4 - An Evolved Representative Democracy in a Brave New World of Ideological Protest

Summary

Our scholarly understanding of “representative democracy” is often defined by two major actors: voters and the representatives they elect. This two-way interaction of democratic governance has its perils. And the critiques of this type of governance have been multifaceted. Just to name a few, not all members of the public have an opportunity to engage in the electoral process to elect representatives. In addition, elected officials of representative democracies often ignore minority concerns in the hope to capture majoritarian preferences voiced by voters. Robert Dahl (1989) astutely points out that there is actually no nation that meets all the requirements of a true democracy, which should consist of inclusiveness, enlightened understanding, equal participation, equal say, and citizens’ control of the agenda. What many nations have managed to achieve is representative democracy – an inferior second choice. Others have encouraged an expansion of our understanding of representation. Saward (2006), for example, argues that the acceptance or rejection of representative claims provides another way for scholars to understand representation that moves beyond elections and political parties.