'Political Representation Essay\r'

'Today, in countries which postulate part country as a var. of verbalize, ordinary citizens befuddle the right to hotshot man- whizz select and thus they, in regular elections, vote for a goern custodytal netdidate or a policy-making party which they want to be their profess exemplar. This form of evoke is called ‘re expressative democracy’ or ‘modern constitutional representative administration’ or politicsal stylus in oecumenic. Nowadays, the legitimacy and control of the representative government is regarded as issuanceing from its be an facet of the will of the mess.\r\nHowever, this limitedion as the source of the actoritative authorization for overt acts is indirect: citizens transfer it to their representatives as in considerati one(a)diaries. The representatives as intermediaries argon those who make the masses’s will present on its behalf. Thus, policy-making archetype has its theoretical escape two policy-ma king actors: the citizens or the spate and the representative. This dodge of policy-making federal agency which looks simplex actually has many governmental implications for semipolitical actors and processes.\r\nMy last- egress paper is implicated with exploring what the modern terminology of political marrow means and what implications it involves. As Hanna F. Pitkin, Allen P. Griffiths show, the conceptual analysis of the vagary of mission, or the distinction between the several(prenominal) wizs of theatrical, is very helpful for avoiding equivocations in the word ‘representation’. Griffiths posits foursome senses of representation. The first is descriptive representation, in which one some proboscis represents a nonher by being sufficiently like him or her.\r\nThe second is symbolic representation, in which persons can represent or embody traditions and liven up of things without having any particular personal qualities: so the flag represents the s tate, even though the flag itself does non predicate the character of the state. Third, ascriptive representation, like the relation between the app give the axeage of parliament and his or her constituents, means to represent in the sense that what the representative does or settles commits those he or she represents. Fourth, pieces of parliament may invariably concern themselves with the followings of their decl ar electors against any early(a)wise interests.\r\nThis is representation of interests (Griffiths, pp. 188-190). The distinctions between these four senses of representation provide us with a starting time betoken for understanding what representation means. There is a certain idea common to the various senses of the term representation: a reflection of something in the place of that thing. The common idea of representation applies at bottom the political sphere in the sense that the basic stratagem of political representation is the nonion of one person st anding in place of a nonher for the act of familiar acts.\r\nThe 18th and the nineteenth century European inferers, Edmund hit and Jeremy Bentham, contri excepted to the establishment of the theorization of political representation as a dominant political come. They, albeit with variant emphases and arguments, were interested in how it is appropriate or assert qualified for the community to plight their interests in a confederation, and how representative government must(prenominal) employ to be a government for the well-being of all people.\r\nTo address these issues, they investigated who was to be the representative, who was to be the represented and how their relationship was to be naturalised and maintained. I will start with off’s imagine of politics or government, a starting point from which to approach his conceit of political representation. correspond to hit, politics or government is basically a matter of trust. The essence of this trust lies in the consummation of world precedent being for the ultimate benefit of those over whom it is exercise, and hence in being in the end accountable to them.\r\nWhen the exercise of political power is contrary to this initial purpose, it loses its legitimacy: That all political power which is set over men, and that all privilege claimed or exercised in exclusion of them, being wholly artificial, and for so much a derogation from the natural equating of mankind at large, ought to be some way or other exercised ultimately for their benefit…. If it is avowedly with regard to two species of political dominion….\r\n then much(prenominal) rights, or privileges, or whatever you choose to call them, atomic number 18 all in the strictest sense a trust; and it is of the very essence of every trust to be rendered accountable; even altogether to cease, when it substantially varies from the purposes for which it alone could have a observant existence. ( polish off, 1783) As vi ewed in this passage, for Burke all political power is exercised by soul to the exclusion of someone else. However, the exclusive exercise of power is not for the particular group which has the power precisely for the benefit of those who place that power to it.\r\nThis act of trust is a result of the voluntary will of the people. match to Burke politics, and in particular the constitution of the state and the due distribution of its power, requires a deep intimacy of humane nature, human necessities and various elements necessary for the operation of the mechanism of genteel institutions. Politics is a matter of the most overdelicate and complicated skill, not to be taught a priori (Burke, p. 124). due(p) to this inherently professional character of politics, Burke theme that only people with reason and judgment had the contentedness to engage in politics to control the state for the benefit for all people.