agenda, not my RINO.

There was no contract signed when I voted.

If I don’t like the totality of what the politician does in office, I can vote him out in two, four, five or six years. Assuming that there is someone I think will do better. Unless what he does is so objectionable that impeachment or recall is a possibility.

This is the essence of representative democracy. If you want to have a voice in every decision, you will need to vote a million times a day, and process a lot more information than any human being could. That would be direct democracy. I don’t think the twenty-odd people in my department at my work could set up the holiday luncheon menu by direct democracy.

15

If that’s so, then would switching to that “pollster” option make things better or worse?

16

Fine. Then congress should pass SOPA, since it’s what they wanted, even though it was not what the people wanted.

The idea is that we elect people to represent us and then we tell them what we think. We don’t vote on every little thing because not every little thing is important to us. We do share our opinions of what we want, and we threaten to vote them out if they don’t listen to us.

If you say that congress should do what they want, you give up all ability to have any criticisms of what they do. That is not democracy.

I honesty cannot understand this mindset that congress people are somehow better people who get to decide for the rest of us what we want. It honestly sickens me.

17

No one is saying that Congress should “do what they want”. We’re saying that sometimes our representatives have to put their judgement about what is best for the country above what the people are saying they want. Sometimes, not all the time. And, because it is democracy, they risk getting booted out if the people don’t like what they do.

Maybe you can’t understand it because no one is saying that.

18

Thanks, all, for the input. Sorry if I have been and might still be a bit absent in this discussion, I’m having a busy week for jobhunting, research, and things.

The discussion around how to even define the “representative” in representative democracy is interesting – compare (A) John Mace’s statement that representatives sometimes “must do what they think is best for the country even if it is counter to popular opinion” vs. (B) BigT’s “the word represent means to speak for someone, which means they have to say what we would say”. The cynical side of me suggests that this is a fundamental flaw in modern speechifying about “representative democracy”; that is, when a Danish politician runs on the platform of reducing public transport costs, they can claim that Danish democracy falls under heading (B) – while, when the same politician then decides to toss that policy because of a perceived need for further austerity, they can claim (A). In other words, it might be great to have government run by expert professionals who aren’t slaves to popular opinion (Aristotle and Plato thought so, among others; I agree, but then I’m cynical about democracy), but in our system today we select our rulers on the basis of a popularity contest based on policies that they likely won’t fulfil, because of the (A) and (B) discrepancy above.

So, voting out the unsuccessful, ineffective, or “unrepresentative” officials is what makes it democracy: OK, sure. But that strikes me as an enormously inefficient system. If politicians renege on the policies that played a significant role in their election – e.g. the British Lib Dems with tuition fees, or the Danish SF with their reduction in public transport costs – and whose constituents thus no longer feel represented by them, then their voters have no way of feeling represented until the next election 4-6 years later, when the exact same potential problem arises (i.e. their replacement might be no better). That’s not democracy, that’s roulette. If representative democracy should mean selecting the experts who will be best at running the country/state/city/whatever, it shouldn’t be a popularity contest based on issues, but should be based on qualifications. That’s why I suggested the possibility of having elections to select the policies to be pursued by government instead of selecting officials, and then letting civil servants carry out that mandate. (Yes, I’m well aware that such a system has its own host of problems.)

So, at the moment, perhaps we have the worst of both worlds - we pick our “representatives” based on their claiming to support the policies we care about; and when in government, they only actually rule based on their own ideas of what’s best for the country (independent of the policies they claimed to support in the election), and aren’t even necessarily good at or qualified for that job.

Honestly, I can’t say. I’m interested in this discussion because I think there’s an enormous difference between political theory (how to set up and run a political system) and political practise, and I think there always has been. In the case of the political philosophers’ systems that I’ve studied a bit – Plato’s republic, Aristotle’s polity, Rousseau’s notion of democracy, Marx’s communism, and so on – I think not a single one has ever really been implemented. In political theory, while there are colossal arguments about exactly what constitutes a “democracy”, the notion is generally that it’s a system of government that serves to carry out the will of the people. In modern government, “carrying out the will of the people” has been watered down to simply meaning popular elections of officials every few years, with next to no influence in between.

But I should give you some kind of answer: the most “representative democracy” system I’m aware of off the top of my head is Switzerland. Most decisions are handled in the cantons; new policies are put to popular vote in direct democracy; and the national government is limited in scope and restricted in policy choices, to avoid overruling the wills of people in the cantons. Even so, it’s not a great example because of the considerable use of direct democracy as opposed to representative democracy. As I suggested in the OP, and like Rousseau wrote, democracy just won’t work in a big society. I believe that if societies really wanted to implement representative democracy, they’d have to let government be handled mainly on the municipal and (small) state level, with the higher levels serving only to coordinate common interests (e.g. several neighbouring cities/states joining expenses on health care, say, to decrease the cost for everyone)

Once again, that comes with its own host of problems – e.g. why would the state of São Paulo, which produces a third of the GDP of Brazil, want to associate with the poor but populous North-eastern states if they could avoid it? So that boils down into politics of social justice, which can conflict with democracy. I’m not arguing whether democracy is in itself “good” or that our current system can be made “better”; I just want to get a debate going on whether we can reconcile the political theory that our governments claim to espouse with the actual political practise.

19

As already noted, that statement by BigT is factually incorrect. This is not simply a matter of opinion. Just look the word up in the dictionary. That definition is one of many, and there is no reason to focus only on that particular definition.

If all that representatives did was mirror the exact opinion polls of the constituents (if it’s even possible to know that), then there would be no need for the representative, and we would just have direct democracy. This is civics 101.

20

Well? Statescritters are not responsible to living up to or within the systems of philosophers, they are responsible for getting a whole lot of necessary-to-the-public-interest-or-somebody’s-anyway jobs done. It is the philosophers’ job to study the statescritters and learn from their observations, is it not?

Democracy could be made more democratic, perhaps, by being made multipartisan, see electoral fusion, instant-runoff voting, and proportional representation. As to how that would change the public-government relationship, well, that would depend on how the new parties (left and right) that get in want to change it and how successful they are. Is that the sort of thing you’re asking about?