I’m teaching a class on Legislation & Statutory Interpretation next semester. I’m looking for a 20-30 page reading that I could assign to give students a basic overview of theories of representation. Ideally, it should cover both sides of the debate over things like: whether a legislator should represent his constituents’ interests or the public interest, one person one vote and counterarguments, majority-minority districts, and the parliamentary model vs. the American system. This will necessarily have to be a very superficial overview. The idea is not to get into all the details or the merits of the debate, but just to alert the students to the fact that these debates exist and have a basic sense of why they are important.
Arkady says:
Check out Political Representation in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sasha. Might be helpful.
December 16, 2009, 11:30 amEzra says:
While it’s not the broad overview you’re seeking, I’ve always thought you can’t understand interest groups and politics without reading Mancur Olson (The Logic of Collective Action).
December 16, 2009, 11:41 amHanah Volokh says:
Arkady: I’m considering the Political Representation article. It has a good discussion of the delegate/trustee debate, but not any of the other problems. It might be good to use in conjunction with something else.
December 16, 2009, 11:43 amMark Field says:
How about Burke’s Address to his constituents?
December 16, 2009, 12:02 pmSteve M. says:
Hannah Pitkin’s book, The Concept of Representation, is excellent on several of these subjects. Perhaps there are excerpts you can use. Perhaps paired with something from an introductory text on comparative politics?
December 16, 2009, 12:11 pmHanah Volokh says:
Mark: You mean this one? http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html Great stuff (I love the 18th century), but not exactly objective.
Steve: Interesting, I’ll look through and see what I can find.
December 16, 2009, 12:26 pmDavid McCourt says:
I second Mark Field’s idea. And Burke’s speech is short enough to print here:
Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol
3 Nov. 1774 Works 1:446–48
I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject.
He tells you that “the topic of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city;” and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favour of the coercive authority of such instructions.
Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?
To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,–these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for.
December 16, 2009, 12:27 pmDavid McCourt says:
You pipped me at the post, Hanah.
December 16, 2009, 12:28 pmHanah Volokh says:
UPDATE: I’ve just discovered the introduction to the “Representation” chapter of The Founder’s Constitution, which may be the best option I’ve seen yet. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13I.html
December 16, 2009, 12:31 pmMark Field says:
Yes. I realize it’s pretty far from objective, but I think it’s a good starting point for people to think about the issue. Perhaps you could pair it with an argument from the opposite side such as one favoring the power of voters to instruct their representatives. It opens the door for lots of debate about what “representation” means.
December 16, 2009, 1:28 pmdew says:
I like Burke’s speech, but parts, especially the last paragraph are a little less impressive if you consider Parliament of his time, which was a pernicious extreme of the “each member of parliament represents everyone” view. The belief that every member of the House of Commons represented “all commoners”, not a particular constituency was a dominant political theory in England, at least in the upper classes. That kind of virtual representation was used as a philosophical excuse to explain why it was OK that almost 90% of the residents of England had no direct representation, while many “pocket boroughs”, often under the complete control of some politically connected nobleman, had representation. The most extreme case was a borough (Old Sarum) with no residents that could elect two members to the Commons (an example of a “rotten borough”).
This theory of virtual representation was also a major excuse that Tories of Burke’s time used in fighting against any direct representation in Parliament from the American colonies – just like the 7 million residents of England with no direct representation; they were already represented, by every member of the House of Commons.
Burke himself seemed pretty admirable, losing his Bristol seat because he fought for better trade rules for Ireland and less harsh treatment of Catholics. Bristol was a real district with real voters who dumped him. He later was “elected” again from another district controlled a noble Whig friend.
I have known a bunch of legislators, and except for some extreme cases (ideologues and political climbers), they often struggle with this issue. Unlike Burke, most do consider themselves ambassadors for their districts, often in conflict with other districts (such as urban vs. rural districts).
(sorry for a long comment)
December 16, 2009, 2:58 pmPer Son says:
Get the casebook – Eskridge and Frikey “Legislaton.”
It will have lots of goodies to use.
December 16, 2009, 3:28 pmdew says:
I just noticed that the linked section from The Founder’s Constitution seems to cover some of the same points I note above, even mentioning rotten boroughs. It doesn’t really discuss exactly how amazingly unbalanced the representation really was in 18th century English Parliament. Maybe it is discussed elsewhere in the books.
I should have added to the prior post, most good legislators I have met do seem to end up pretty close to what Burke described – in the end you usually have to use your own good judgment and not just follow public opinion.
Also, maybe interesting, Colonial Massachusetts was often a sort of opposite extreme from Burke – town meeting voters elected members to the colonial legislature often along with lists of exactly how the town expected that representative to vote on important issues.
December 16, 2009, 3:34 pmSon of Per says:
I second Per Son’s Eskridge and Frikey. Excerpts from that would do the job well.
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December 16, 2009, 3:42 pmHanah Volokh says:
Per and Per: I’m using the Eskridge & Frickey casebook as the main text for the class. The impetus behind asking this question is that the book doesn’t address these issues in the way I want. To get to the ideas, you’d have to go through three classes worth of material on the Voting Rights Act. Two problems: (1) I don’t want to spend that much time on it, and (2) I think the students would get too caught up in the details of election law and miss the broader points, no matter how many times I told them to focus on the theory. Hence the search for some other source of material.
December 16, 2009, 3:45 pmMartinned says:
Republican (pre-1800) Netherlands used to work the same way. They didn’t necessarily have anything that could properly be described as elections, but simply a series of strictly defined stepped mandates, from cities, towns and villages to the sovereign state to the States-General.
To fix this, the Constitution has said, since 1815, that members of parliament vote without instruction. (Which since about 1880 is clearly not true, since they generally vote the way their party tells them to.) It also says that parliament represents the entire people, which, since the abolition in 1917 of the district system, is taken to mean that individual members also have to defend the interests of the entire country. (I’m not sure whether that view was already held before.)
December 16, 2009, 3:47 pmSteve P. says:
I’ll second Steve M’s suggestion — Pitkin’s book is pretty damn comprehensive on what “representation” can mean in a political context. However, you brought up four points you’d like to cover, and those 200+ pages really focus on the first point. Still, read it, and see if there are any excerpts you can use.
December 16, 2009, 4:27 pmIlya Somin says:
Hannah Pitkin’s book (already mentioned by others) is a great resource, and you can probably use excerpts to get something of appropriate length.
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