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Representative claims in practice: The democratic quality of decentralized social and healthcare policies in the Netherlands
Abstract
Any assessment of the democratic nature of representation should look at both electoral and non-electoral representation yet few empirical studies have looked into the latter. To increase our understanding of non-electoral representation we use Saward’s concept of representative claims, which helps bring into view a broad variety of representatives. Our empirical study of decentralized social and healthcare policies in the Netherlands describes the actors making representative claims at the local level, including elected, appointed non-elected, and self-appointed non-elected representatives working on a variety of bases, such as elections, expertise and shared experience. Their democratic nature is assured by authorization and accountability mechanisms, including but not only election. However, a number of difficulties are encountered in assuring responsiveness in practice. We conclude that non-electoral representation can and does strengthen democratic representation at the local level. This study reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of the representation practices found and on what our findings mean for future studies of representation.
... Involving these non-elected representatives in politics is considered a way of strengthening the representative democracy in crisis, beyond elections, political parties, voter turnout, and governing institutions (de Wilde, 2019;van de Bovenkamp and Vollaard, 2018). The increasing use of participatory arrangements, direct participation, public debates, and social movements in policymaking has created public spheres for nonelected actors to behave as representatives although they are not democratically elected (de Wilde, 2019;Guasti & Geissel, 2019a;Saward, 2010;van de Bovenkamp & Vollaard, 2018). ...
... Involving these non-elected representatives in politics is considered a way of strengthening the representative democracy in crisis, beyond elections, political parties, voter turnout, and governing institutions (de Wilde, 2019;van de Bovenkamp and Vollaard, 2018). The increasing use of participatory arrangements, direct participation, public debates, and social movements in policymaking has created public spheres for nonelected actors to behave as representatives although they are not democratically elected (de Wilde, 2019;Guasti & Geissel, 2019a;Saward, 2010;van de Bovenkamp & Vollaard, 2018). ...
... The few empirical studies focus on justifications for non-elected representatives from the perspective of certain actors such as civil society groups, social movements or faith representatives. Empirical studies also investigate representatives surrounding elections and political parties, or they focus on non-elected representatives within a given policy area (de Wilde, 2019;Guasti & Almeida, 2019;Heinisch & Werner, 2019;van de Bovenkamp & Vollaard, 2018). While the number of empirical studies is growing, the function of the audience in legitimising non-elected representatives, which I intend to investigate in this paper, is an area sparsely examined (Chapman & Lowndes, 2014;de Wilde, 2019;Guasti & Geissel, 2019b). ...
Non-elected actors in governance networks are legitimate representatives when the constituency accepts their claims of representation. However, not all constituents have the resources to approve or oppose this representation. Consequently, I argue that the audience, often the decision-making authority, which enables non-elected actors to act as representatives has a responsibility to consider their legitimacy. Drawing on seven business and urban development networks in Norway, this article explores how the decision-making authority considers credibility, qualifications and connectedness to legitimise non-elected representatives in governance networks. Through interviews with civil servants and politicians organising and participating in the network, relevant documents and observations, this article demonstrates that the decision-making authority legitimises non-elected representatives based on credibility and qualifications rather than connectedness with the constituency. The decision-making authority believes that claims grounded in specialist expertise, self-representation and shared experiences with the constituency legitimise non-elected representatives. Similarly, truthful representatives are considered legitimate. Finally, the decision-making authority is divided with regards to how the interactive process between the non-elected representative and the constituency legitimises the content of the representation.
... 25,27 Although the concept of responsiveness is conceptually quite well developed and follows a certain tradition in political theory (for an overview, see Rehfeld), 19 it remains empirically underexplored. 31 Van de Bovenkamp and Vollaard 30 have transferred the topic to health care settings. The authors explore the mechanisms of authorization and accountability of those actors claiming to represent patients in the Dutch debate on centralization of care. ...
... 50 However, those being represented generally show only little interest in these accountability efforts and thus the representatives are held to account only to a minimal degree. 30 POs thus present numerous problems when it comes to their relationship with those they represent, but to take advantage of the democratic quality of their representation, active and pragmatic reflection seems to be an essential first step. The same is likely true for most other participatory settings in health care. ...
Context
The involvement of lay people in health care decision‐making processes is now the norm in many countries. However, one important aspect of participation has not received sufficient attention in the past and remains underexplored: representation.
Objective
This paper explores the question of how public participation efforts in collective health care decision‐making processes can attempt to aim for legitimate representation so that those individuals or groups not present can be taken into account in the decisions affecting them. This paper argues that to make decisions that effectively address those affected, representation needs to be seen as a relevant part of any participatory setting. To support this argument, the paper outlines the concepts of participation and representation and transfers them to health care contexts.
Results
A conceptual reflection on responsiveness and the characteristics of representative actors in representative‐participatory settings is introduced, which could provide actors planning to conduct participatory health care projects with tools to reflect on the merits and possible flaws of participatory constellations.