\r\nHe entrustd that this was the way to fasten the true inte rests of people. To this end, in Burke’s view the representative must be created to act on their behalf. Burke’s representatives, who are distinguished from men in oecumenical above all by being equipped to participate in public functions, have two main tasks to actualize for their constituents: one is to act on behalf of men in familiar because of the latter’s in susceptibility, the other is to act on behalf of the public in tack together to defend the interests of both.\r\n unneurotic with Burke’s acceptance of the contrasting social roles of men and the public and their essentially conventional basis, this interpretation of the representatives’ task lays him open to the criticism that those definitions of the roles and the tasks in practice only strengthen the predominant class in conjunction (Bart, 1972: p. 360). From Burke’s cause point of view, however, the one-on-one may all too much be scatty but the species is wise and a cts rightly. Therefore, for Burke the species itself to which men and the public each belong both deserves and needs to be protected by the mental home of the representatives.\r\nThis is why he insists that a representative or parliament is necessary to act as a guardian of a privilege. To defend individual interests within a civil society, a representative must not only be committed to their defense, but also he must be able to judge accurately what their interests really are. For Burke, a member of parliament is not a simple depute for the electors, but a representative authorized by his or her constituents to exercise his independent judgment to their behalf.\r\nThus, for Burke the judgment of interests of the individual and society is made not by the electors, but by the representative who has knowledge, reason, honorable insight and commitment which is not reducible to anyone’s particular interests. In analyzing political representation, even if Burke insists on the n eed for the creation of the representative by the reason of the ordinary man’s drop of knowledge and practical ability for politics, he does not deny that the square people is supreme author of political power.\r\nIn making representatives the members of a state must aim to secure their interests according to their portions in a society, which is, in Burke’s view, simply a requirement of justice. At this point, Burke is concerned with the modern understanding of political representation: the scheme of political representation aims to strive for the public ripe(p). barely Burke, unlike most other more late major interpreters of political representation, is far from accepting the integral equality of the represented when he sets out what is touch on in the selection of the representative.\r\nBurke’s idea of political representation is developed in diverse ways by various thinkers afterwards him. I will now explore how J. Bentham addresses these issues. B entham’s idea of political representation emanated directly from his normal philosophical position. That is, just as Bentham’s philosophy, politics and sociology are based on the greatest happiness principle, so we can trace his idea of political representation to be same fundamental source (Bentham, 1983: p. 2).\r\nFor Bentham a society is the total assemblage of self-interested individuals, and the public interest in a society is nothing other than the sum of the interests of the individuals. Bentham’s distinctive view of society is, unlike Burke’s, is founded on the assumption that an individual is the best judge concerning what his or her interest is (Bentham, p. 12). Therefore, when they pursue their interest respectively without relying on exterior criteria such as the judgments of the more capable men, society’s prevalent interest can and will be obtained.\r\nBentham’s view, which interprets individuals as the best judge of their ow n interests, extends to the standing of the individual in the sphere of politics. According to Bentham, sovereignty in a state is exercised by the constitutive authority (Ibid, p. 25). The constitutive authority, to which all other authorities of the state are subordinate, resides in the whole body of electors. Thus, Bentham sees that when public decisions are the expression of the thoughts and feelings of the public, the general interest in a state is not separated from the particular interest of its individual citizens.\r\nThe general interest cannot be launch without direct beginning to individual interest. In the process, Bentham notices the occasional conflicts between the general interest and the individual interest. With his belief in the people, Bentham maintains that the succeeder or failure of representative government depends not on the people but on the representative, because mend the people have the moral and political capability to sustain their polity, the repres entatives tend to have ‘sinister interests’ which are harmful to representative democracy (Bentham, p. 70).\r\nTo the end of the prosperous working of the representative organisation, Bentham emphasizes the power and importance of public smell as follows: familiar opinion may be considered as a system of law, emanating from the body of the people…. To the pernicious exercise of the power of government it is the only check; to the beneficial, an indispensable supplement. Able rulers three it; prudent rulers lead or follow it; foolish rulers disregard it (Bentham, p. 36). For Bentham, public opinions are formed by aggregate of the opinions of the members of society, and are not a stainless echo of government or professional politicians.