Political representation in American thought

Résumé du document

Modern democracies are definitely linked to the concept of representation. We do not have any democracy which operates without resorting to representative governance. This principle is solely the fact of our modern times, it seems to have been necessary every time human being tried to implement a democratic system within a nation or a country, "pure democracy" has never been experimented by reason of the incapacity in conciliating the individual and the people.

This system requires autonomy and a specialization of the political sphere, thereby it results a strict division between the governed and the rulers. The political scientist Hanna Pitkin gives us maybe the clearest definition of what is the political representation: "taken generally, [it] means the making present in some sense of something which is nevertheless not present or in fact." On this definition, representation is the activity of making citizens' voices, choices and wishes present in the public policy making processes. In this manner, Hanna Pitkin discerns two aspects of the representative: making present an absent object and acting for it. So, the representatives are the people and can act for the people.

Extraits

[...] When the Founding Fathers were in the middle of the constitutional debate, the question of the representation came to light. Two different models were in opposition, we can merely distinguish them in the division Federalist/Anti-Federalist. The Anti-Federalist defended the idea of a representation like reflection of the people[6]. They confessed the requirement of a representative system as an alternative for direct democracy, where all citizens meet together to decide policy (like in the Greek model, where citizens meet together in the Agora to discuss about political issues, it was an essential feature of the antique city). [...]

[...] Global Support for Democratic Governance, Oxford, Oxford University Press * Pitkin Hanna, The concept of representation Berkeley, The University of California Press * Schumpeter Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy * Storing, Herbert J. What the Anti-Federalists Were for: The Political Thought of the Opponents of the Constitution. (Volume 1 of The Complete Anti-Federalist) p Website references * http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/ * http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/papers/durand1.htm Cliff Durand, Democracy and Struggles for Social Justice, Morgan University. * http://www.historycarper.com/resources/articles/jamsotis.htm * The James Madison Center website: http://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/home.htm * Proportional Representation Library: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm * Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/political-representation/ Hanna Pitkin, The concept of representation, p Perry Miller, The New England Mind esp. [...]

[...] The concept of political representation comprises many dimensions. We cannot discuss of political representation without taking in account several relevant notions as political competence, delegation, and selection and so on. The main point in this essay is to find out how the political representation is articulated in the American thought. Indeed political representation analysis is particularly relevant in the case of the United-America if we take in account that it was the first genuine representative democracy. We will analyse from the colonial America to nowadays how the idea of representation has been understood by the American society. [...]

[...] chap. xiv p 423. V. L. Parrington: The Colonial Mind p 46-47. Bishop, History of Elections, pp 69-86. http://www.historycarper.com/resources/articles/jamsotis.htm Storing, Herbert J. What the Anti-Federalists Were for: The Political Thought of the Opponents of the Constitution. [...]

[...] What's more, the Anti-Federalists predicted the occurrence of the too large gap between political elite and the people, which can lead to a distortion of the people wish. In a manner, they anticipated the professionalization of the politics. Realizing that this true representation would be near impossible, the Anti-Federalists created a new goal: to make the representatives have the needs of the middle class. For theses particular reasons, the Anti-Federalists thought that only a small republic can secure a genuine responsibility of the government to the people. [...]