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Saturday, Jun 19, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Crisis of representative democracy

By Neera Chandhoke

Electoral democracy is deeply compromised when people who lose elections are given ministerial berths.

"SOVEREIGNTY," WROTE the great defender of direct democracy, Jean Jacques Rousseau, "for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation: it is either the same or the other; there is no intermediate possibility." Following Rousseau, critics of representative democracy focus on the fact that the sovereignty and the autonomy of citizens is diminished considerably when they delegate the power of representing their opinions, their needs, and their interests to someone else. However, despite oft dire warnings that indirect democracy compromises the basic normative premises of democracy, it is representative democracy that has come to command the world ever since the institutionalisation of democracy itself. Of course there are very good reasons for this, the primary reason being the sheer size and complexity of modern societies, which renders direct or face-to-face democracy a remote possibility. Therefore, for better or for worse, representative democracy has become synonymous with democracy itself.

Representative democracy in essence calls upon a third set of political agents to mediate between the first two sets of political agents — the citizen and the state. Despite the fact that a number of organisations claim representation, it is the political party that has emerged as the prime mediator between the citizen and the state. Four points on representation may be in order at this stage of the argument. Firstly, whereas the citizen is the primary unit of political society, the status of the representative is derivative. The authority of the representative is derived from the fact that the members of the constituency consent to the delegation of their right to participate in forums that make policy. Secondly the representative does not represent persons as such; she or he is charged with the duty of seeing that the interests of the constituents are adequately, competently and effectively represented in forums of decision-making. The representative, in other words, is expected to proxy for those who are being represented. Thirdly the representative is obliged not only to represent interests, she is obliged to ensure that something is done about the pressing problems of her constituency, in the production of appropriate policies for instance. Fourthly, the representative is accountable to her constituency for all acts of omission and commission. Accountability is ensured through the institutionalisation of elections. Citizens have, at least in theory, command over whom they want to be represented by. They are also in a position to choose what particular issue or sets of issues they consider worthy of representation.

Therefore, if the electorate of a particular constituency rejects a particular candidate, as has happened in this election, is it legitimate to bring in defeated candidates into the institutions of power either through the back door — and nominations to the Rajya Sabha have provided a rather handy back door for this purpose — or through induction into the Ministry as the present government has done? Do not such measures dishonour the popular mandate or the lack thereof? Do they not deny the fact that the citizen is the primary unit of political society, and that the status of the representative is derived from the fact that he or she has been voted into power?

I raise this point in the general context of the influential thesis on the `crisis of representation', which challenges the capacity as well as the will of political parties to perform their job: to represent the interests of the constituents and to oversee the production of policies that ensure that something is done about pressing problems. For it is precisely here that party representatives have been found wanting. It is not surprising that scholars allege that political candidates are bound by the dictates of their party organisation more and concerned with representing the opinions of their constituents less. Moreover, since the representative has the power to sift through plural interests that are expressed in her constituency, she necessarily selects those that she considers worthy of representing, prioritises these over others, and put them forward in the forums that make policy. This really means that the representative has tremendous power inasmuch as she or he necessarily picks and chooses between competing demands, filters these demands through the ideological prism of the political party of which he or she is a member, or indeed manipulates these claims for partisan political ends. This is indeed a paradox, for ultimately the representative acquires autonomy from those he or she represents. More significantly, scholars dispute the idea that that we can discover some `objective wish' of the constituents, or some `pre-political' or `raw' opinions or interests, which can be used to distinguish between the interests of those who are represented, and the practices of representation. The general consensus is that representatives do not only represent in some `mirror like' fashion an inchoate entity called public opinion. Representatives do not in other words only register the will of the people; they are rather engaged in the determining of the will and thereby of the identity of the political community. Representation may well be the constitutive and therefore the decisive moment in the construction of the political will. It may be in sum more about the play of power and dominance than about bringing the needs of the people to bear upon policy. And citizens as well as their needs may well be constructed by practices of representation. There is nothing, in short, representative about representation, critics argue, and people who see the representative as the embodiment of democracy, have in effect, been short-changed.

In India, this thesis has proved more than relevant. Since the 1970s, political analysts observed with some regret that powerful party bureaucracies and political elites, preoccupied as they were with the consolidation of power in Indian society, had simply shrugged off the very same masses which had brought them to power in the first instance. Scholars were to bemoan the phenomenon of un-responsive parties and of amoral and power-hungry party leaderships, who were completely impervious to the fact that they had failed miserably to represent the needs of the people. Given the disenchantment with political parties, it is not surprising that the anti-caste movement, the struggle for gender justice, the movement for civil liberties, for a sound environment, and against mega development projects that have displaced thousands of poor tribals and hill dwellers, the movement against child labour, for the right to information, for shelter, for primary education, and for food security have mobilised in civil society. The fact that vital issues related to livelihoods, to the fulfilment of basic needs, and for justice were not taken up by political parties but by civil society organisations acted as a catalyst in the popular move away from party politics to civil society. This was to validate the formulation of the thesis on the `crisis of representation': people have shifted from traditional political forms to newer modes of representation to press their demands upon the state.

The shift from political to civil society organisation has been heralded for a number of reasons. For one, the practices of civil society organisations promise an exit from centrally controlled, bureaucratic, hierarchical, and oligarchic party structures solely preoccupied with winning the next election. Secondly, it is presumed that a multiplicity of agencies in civil society are able to respond immediately to problems and issues that require swift resolution, because they are notably free from rigid and tiresome constraints that characterise older forms of representation. Whether civil society organisations do not suffer from the same problems that bedevil political parties is however another debate.

The point is that despite all the problems that can be identified with representative democracy, it provides the only way in which leaders and the people can gauge the popular will. Notwithstanding the fact that Indian democracy has somewhat unfortunately been reduced to an overemphasis on elections, and regardless of the fact that the general acclaim that has been accorded to elections in India prevents comprehension that electoral democracy has not led to meaningful democracy, elections are important because they pave the way for substantive democracy.

In India, however, even this minimalist form of democracy — electoral democracy — is deeply compromised when people who have been voted out of power are given ministerial berths. For this neutralises the basic presupposition of representative democracy: that the representative derives his or her authority from the will of the people. However, today we see oddly enough that the authority of the Minister is derived from the political will of the party leadership. Secondly, who is this defeated candidate accountable to, and through which means? To the party leadership? Certainly it can be argued that the party leadership has been elected into power. But this would mean that the Minister who is supposed to represent his constituency actually represents another representative, muddying the already grimy waters of indirect democracy further. And even this minimalist form of democracy, which we are so wildly excited about, has been removed one step further from the popular mandate or from the will of the people, to whose wishes it supposedly caters.

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