Patient or Public Contribution
The paper contributes to improving public participation in health care decision‐making.
In contemporary politics, both elected officials and non‐elected actors, such as interest groups, activists, and experts, serve as political representatives. However, the potential for democratic legitimacy likely varies among these different types of representatives, raising questions about their ability to provide proper representation. Consequently, this article first examines different representatives' perceptions of three core practices: authorisation (i.e., acceptance) by, accountability (i.e., the need to explain and justify actions) to, and autonomy (i.e., independence) from constituents. These practices allow constituents to determine whether they support a representative, thereby ensuring democratic legitimacy. Using their perceptions, I compare the democratic potential of elected representatives with that of non‐elected group representatives and non‐elected individual representatives. Based on survey data from representatives in governance networks across 16 European democracies, my findings suggest that all types of representatives generally perceive themselves as authorised, accountable and autonomous, indicating the potential for democratic legitimacy. However, this potential differs among representatives according to the degree of perceived authorisation, accountability and autonomy. I contend that these differences can be explained by variations in the clarity of constituencies rather than by the elected or non‐elected status of the representatives.
In this work, I will attempt to address the question of what lies ahead for the theory of political representation after the “constructivist turn” that has dominated this theoretical field in recent years. In doing so, I draw upon the influential theory of Michel Saward, whose contributions have ignited inter-paradigmatic debates involving, among others, feminist authors and theorists advocating for radical democratic theory. In the article, I explore both Saward’s own arguments and the key propositions presented by his opponents. I emphasise that his assumptions not only necessitate a reformulation of the technical aspects of representation (its sources of legitimacy and principles of accountability) but also reveal the need for a theoretical reflection on the effects of new forms of “representative claims”. As I will endeavour to demonstrate, these claims lead us to a debate on the nature of “political relationships”, which I define as situations in which two or more political subjectivities mutually condition each other.
In the article, I argue that Michel Saward’s popular approach to political representation leads to its particularly problematic understanding as a potentially coercive form of political relationship. Drawing primarily on the experiences of feminist theorists, I argue that beyond analyzing the mechanism of ‘claim-making’, it is also ethically necessary to consider the possibilities and consequences of ‘claim-breaking’. Situations where political representation is broken illustrate how even institutionalized forms of representation often stem from the emotional needs of specific individuals, which politicians cynically exploit. To illustrate this, I utilize and critically assess Saward’s general explanatory model, analyzing the example of Donald Tusk’s resignation from the position of Prime Minister of Poland to assume the role of President of the European Council.
Electoral democracy and direct participation at the local level suffer from inequality: certain voices are more often heard than others. Moreover, static references to local councilors’ election once may not suffice to legitimize representative claims. However, the non-electoral representation may redress these problems. It involves both elected and non-elected actors claiming to represent a group of people or cause on a variety of grounds, such as expertise and shared experiences. Thus, representatives and constituencies are created in a dynamic process of representation. A challenge to non-electoral representation is, however, its democratic quality. In particular, non-elected makers of representative claims cannot rely on elections for their authorization and accountability. The analysis shows that a large share of non-elected representatives in local state-society networks across Europe indicate that their proclaimed constituencies agree with their positions, while they feel obliged to give account to the ones they represent. They also inform the latter through personal contacts and in general meetings. The analysis also suggests that network characteristics better explain the democratic quality of non-electoral representation than factors at the level of society at large or individual network members. The extensive use of non-electoral mechanisms of authorization and accountability is a hopeful sign that non-electoral representation can reinvigorate local democracy, even more so because networks can be more easily changed than the society at large or individual network members.KeywordsLocal state-society platformsNon-electoral representationDemocratic qualityAuthorizationAccountability
Research on the democratic legitimacy of non-elected actors influencing policy while acting as representatives is often lacking in governance literature, despite being increasingly relevant worldwide. Recent theories of representation argue that there are non-electoral mechanisms to appoint such non-elected representatives and hold them responsible for their actions. Consequently, democratic non-electoral representation can be achieved. Through empirical analysis, this article explores democratic non-electoral representation in governance networks by comparing how non-elected representatives, their constituents and the decision-making audience understand the outcome of representation to benefit the constituency, authorisation and accountability. The research findings conclude that all three groups mostly share the understanding of democratic non-electoral representation as ongoing interactions between representatives and constituents, multiple (if any) organisational and discursive sources of authorisation and deliberative aspects of accountability. All of these are non-electoral mechanisms that secure democratic representation. These findings make an important contribution to the literature on non-electoral representation in policymaking.
Dutch municipalities have a long tradition of incorporating societal actors in their governing infrastructure. This chapter analyses three cases of institutionalized local state-society relations today. In particular, since the 1970s, sub-municipal bodies in villages and districts (dorpsraden and wijkraden) have been launched to foster citizen participation. Local advisory councils for social and health affairs have been established following recent decentralizations of health and social policies. Regional employment platforms (regionale werkbedrijven) involve social partners and have been created in 2015 for the reintegration of people with disabilities into work. The cases show that the societal actors involved have rather limited influence on local policy-making. Additionally, these local state-society relations have often been launched in response to national policy developments, and the societal actors involved are less rooted in society than in the pillarized past. Therefore, doubts exist whether the state’s legitimacy among the mass public has been maintained through these relations.
