Page 273 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government Vinod C.V., Lovely Professional University

Notes
Unit 12: Politics of Representation and Participation

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
12.1 Meaning and Theory of Representation
12.2 Representation and Election System
12.3 Political Participation of USA, UK, Russia, France and China
12.4 Summary
12.5 Key-Words
12.6 Review Questions
12.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Understand the Meaning and Theory of Representation
• Explain the Representation and Election System.
• Describe the Political Participation of USA, UK, Russia, France and China
Introduction

All modern political systems claim to be based, though in varying degrees, on what Rousseau termed,
‘the will of the people’. Since it is impossible for the people to meet and exercise the functions of
government as a collective body in modern times on account of vast size of the state and wide
enfranchisement of the people, this claim finds its implementation in some form of representation
through which the rulers of a state are given the right to act for those who choose them. Thus,
representation has come, as suggested by Lord Acton; as ‘the vital invention of modern times’. A
massive transformation has, however, occurred in the realm of representation so much so that classical
theory, in this direction, coming from John Stuart Mill and A.V. Dicey, (implying that legitimate
authority means political power flowing from the people to the parliament and from the parliament
to the government) “is no longer true in an era when parliament is not necessarily the mediator
between government and people and when the executive power may claim to be the embodiment of
legitimacy, as does de Gaulle in France.”
12.1 Meaning and Theory of Representation

The term ‘representation’ has its general as well as particular connotations. In general terms, it means
that any corporate group, whether church, business concern, trade union, fraternal order or state,
that is too large or too dispersed in membership to conduct its deliberations in an assembly of all its
members is confronted with the problem of representation, if it purports to act in any degree in
accord with the opinion of its members. Such a definition of the term is too loose to be applied to a
particular form of representation. We are here concerned with its particular meaning as applicable to
the realm of politics. In this sense, representation “is the process through which the attitudes,
preferences, viewpoints and desires of the entire citizenry or a part of them are, with their expressed
approval, shaped into governmental action on their behalf by a smaller number among them, with
binding effect upon those represented.” While in agreement with this definition of the term, in question,
a German social theorist Robert von Mohl offers his unpretentious interpretation. According to him,
representation “is the process through which the influence which the entire citizenry or a part of

268 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY