Political Science

Lesson 12 Overview

This lesson will consider the possible shapes that political landscape can take based on the combination of democratic institutions adopted in a country. Since the types of political institutions do not change regularly, the possibilities these institutions create make a difference in a country’s political conditions. Political landscape can include the manner in which citizens are represented, whether and which citizens are able to influence politics, and how policies are made. The two major systems that we will examine are majoritarian and consensus views of democracy. We will then review different types of representation and examine the implications of these for the voters’ interests.

 Upon completing this lesson, you should be able to:

Explain majoritarian and consensus visions of democracy

Identify impact of political systems on accountability, government mandates, and representation

 For this lesson, please read/view the following in this order:

Clark et al chapter 16, pages 703-726 [textbook]

Consider this while reading: How would different types of political representation look under majoritarian and consensus systems?

L12 Two Visions of Democracy

One way of looking at how political systems emerge and function is to think of them as group decision making processes. For instance, when a country is deciding the type trade policy they will adopt, the decision is not about a person. It impacts everyone in the group (i.e. country) directly or indirectly. In smaller groups such as a group of friends or a family, it is feasible for each member of the group to be actively involved in decision making. In a large company or country, systems are put in place to facilitate decision making. In this sense, democracy is a system that is expected to allow representation of the group members’ interests in the decision making process. As we have seen in previous lessons, democratic institutions vary greatly, generating similarly varied outcomes. In the next two lessons, we will review some of the outcomes of various democratic institutional structures.Arrow’s theorem elaborates on the potential goals of group decision-making processes. The theorem states there is a fundamental tension between stability, fairness, and freedom of actors to determine their own preferences. According to this theorem, only two of these conditions can be satisfied at a given time. For instance, if you want to have stability you either have to compromise on fairness or on freedom of actors to determine their own preferences. You might place restrictions on the types of preferences people can have. Alternatively, you might limit who can make proposals or influence decisions. While it is possible at a given time and place these three conditions can be satisfied, the theorem argues such a state is not guaranteed.An examination of democratic systems show that constitutional designers tended to structure political institutions based on one of two visions of democracy:

(a) majoritarian vision with centralized power, and

(b) consensus vision with power dispersed among different branches of government.

Majoritarian vision of democracy includes systems in which politicians elected by a majority have concentrated control over policy making. Voters are able to react to politicians’ actions when elections are held. The representatives are elected to enact their policy promises. This model of representation is referred to as the delegate model of representation. The representatives are expected to act purely as agents of the citizens. Their policy decisions are to match those of the citizens they represent. Note that this does not necessarily mean they act as agents of the citizens. The system is set up with the underlying idea that the representatives will enact the policies they are there to enact (i.e. those policies preferred by the majority that elected the representatives). Institutions in majoritarian vision of democracy are designed to maximize clarity of responsibility and accountability.Under the consensus vision of democracy, the representatives are expected to be a reflection of the composition of the citizens. That is, political institutions are structured such that as many different groups in the society as possible are represented. The representatives are on the basis they will enact policies that the citizens would prefer. But these do not have to be predetermined or as clearly identifiable as they in the delegate model of representative. This type of representation is referred to as the trustee model of representation.The institutional structure of the country is mainly determined by the electoral system, the party system, and the type of government. Even though each of these institutions could theoretically be chosen to reflect the majoritarian or consensus visions of democracy separately, they tend to converge on one or the other. This is partially because these institutions influence each other. For instance, different electoral systems tend to result in different party systems. Under a majoritarian electoral system, the party systems tend to be composed of two major parties that compete for the elected seats.

L12 Political Representation

Under democratic systems, one of the most important issues is the concept of political representation. People’s ability to influence policy making is central to democracy. Influencing policy making is not possible without representation in the various institutions that make those policies. Now, we will take a look at how we can conceptualize representation. While there are different ways of viewing representation, we will consider Hanna Pitkin’s (1967) definitions of various types of representation to be consistent with Clark et (2017). Pitkin talks about four different types of representation:

Formalistic representation

Descriptive representation

Symbolic representation

Substantive representation

Formalistic representation: How are the representatives authorized and held accountable?

Authorization and accountability of the representatives depend on how they come to power. In majoritarian systems, the majority determines which representatives are elected and re-elected when applicable. As such, representation of the majority takes the central role. On the other hand, in consensus systems, being supported by the majority may not bring a candidate to power since the system is constructed such that it includes as many facets of the population as possible. Consensus institutions tend to favor multiparty systems, which tends of result in the legislative power being divided among multiple parties. As such, multiple actors’ preferences are represented.For formalistic representation to work, the citizens should be able to hold the representatives accountable. Accountability in this context refers to the voters’ ability to punish/reward representatives based on their actions while they are in office. The voters do this using their votes during elections. Since representatives first need to be in office for the citizens to use their votes to hold them accountable, this is called retrospective voting. In order for the citizens to be able to hold their representative accountable using their votes, there needs to be clarity of responsibility. That is, voters should be able to identify whether their representatives kept their promises and which representatives did/did not keep their promises.

Descriptive representation: Do the representatives “resemble” their constituents?

This type of representation refers to whether the elected representatives include people who carry the characteristics of the population they represent. These characteristics include gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and class. The idea is that having representatives who match the socioeconomic characteristics of a group will lead to the proper representation of these groups’ interests. Electoral systems that employ quotas for specific groups rely on this view of representation. For instance, a country might have an electoral quota that requires at least 10% of the elected representatives to be women. This ensures that women as a group are represented in the elected institutions by other women. Of course, this idea of representation relies on the assumption that the elected women representatives will be representative of women as a group. Merits and pitfalls of descriptive representation are a source of debate in the political science literature.

Symbolic representation: Do the representatives “stand for” their constituents?

This type of representation is similar to descriptive representation but it does not require the representatives to actually have the socioeconomic characteristics of the constituents. Politicians may identify themselves with a particular group even if they do not belong to that group. For instance, a member of a minority racial/ethnic group may claim to represent all the minority racial/ethnic groups in a country. More commonly, politicians may claim to represent the poor even if they are not poor themselves.

Substantive representation: Do the representatives act in a way that represents a particular group?

In contrast to descriptive and substantive representation, substantive representation focuses on whether the representatives actually enact the preferences of their constituents. In this sense, this view of representation takes the other forms of representation a step further to ask whether the intentions of representatives that are descriptively or symbolically similar to their constituents are actually realized. Many political scientists consider substantive representation to be the ultimate type of representation. For instance, if there are some number of women in a legislature (descriptive representation) but they are not enacting laws that protect the rights of women in general, women are not substantively represented in the legislature. Note that substantive representation does not require a particular groups’ interests to be protected by a representative from that group. Representatives of any group can represent people’s interests. The only requirement for substantive representation is ideological congruence. If the representatives carry the preferences of the citizens they represent, we can say that the representatives and citizens have ideological congruence. However, voters can also gain substantive representation if the representatives adopt their behavior based on the voters’ preferences (ideological responsiveness)

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