Background:
In the regulation of healthcare, the subject of patient and family involvement figures increasingly prominently on the agenda. However, the literature on involving patients and families in regulation is still in its infancy. A systematic analysis of how patient and family involvement in regulation is accomplished across different health systems is lacking. We provide such an overview by mapping and classifying methods of patient and family involvement in regulatory practice in four countries; Norway, England, the Netherlands, and Australia. We thus provide a knowledge base that enables discussions about possible types of involvement, and advantages and difficulties of involvement encountered in practice.
Methods:
The research design was a multiple case study of patient and family involvement in regulation in four countries. The authors collected 1) academic literature if available and 2) documents of regulators that describe user involvement. Based on the data collected, the authors from each country completed a pre-agreed template to describe the involvement methods. The following information was extracted and included where available: 1) Method of involvement, 2) Type of regulatory activity, 3) Purpose of involvement, 4) Who is involved and 5) Lessons learnt.
Results:
Our mapping of involvement strategies showed a range of methods being used in regulation, which we classified into four categories: individual proactive, individual reactive, collective proactive, and collective reactive methods. Reported advantages included: increased quality of regulation, increased legitimacy, perceived justice for those affected, and empowerment. Difficulties were also reported concerning: how to incorporate the input of users in decisions, the fact that not all users want to be involved, time and costs required, organizational procedures standing in the way of involvement, and dealing with emotions.
Conclusions:
Our mapping of user involvement strategies establishes a broad variety of ways to involve patients and families. The four categories can serve as inspiration to regulators in healthcare. The paper shows that stimulating involvement in regulation is a challenging and complex task. The fact that regulators are experimenting with different methods can be viewed positively in this regard.
The decentralisation of policy responsibilities from the national to the local level in the domain of social policies is meant to facilitate a better fit to local conditions, and, consequently, inspire local variation in social policy positions. This article examines two questions: (1) to what extent do Dutch local party branches’ social policy positions deviate from their national mother party and local peer parties and (2) do local conditions explain this deviation? To answer these questions, we developed a dataset including 168 local party manifestos from 27 strategically selected municipalities and 8 national party manifestos. Our analyses show limited deviation in local parties’ positions compared to their national mother party and other local branches of their national mother party. This suggests that the social policies addressed in the party manifestos of local parties seem to reflect a process of institutional isomorphism. Furthermore, the limited deviation that does exist in local parties’ social policy positions is not convincingly larger in municipalities (1) that are smaller, (2) that have higher social benefit dependency, or (3) that have high vote shares for local independent challengers. This is contrary to what can be expected based on the contingency theory.
Over the last two decades, the inclusion of patient voices and public values in the field of health care through deliberation has become increasingly emphasized, by patients as well as policy-makers. This is achieved not only through individual patient participation but also through patient interest organizations. Geographical representation within national interest organizations is especially important in a decentralized, multilevel policy field such as Swedish health care, allowing representation from all regions to be present in national advocacy. Using Pitkin’s conceptualization of political representation, this study aims to characterize the shaping of representation among Swedish federative patient organizations, in a time of professionalization and centralization of civil society. The results show that patient organization representation has functioning mechanisms for all studied aspects of representation; however, the nature of the substantive representation seems to contain a challenge from a democratic perspective. This leads us to a discussion about management, rooted in democratic ideals but simultaneously strongly characterized by more managerial ideals, and the contradiction of democracy and actionable management.
One form of accommodating historically marginalised social groups is through ‘democratic corporatism’, in which government to some degree formalises emancipation interests’ representation within policy processes. This article compares the corporatist trajectories of the emancipation interests of women and gays/lesbians in the Netherlands to examine why women’s interests became excluded from and gay/lesbian interests remained included in corporatist policy processes. Existing studies have failed to explain why changes in corporatism differently affect incorporated organisations across policy arenas. This article examines the role of the level of formalisation of corporatist relations, and by extension the ability of incorporated organisations to combine top-down and bottom-up resources, in leading to exclusion from or continued inclusion in corporatist policy processes. The findings highlight the importance for incorporated emancipation interests of the ability to combine top-down and bottom-up resources to manoeuvre changes in corporatism and successfully maintain their inclusion in corporatist policy processes.
In many countries patient involvement is high on the healthcare policy agenda, which includes patient representation in collective decision-making. Patient organizations are generally considered to be important representatives of patients. Other actors also claim to represent patients in decision-making, such as politicians, healthcare professionals, and client advisory councils. In this paper we take a broad view of patient representation, examining all the actors claiming to represent patients in the Dutch debate on the decentralization of care. We conclude that variety in forms of representation could help do justice to the variety of patient preferences. In addition we conclude that in order to ensure the democratic quality of patient representation, actors making representative claims have to reflect on how their claims relate to each other and how they can ensure authorization and accountability in the representative relationship with those they claim to represent.