\r\nPublic opinion made in this way is not corruptible. Bentham’s trust in public opinion as the determinant factor in carry matters to a conclusion is specifically shown in the device of the public opinion tribunal. Be lieving that the people’s voice, not the capability of the representative, is the social force stinkpot the successful operation of representative government, Bentham argues that the settlement of conflicts and disputes in a society can be do by means of continuous attention to what the people think and what they want.\r\nBentham thinks that the problems and tensions in making the representative government work lie more with the rulers whose interests could not be always assumed to be identical with the interests of the people. Hence, he established many institutional devices to enable the representative to perform their roles properly in the interest of the whole people. For example, Bentham’s conception of secret suffrage as a method of voting aims to make it a vindication against the abuse of power (Bentham, p. 186).\r\nIn addition, such devices imply the ‘temporary non-relocability system’ of the legislature, the ‘p.o. t. ’ and the â €˜legislation penal bench’ (Bentham, pp. 72-91). Through these devices, Bentham tried to make the representatives accountable to the represented. By doing so, he sought to ensure that the represented the people remained as the political actor qualified to decide the matters in a state even after setting up representatives. For him, the importance of the representative system does not only lie in it being a great security for good government, but also in its placing sovereign power in the hands of the people continuously.\r\nThis is the central point of his causa for political representation as machinery for good government for the greatest numbers of individuals in a state. resultant Believing that representative government would enable the people to pursue their public interests effectively and representative democracy would thus be a desirable form of state, Burke and Bentham tried to address the theoretical justifications or representative government and its practical problems in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Burke’s conception of political representation was essentially based on a conception of a trusteeship.\r\nAlthough Burke mentions the prevalence of the people in the ultimate resolutions in major conflicts, his conception of a healthy viable practice of political representation commits him to a politics of trust on which the people is compelled to depend. Bentham’s validation of the idea of political representation is developed very differently from Burke’s. By presuming every person’s entitlement to power in a state, Bentham maintains that the people have the knowledge and ability to judge public affairs for themselves.\r\nNevertheless, the people employ a representative to act on its behalf as a matter of convenience. Bentham does not believe that the representative can run the government remediate than the people, because the representative does not process moral and political capabilities superior to the people. Accordingly, for Bentham, the representative is a delegate to express the public opinion, wishes and feeling, which is a way to promote the general interest in a state.\r\nI suggest that political representation must be mute not so much in the hurt of a particular relationship based on the theoretical justification for viewing the people and the representative as the main political actors, but by means of a broader and more all-encompassing conception of the political process. Today discussion of more fundamental elements in political representation seen as a scheme for public action is almost non-existent. The problem is not only that we have not posed the questions seriously, but also that we are quite unable to serve well them convincingly.\r\nThe theory of political representation is at present in a very feeble condition. despite intense interest in practical issues of political representation, the term political representation itself has been poorly and inadeq uately understood. Without a fuller understanding of political representation than we at present have, the main emphasis of political representation narrows to technical issues of the rational pursuit and forward of particular interests and of elections as a means of allotting of power.\r\nI do not deny that in coeval politics we need to analyze how interests are distributed among groups if we are to grasp what is actually happening. But in order to assess how and how far representative government can reasonably be expected to produce good government, we must recognize that there is more to political representation than the instrumental and fundamental pursuit of cloth interests.\r\nOtherwise, as is demonstrated by the way in which our contemporary discussions about political representation have in practice been carried on, representative democracy plant life less as a substitute for customary self-rule than as a mechanism through which a given population of a society can in pra ctice pursue their interests effectively. This means that we must learn to understand political representation not in narrow terms of the responsiveness of the particular relationship between two political actors, but more through a comprehensive conception of the political process as a whole.\r\nBibliography Bentham, J. ‘Constitutional Code’ in The Collected full treatment of Jeremy Bentham, ed. F. Rosen and J. H. Burns (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) Burke, E. Writings and Speeches, ed. L. G. Mitchell, Vol. 8 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) Burke, E. The Works of the overcompensate Honorable Edmund Burke, ed. W. King and F. Laurence (London: Rivington, 1826-7) Griffiths, A. P. (1960) â€Å"How Can One psyche Represent Another? ” Aristotelian Society, Supplementary.\r\n'