Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Crossing the floor: To whom are legislators responsible?

Despite all the displays of apparent antipathy shown by MPs toward members of other parties in the House of Commons, there is actually sometimes a surprising amount of camaraderie between them outside of the political theatre of question period. Real hostility is often felt, however, by MPs towards former members of their own parties who have ‘crossed the floor’ to sit with another party in the House of Commons or as independents. This is seen by many as a betrayal of the voters who elected the MP and of the party the MP left.

Although floor crossing does not occur frequently in the House of Commons or in provincial legislatures across Canada, it does occur. It is often seen as a coup for the party that gains a member and a blow to the party that loses one. The act of a politician crossing the floor and changing political affiliations leads to the question of who exactly a legislator is responsible to in a representative democracy.

When presented with such a question, most Canadians likely quickly answer that a legislator’s main responsibility is to the electorate, and that is true. It is, however, not the whole answer, nor is it even the system that is widely adhered to in Canada (with the exception of territorial politics and most city councils).

There are three main approaches to an elected official’s responsibility. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

A legislator can be viewed as essentially a delegate for their constituency, an agent acting on behalf of the electors who votes according to their wishes.

A legislator can behave as a trustee, a person in whom the voters place their confidence in order to make informed and conscientious decisions while keeping in mind the general needs of the electorate.

The final method of a legislator’s responsibility and the one that is most commonly seen in Canadian legislatures is the system of party discipline. Generally candidates in federal and provincial elections belong to established political parties. These parties have more or less defined stances on various issues and as well as ideological positions that give voters a general idea as to how their members would vote on various subjects (e.g., taxes, social programmes, going to war, etc.). Under the party discipline system, the voter knows more or less what positions the party, and by extension, their candidate will take on the issues of the day. By voting for that candidate, the voter endorses the party to move ahead with its political agenda.

Each of these approaches to legislator responsibility can be paradoxically seen as both democratic and undemocratic at the same time. Since most modern democracies no longer practice Athenian-style direct democracy where citizens assemble to vote on each issue (although this is still done to some extent through referenda), the slightly less ‘perfect’ form of representative democracy must be used where each variety contains its own unique flaws. It should be mentioned that one impediment to all forms of democracy, direct or representative, is an uninformed populace, which includes both the voting public and the politicians that represent them.

The delegate form of representative democracy would seem to embody the purest ideal of a politician being simply the intermediary between the citizenry and the laws that govern them. A politician is elected to a legislative body to represent the views and opinions of the constituents. This method is not, however, as straightforward as it appears, especially in the first-past-the-post system of voting used in Canadian federal and provincial politics.

The problem lies in determining who exactly elected politicians represent. If they received a majority (over 50 per cent of electorate) of votes then it is less problematic. If they received a plurality (less than 50 per cent but more votes than any other candidate) then it becomes more complicated.

Imagine a campaign fought largely over a single issue. Three parties are running candidates with two of them falling on one side of the issue (against) and the third on the other (for). If the candidate of the party for the issue wins with 40 per cent of the vote (which is common in Canada), it is assumed they will vote in favour of that issue. The problem is that 60 per cent of the voters voted for a party that was against the issue. In this example, the elected official as a delegate must decide whether they represent the 40 per cent that elected them or the majority 60 per cent that was against the issue in question (the 1988 federal election fought largely over free trade is a good example of this).

Most issues discussed in a legislature are not discussed during campaigns. Politicians would continually need feedback from their constituents. As mentioned above, the importance of an informed electorate becomes crucial in this method of democracy. Many issues discussed in legislatures are complex. It would be fair to say that the general public would not be fully informed on each one yet under this system the representative seeks the public`s counsel in determining how to vote. If each issue is to be put to the public then a means of conveying public opinion on a frequent basis must also be devised. People would likely experience voter fatigue if they had to vote in a referendum several times a week.

The trustee form of representative democracy can be viewed as remedying some of the problems associated with the delegate form. It combines aspects of the delegate and the party discipline methods but with a focus on the elected official. This form was championed by renowned 18th century British politician Edmund Burke. He envisioned politicians presenting themselves as servants to the people while relying a great deal on their own conscience, principles, and knowledge of the issues to make the best decisions on behalf of their constituents. Representatives could belong to political parties and receive input from constituents but ultimately how they act or vote as elected officials is based on their own judgement of what is right.

One hopes that all politicians are informed on the issues on which they vote and that they always do what is best for the electorate but that may not always be so. This method requires a lot of confidence in the individual and does not always give voters a good idea of what to expect from a candidate once elected on the myriad of issues with which they will be confronted.

The final method to be discussed is the party discipline system which seeks to eliminate much of the uncertainty around a legislator’s positions on the issues that is found in the other two forms. During elections, candidates present themselves as members of political parties that have more or less defined policy platforms. The guesswork by voters is removed by the fact that the candidate’s position on many of the important issues of the day is already evident. Voters will then generally choose the party whose values most closely align with their own. Using this method, the candidates themselves do not always make a great difference in the voters’ decision since no matter whom they are or what they are like, how they will vote is not really in question.

The democratic cost of this method is that individual politicians are rarely allowed to vote freely or according to the will of their constituents. The ability to be elected in the first-past-the-post system with less than 50 per cent of the vote also means that, once again, a representative may not truly represent the (majority of the) constituency. Some feel that the party discipline system creates highly partisan legislatures, which can be true, but it also gives them some order and allows a government to rally like-minded people to pass bills into law and conversely, an opposition to oppose them. This would be much more difficult in a chamber containing dozens or hundreds of political independents, each with their own, or their constituents’ agendas.

With these different approaches to legislator responsibility, it is not clear to whom a ‘floor crosser’ is being disloyal, if anyone. Should an elected official represent first and foremost the wishes of their electorate (if that can be determined)? Should they follow their own judgement? Should they remain faithful to the party they represented during the election? Has a floor crosser betrayed his or her voters, conscience, party, all of these, or none these? Are some politicians justified in calling for floor crossers to step down and run again in a by-election under their new colours?

In all three forms of representative democracy, no matter how politicians view their responsibility to the electorate, it is the voter that has the ultimate say about whether a politician can represent them or not. If the situation changes significantly, such as when the floor is crossed, that elected official should have to go back to the people to confirm that what they have done is truly representative of what the people want.

Original Article
Source: iPolitics 
Author: Paul Rowe 

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