How diverse, influential and deliberative is a G1000? The design of a citizens summit and the realization of democratic values
In imitation of the G1000 in Belgium in the Netherlands G1000-meetings were held in Amersfoort, Kruiskamp, Uden and Groningen and a citizens summit in Amsterdam with a similar design. In this article the authors investigate the design of these citizens summits and their contribution to a number of important democratic values. What is the diversity of the participants, the influence on policies and the quality of the discussions during the citizen summit? Their research shows that the diversity of the group of participants is rather limited. The selection method that is chosen, whether a lottery selection or an open invitation, doesn’t make much difference for the diversity of the group of participants. In addition the influence of citizens summits on policies and politics is nearly absent. The subjects that come forward at citizens summits hardly ever come back in the local policies, not even at the citizens summit in Uden, where the municipal council has taken the initiative to organize a G1000. Finally, in general the participants qualify the discussions at the table during citizens summits as constructive and inspiring. The specific form of the dialogue has only little influence on the extent to which the participants feel themselves heard and feel free to say whatever they want.
This article investigates the problem of legitimacy of non-electoral representation, and attempts to highlight the discursive dynamics in such a process. I argue that various forms of non-electoral representation overlap and may conflict with each other throughout society, but it is mainly in the representative claimants' discursive interaction that the generation of legitimacy should be sought. I contend that conceiving representation from a system-wide perspective, with attention to the multiple actors, sites and means to communication and deliberation, can sharpen our perception of a dynamic capacity for self-correction of representative claims.
Het belang van participatie voor de
democratie staat nauwelijks ter discussie.
Het is het uitgangspunt van veel
normatieve theorieën over democratie.
En ook in de praktijk van het bestuur
hebben veel overheden inmiddels
ervaring opgedaan met nieuwe, meer
directe, vormen van participatie van
burgers. Maar wat draagt participatie
van burgers nu werkelijk bij aan de
kwaliteit van de democratie? Daarover
is weinig bekend. De analyse in deze
bijdrage van twee vormen van participatie,
interactief bestuur en deliberatieve
fora in Nederland en een groot
aantal andere westerse landen, laat
zien dat participatie op verschillende
manieren bijdraagt aan de kwaliteit
van de democratie, maar ook dat de
vorm van participatie bepalend is voor
de aspecten van democratie die het
sterkst worden beïnvloed. Dat betekent
dat bestuurders en beleidsmakers
letterlijk aan het stuur zitten van
de democratie; door hun keuze voor
een bepaald ontwerp van participatie
stimuleren zij bepaalde aspecten van
democratie meer, en andere minder
Embedding democratic innovations that increase and deepen citizen participation in decision making has become a common policy of local governments in many countries. This article focuses on the role of the design of these innovations and seeks to establish the effects of their design on democracy. The article evaluates 20 cases of participatory governance and 19 deliberative forums. The findings show that different designs produce different democratic effects, but also that the suitability of a particular design depends on the type of policy issue. Tensions between representative and direct democracy are more likely to exist for participatory governance than for deliberative forums.
Social and Cultural Report 2012 ● Building on notions of active citizenship and the ‘Big Society’, this edition of the biannual Social and Cultural Report investigates to what extent the self-responsibility of individuals has actually increased in key aspects of Dutch social policy; and under what conditions people are prepared to raise their own efforts in the near future. The report covers children’s upbringing and formal child care, the education system, work and pensions, health and long term care, housing, social safety, the integration of migrants, cultural consumption, local citizen’s participation, and public opinion.
At first glance the European Union's (EU's) compound form of representation allows a wide-ranging spectrum of actors to claim to be representative, and allows different channels to feed their demands and interests into the political system. While this may be understood as a redeeming feature of supranational politics, this article sounds a note of caution. The historically developed system of representation comprising different principles and practices may combine in ways that undermine standards by which claims to political representation can be justified. First, it is demonstrated that the urge to combine multiple channels of representation has its roots in the history and theory of representation itself. Second, we show the development of the EU's compound form of representation. Third, tests of how well principles and practices of representation combine in the European arena are proposed. It is shown that the EU's specific combination of representative practices hardly allows for ensuring public control with political equality.
Representation is recently viewed in terms of claims‐making. However, in emphasising the performative aspects of representation the issue of responsiveness risks being overlooked. Juxtaposing Hanna Pitkin’s seminal work on representation to Michael Saward’s article ‘The representative claim’, this article argues the need for a reintroduction of a notion of responsiveness within the claims‐making framework, and offers a dynamic conceptualisation of responsiveness based upon a typology of congruence established between elected and non‐elected claims.
