POLS 1000 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Representative Democracy, Composite Character, Joseph Schumpeter

• School: York University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 1000
• Professor: prof

Document Summary

Representation does include democratic components, most importantly the opportunity for all citizens to hold representatives to account at the end of the term and to dismiss them if their performance in office is judged unsatisfactory. The point is that they are not the sole components of representation. Representation is also a government by elites that are not strictly bound to carry out the wishes of their constituents. Thus, representative government combines democratic and non- democratic components. This is why i characterize it as a mixed form of government, drawing on the ancient notion of the mixed constitution that goes back to aristotle and polybius. Just characterizing modern representative democracies as systems in which the people are sovereign , or indirectly govern themselves, obscures the mixed and composite character of such systems. Representative government has never been a simple form of government.