In many Western countries, options for citizens to influence public services are increased to improve the quality of services and democratize decision making. Possibilities to influence are often cast into Albert Hirschman's taxonomy of exit (choice), voice, and loyalty. In this article we identify delegation as an important addition to this framework. Delegation gives individuals the chance to practice exit/choice or voice without all the hard work that is usually involved in these options. Empirical research shows that not many people use their individual options of exit and voice, which could lead to inequality between users and nonusers. We identify delegation as a possible solution to this problem, using Dutch health care as a case study to explore this option. Notwithstanding various advantages, we show that voice and choice by delegation also entail problems of inequality and representativeness.
Americans often complain about the current operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the specific governmental procedures Americans desire. Their results are surprising. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else. People's most intense desire for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people's largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making. In light of these findings, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse conclude by cautioning communitarians, direct democrats, social capitalists, deliberation theorists, and all those who think that greater citizen involvement is the solution to society's problems.
Democratic theorists have paid increasing attention to problems of political representation over the past two decades. Interest is driven by (a) a political landscape within which electoral representation now competes with new and informal kinds of representation; (b) interest in the fairness of electoral representation, particularly for minorities and women; (c) a renewed focus on political judgment within democratic theory; and (d) a new appreciation that participation and representation are complementary forms of citizenship. We review recent innovations within democratic theory, focusing especially on problems of fairness, constituency definition, deliberative political judgment, and new, nonelectoral forms of representation.
Citizen participation is usually seen as a vital aspect of democracy. Many theorists claim that citizen participation has positive effects on the quality of democracy. This article examines the probability of these claims for local participatory policymaking projects in two municipalities in the Netherlands. The article focuses on the relations between citizens and government from a citizens' perspective. The findings show that the role of citizens in these projects is limited, serving mainly to provide information on the basis of which the government then makes decisions. Nevertheless, the article argues that citizen involvement has a number of positive effects on democracy: not only do people consequently feel more responsibility for public matters, it increases public engagement, encourages people to listen to a diversity of opinions, and contributes to a higher degree of legitimacy of decisions. One negative effect is that not all relevant groups and interests are represented. The article concludes that for a healthy democracy at the local level, aspects of democratic citizenship are more important than having a direct say in decision-making.
This article critically addresses the varied ways in which political parties can be said to represent. Three important ideal-typical modes of party representation are outlined: the popular, the statal, and the reflexive. Arguments are offered for countering the common view that, for example, popular modes are the most democratic, and statal modes the least democratic. Statal modes in particular are often taken to be an indicator of a decline in parties representative functions; however, shifting modes of party representation often have more to do with strategic choices and contextual pressures than democratic ideals. No one ideal-typical mode is intrinsically more democratic than others. Further, there is evidence that a new mode of party representation, the reflexive, may be emerging; parties may be transforming into something they never were in order to continue to do the things they have always sought to do. Whether democracy is unthinkable save for political parties is no longer the question we need to ask. Rather, we need to ask: what kinds of representative democracy are thinkable? And what forms of party claims, if any, are appropriate to them?
Democratic representation of clients and patients in the decentralisation process
Citizen participation is firmly on the agenda of many Western policy makers. Numerous opportunities for individuals to participate in public decision-making have been created. However, few citizens use these opportunities. Those who do are often the highly educated, white, middle and upper classes that also tend to dominate other democratic spaces. Opportunities to become active can increase inequalities in terms of whose voices are heard in public decision-making. This fundamentally challenges the central democratic value of equality. Nevertheless, others can represent the interests of those who remain silent. Using the concept of representative claim this paper explores a variety of forms of representation (electoral, formal non-electoral and informal self-appointed) in the domain of social policy which is currently decentralized in the Netherlands. We conclude that especially informal self-appointed representatives such as medical professionals, churches and patient organizations can potentially play an important role in representing groups who often remain unheard in the public debate. They can therefore play an important role in ensuring the democratic quality of the decentralization process.
This chapter discusses the politics of multiculturalism as a kind of identity politics. It argues the concept of structural difference, as distinct from cultural group. Analysing structural difference and structural inequality, then, helps to show why these movements are not properly interpreted as identity politics. The chapter defines social structure, and more specifically structural inequality, by rebuilding elements from different accounts. Norms of inclusive communicative democracy require that claims directed at a public with the aim of persuading members of that public that injustices occur must be given a hearing, and require criticism of those who refuse to listen. Common good theorists no doubt fear that attending to group differences in public discussion endangers commitment to co-operative decision-making. Only explicit and differentiated forms of inclusion can diminish the occurrence of such refusals, especially when members of some groups are more privileged in some or many respects.
Democratic theorists commonly distinguish between direct democracy and representative democracy.1 In a direct democracy, citizens rule themselves, while in a representative democracy they elect representatives to rule on their behalf. Today’s democracies are all representative in structure – a form dictated by scale and complexity – with some direct elements such as initiatives and referenda, as well as some forms of citizen engagement. The concept of participatory democracy usually refers to these latter two elements: direct decision-making as well as citizen involvement in decisionmaking within representative structures. If, however, we consider these two forms of participation from the perspective of representation, the first involves citizen participation in government or other formalized decisionmaking, on the assumption that citizens represent themselves within these processes. The second involves citizens themselves serving in representative capacities: lay citizens represent other citizens. I shall refer to these roles as citizen representatives – a form of representation that is increasingly common in practice, but almost untheorized in democratic theory.2 To be sure, the idea that citizens are best represented by other lay citizens serving as representatives is an old democratic ideal. It justified early notions that elected representatives should be salaried so as to enable ordinary citizens – not just the rich – to serve in public office, as well as the more recent idea that term limits will prevent elected representatives from becoming professional political elites.
This book attempts to solve two problems in deliberative democratic theory and practice: How can agreements reached inside deliberative forums be legitimate for those who did not take part? And why should people with strongly-held views participate in the first place? The solution involves rethinking deliberative theory, but also draws on lessons from practical experience with deliberative forums in Britain's National Health Service. The book discusses the competing representation claims that different participants make, the pros and cons of different approaches to democratic accountability, and different conceptions of rationality and public reasoning. It concludes by rejecting the idea that we can have authentic, legitimate deliberation in any one forum. Instead, authentic, legitimate deliberation can only result from linkages between different kinds of institutions, drawing on different kinds of participants, at different points of a decision-making cycle. That is, it promotes a macro, society-wide view of deliberative democracy quite different from the micro, deliberative-forum view which dominates thinking on the subject in the UK. The book sketches the outline of such a deliberative system, suggesting how various institutions in civil society and elected government might link together to create public decisions, which are both more rational and more democratic.
In everyday discourse, democracy has become associated with representation. Western-style political systems today are generally categorized as representative democracies, as is the EU. The Treaty of Lisbon declares the EU to be founded on representative democracy, with political equality as its normative foundation. However, contemporary processes of diversification, not least that of European integration, pose severe challenges to the historically contingent link between democracy and representation. Consequently, many scholars indicate a democratic deficit in the EU, which the current debt crisis has accentuated even further. This introduction takes stock of recent theoretical debates and identifies three key issues which it then links to the contributions to this collection: namely, (1) a decisive shift in the understanding of the representative relationship; (2) an increased attention to non-electoral representation, specifically civil society (organizations); and (3) the debate about whether democratic competences are best located at the supranational or the national level. We close by reflecting on potential future avenues for research.
It is generally acknowledged that we should distinguish representation as such from that which is represented. The referent designates the latter, understood as the thing in itself to which a representation refers. Yet, authors such as Michael Saward or Frank Ankersmit argue that representation has a constitutive nature; hereby meaning that representation not only reflects reality, but actively creates reality in the sense that it brings about new collective identities. As such, a conceptual tension arises between the notion of the referent and the constitutive nature of representation. In this article I elaborate upon this tension by focusing on the work of Michael Saward. To what extent is the referent reconcilable with the constitutive nature of representation? And in what way will the answer to this question affect our conception of politics in general and political representation in particular?
With the growth of network governance, non-electoral forms of representation are of increasing significance. The claims of non-elected representatives are potentially more specific, explicit, and flexible than those of their elected counterparts. The quality of such claims can be assessed in relation to ‘authenticity’, rather than traditional criteria of authorization or accountability. These propositions are explored through first-hand accounts of ‘faith representatives’ involved in a variety of English urban governance partnerships. Representatives' claims expressed an aspiration to authenticity (which was not necessarily realized) in the sense of seeking ongoing and substantive consent from constituents, rather than assuming consent via a formalized and symbolic moment of election. Network governance may be best served by a mix of elected and non-elected representation, based upon an understanding of their complementary characteristics and of representation itself as a relational and emergent property.
How should we theorize and normatively assess those individual and collective actors who claim to represent others for political purposes, but do so without the electoral authorization and accountability usually thought to be at the heart of democratic representation? In this article, I offer conceptual tools for assessing the democratic legitimacy of such “self-appointed” representatives. I argue that these kinds of political actors bring two constituencies into being: the authorizing—that group empowered by the claim to exercise authorization and demand accountability—and the affected—that group affected, or potentially affected, by collective decisions. Self-appointed representation provides democratically legitimate representation when it provides political presence for affected constituencies and is authorized by and held accountable to them. I develop the critical tools to assess the democratic credentials of self-appointed representatives by identifying nonelectoral mechanisms of authorization and accountability that may empower affected constituencies to exercise authorization and demand accountability.
Menigeen kent het begrip 'verzuiling' en weet hoezeer dat verschijnsel bepalend is geweest voor de inrichting en werkwijze van de Nederlandse politiek, vakbonden, omroep, dagbladpers, etc. in de afgelopen honderd jaar.Weinigen realiseren zich hoe die verzuiling precies is ontstaan en op welke wijze en met welke gevolgen de 'verzuildheid' Nederland gedurende een groot deel van de twintigste eeuw heeft bepaald. In zijn klassiek geworden studie Verzuiling, pacificatie en kentering in de Nederlandse politiek uit 1967 geeft Dr. A. Lijphart een uniek politiek portret van ons land sinds 1917.
The thesis of this original and provocative book is that representative government should be understood as a combination of democratic and undemocratic, aristocratic elements. Professor Manin challenges the conventional view that representative democracy is no more than an indirect form of government by the people, in which citizens elect representatives only because they cannot assemble and govern in person. The argument is developed by examining the historical moments when the present institutional arrangements were chosen from among the then available alternatives. Professor Manin reminds us that while today representative institutions and democracy appear as virtually indistinguishable, when representative government was first established in Europe and America, it was designed in opposition to democracy proper. Drawing on the procedures used in earlier republican systems, from classical Athens to Renaissance Florence, in order to highlight the alternatives that were forsaken, Manin brings to the fore the generally overlooked results of representative mechanisms. These include the elitist aspect of elections and the non-binding character of campaign promises.
This contribution presents a detailed methodological discussion on the empirical study of political representation. It confronts Saward's conceptualization of the representative claim with the method of claims analysis, developed by Koopmans and Statham. Drawing on Saward, the contribution emphasizes the theoretical need to study the act of representation in the form of claims through which connections between representatives and represented are made. Drawing on Koopmans and Statham, the contribution stresses an empirical focus on public spheres in which claims are located. While theory of representation so far remains overly complex in light of the reality of representation in the public sphere, the empirical analysis of claims ignores theoretically important aspects of representation. The theoretically informed and empirically viable methodological approach of representative claims analysis (RCA) is therefore proposed to facilitate future inquiry.
Along with the traditional “promissory” form of representation, empirical political scientists have recently analyzed several new forms, called here “anticipatory,” “gyroscopic,” and “surrogate” representation. None of these more recently recognized forms meets the criteria for democratic accountability developed for promissory representation, yet each generates a set of normative criteria by which it can be judged. These criteria are systemic, in contrast to the dyadic criteria appropriate for promissory representation. They are deliberative rather than aggregative. They are plural rather than singular.
This response to Andrew Rehfeld's “Representation Rethought” (American Political Science Review 2009) takes up his criticisms of my “Rethinking Representation” (American Political Science Review 2003) to advance a more relational and systematic approach to representation. To this end, it suggests replacing the “trustee” concept of representation with a “selection model” based on the selection and replacement of “gyroscopic” representatives who are both relatively self-reliant in judgment and relatively nonresponsive to sanctions. It explores as well the interaction between representatives’ (and constituents’) perceptions of reality and their normative views of what the representative ought to represent. Building from the concept of surrogate representation and other features of legislative representation, it argues for investigating, both normatively and empirically, not only the characteristics of individual representatives emphasized by Rehfeld's analysis but also the representative–constituent relationship and the larger representative system, including both elected and nonelected representatives, inside and outside the legislature.
This article explores how political representation is enacted in governance networks, where interdependent actors from government, business, and civil society coproduce public policy. A combined dramaturgical and discourse analysis considers how representation is staged, performed, and articulated in a case study of recent Dutch energy reforms. The findings suggest that networks produce a kind of “democratic soup” where actors and institutions enact alternative meanings of representation that sit uncomfortably alongside representative democracy's emphasis on political authorization, accountability, and responsiveness. These democratic attributes appear to be decoupled from representation in governance networks and thus need to be secured through other means.
ARTICIPATION by lay citizens in technically complex political controversies often raises questions about the competence of participants and the quality of their contributions to decision-making. One way of addressing such concerns has been to establish temporary advisory bodies that involve lay people in cooperative deliberation informed by expert advice. Citizen juries, consensus conferences, planning cells and deliberative polls—referred to here collectively as “citizen panels”—seek to enhance both the rational justification for and popular sanction of political decisions. Citizen panels present a genuine conundrum for theories of political representation. Both conceptually and institutionally, they fall into a gap between the informal deliberative institutions of the public sphere and the formal decision-making bodies of the state. Unlike many civic associations and interest groups, citizen panels do not have continuing members who develop loyalty to each other and commitment to a cause; unlike most standing advisory committees or public hearings, they restrict interest group representatives to a supporting role; and unlike referenda, negotiated rule-making or juries in the US legal system, they have no authority to make legally binding decisions. And yet it seems clear that citizen panels are representative in some sense—but which? This article examines two distinct aspects of this question. First, viewed in isolation, in what sense are citizen panels representative institutions? Second, seen in terms of their relationship to other political institutions, what specific contribution can citizen panels make to the broad network of values and practices that comprise representative democracy? A number of studies have developed typologies of forms of citizen participation in complex policy areas. 1 Although the following discussion may be relevant for various types of citizen panels, this article examines only the
Nondemocratic “representatives” increasingly act on the global stage, as “representatives” of their dictatorships to the United Nations, or when an NGO represents prisoners of war. Standard accounts of political representation depend upon democratic institutions (like elections) and a certain kind of proper activity (like deliberation and constituent accountability) and thus cannot explain how these people are representatives at all. I argue that the standard account of political representation is thus inadequate to explain political representation throughout the globe. I offer a general theory of political representation which explains representation simply by reference to a relevant audience accepting a person as such. When audiences use democratic rules of recognition, the familiar cases arise. When audiences use nondemocratic rules of recognition, nondemocratic cases arise. The result is that political representation, per se, is not a democratic phenomenon at all. The account offers a more parsimonious explanation of political representation, providing a tool for analysis of political representation throughout the globe.
Considerable political and media attention has focused on the phenomenon of the ‘celebrity politician’. As this article illustrates, there are two main variants of the phenomenon. The first is the elected politician or candidate who uses elements of ‘celebrityhood’ to establish their claim to represent a group or cause. The second is the celebrity—the star of popular culture—who uses their popularity to speak for popular opinion. Both examples have been seen by critics to debase liberal democratic political representation. This article challenges this critique and argues that the celebrity politician is consistent with a coherent account of political representation. This does not mean that all examples of the celebrity politician are to be seen as legitimate, but that the representative claim has to be analysed more carefully and discriminatingly than the critics typically suppose.
During the Cold War, arguments about representation were a significant part of international debates about democracy. Proponents of minimal democracy dominated these arguments, and their thin notions of representation became political common sense. I propose a view of representation that differs from the main views advocated during the Cold War. Representation has a central positive role in democratic politics: I gain political representation when my authorized representative tries to achieve my political aims, subject to dialogue about those aims and to the use of mutually acceptable procedures for gaining them. Thus the opposite of representation is not participation. The opposite of representation is exclusion – and the opposite of participation is abstention. Rather than opposing participation to representation, we should try to improve representative practices and forms to make them more open, effective, and fair.
It has been argued that the EU suffers from serious accountability deficits. But how can we establish the existence of accountability deficits? This article tries to get to grips with the appealing but elusive concept of accountability by asking three types of questions. First a conceptual one: what exactly is meant by accountability? In this article the concept of accountability is used in a rather narrow sense: a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgement, and the actor may face consequences. The second question is analytical: what types of accountability are involved? A series of dimensions of accountability are discerned that can be used to describe the various accountability relations and arrangements that can be found in the different domains of European governance. The third question is evaluative: how should we assess these accountability arrangements? The article provides three evaluative perspectives: a democratic, a constitutional and a learning perspective. Each of these perspectives may produce different types of accountability deficits.
The concept of ‘representation’ is puzzling not because it lacks a central definition, but because that definition implies a paradox (being present and yet not present) and is too general to help reconcile the word's many senses with their sometimes conflicting implications.
Representation has a problematic relationship with democracy, with which it is often thoughtlessly equated. The two ideas have different, even conflicting, origins. Democracy came from ancient Greece and was won through struggle, from below. Greek democracy was participatory and bore no relationship to representation. Representation dates – at least as a political concept and practice – from the late medieval period, when it was imposed as a duty by the monarch. Only in the English Civil War and then in the eighteenth‐century democratic revolutions did the two concepts become linked.
Democrats saw representation – with an extended suffrage – as making possible large‐scale democracy. Conservatives instead saw it as a tool for staving off democracy. Rousseau also contrasted the two concepts, but favoured democratic self‐government.
He was prescient in seeing representation as a threat to democracy. Representative government has become a new form of oligarchy, with ordinary people excluded from public life. This is not inevitable. Representation does make large‐scale democracy possible, where it is based in participatory democratic politics at the local level.
Three obstacles block access to this possibility today: the scope of public problems and private power; money, or rather wealth; and ideas and their shaping, in an age of electronic media.
This article examines critically a variety of claims to be representative that are made by unelected political actors, and offers criteria for assessing these claims.
Participation in America represents the largest study ever conducted of the ways in which citizens participate in American political life. Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie addresses the question of who participates in the American democratic process, how, and with what effects. They distinguish four kinds of political participation: voting, campaigning, communal activity, and interaction with a public official to achieve a personal goal. Using a national sample survey and interviews with leaders in 64 communities, the authors investigate the correlation between socioeconomic status and political participation. Recipient of the Kammerer Award (1972), Participation in America provides fundamental information about the nature of American democracy.
Nu even niet! Over de interpassieve samenleving
- G Van Oenen
- G Oenen Van
Meer nieuwsaanbod, meer van het zelfde nieuws: De positie van nieuwsvoorziening in de regio anno 2012: Een algemene aanbodsanalyse
- Stimuleringsfonds Voor De Pers
Voorbij verkiezing en parlement Alternatieve representatie in Nederland na 1870
- E Schrijvers
- S Couperus
De Nederlandse bestuurscultur in historisch perspectief
- N Randeraad
- D J Wolffram