Representative Democracy: Definition, History, Basic Principles & UPSC Notes

Representative Democracy Representative democracy is a system of governance in which the people choose representatives to enact laws and make decisions on their behalf. It is an art to balance the demand of people to be heard along with the practicalities of governance in diverse, big societies. In this, there are elected officials who are answerable to the people in elections held regularly, with the government being made up of what the people want, while considering the rights of the minority. The representative democracy enhances political stability, facilitates enlightened discourse, and maintains the legality of policy. It gives citizens the opportunity to have a say in governance indirectly and efficiently through representatives.

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Representative democracy is a central notion in the Indian Polity, and hence, it is very significant in the context of UPSC. It goes hand in hand with GS Paper II by writing on the Indian Constitution, the Parliament, Elections, and Government. It also applies in GS Paper IV (Ethics), where aspects of being democratic, which include accountability and integrity, are tested. Under democratic theory and representation, it is found in the Political Science optional. Questions are frequently used to evaluate knowledge of the obligation in public participation, transparency, and law-making. A good understanding of representative democracy will assist in writing high-quality answers with a blue pen and eliminating options with a green pen. Join the UPSC coaching today and boost your preparation. 

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What is representative democracy?

A representative democracy is a form of governance in which representatives are chosen by the people and empowered to perform all tasks on behalf of the people. The issue with this system, as compared to direct democracy, is that citizens do not vote directly on laws and policies. Representative democracies have elected officials who are under an obligation to the electorate, and they are supposed to do what is in the best interest of the people who elected them into power. Representatives do not have to follow the will of the electorate, so that other complications can arise, including political influence and corruption. Although it has these difficulties, representative democracy enables citizens to evade the complexities of participating in the day-to-day governance and still be heard in the political process.

The most ancient known example of an early representative democracy, as practised in ancient Rome, occurred in the Western world. The Romans referred to their state as a republic (in Latin respublica, i.e., literally, something that belongs to the people). In the Roman Republic period (509 BCE), festivities took place in the agora, the central open place in every city, in the territory of the Rome Empire. Citizenship was usually granted by birth to all males when both parents were Roman citizens, with one of them, usually the mother, being an alien who held the right to enter a Roman marriage. Naturalisation also took place, and there was manumission of enslaved people to award them citizenship.

During the development of the republic, the Roman government developed four assemblies in addition to the Senate, which had existed in several forms over a couple of centuries. There were four assemblies, which were called commissions of comites, or comitiae, viz.: the Comitia Curiata, which consisted of the men who said they belonged to one of several tribes; the Comitia Centuriata, which was composed of military companies; the Concilium Plebis, the plebeians; and the Comitia Tributa, to which every citizen was open. In these assemblies, the vote was by groups, and that group was,s in a large or variously defined sense, not the individuals composing such groups. The senators were elected indirectly by the Comitia Centuriata and wielded great power, much more than the assemblies that supposedly acted on behalf of all Roman citizens.

By the 3rd century BCE, complete Roman citizenship had been enfranchised, but the worth of a voting right was synonymous with wealth. Women had no voice in society, nor had the right to vote; a woman at all times was under the control of a man, commonly their father or husband. Because Rome was an expanding state, as it moved over Italy, the new subjects had the freedom to manage their affairs with the privilege to have the rights to be like the other Roman citizens, except for the right to vote. Latin friends who became permanent residents in Rome were fully incorporated into citizenship. Roman allies who were tied to Rome by treaty did not have full privileges and had to pay taxes or tribute and offer their military services; thus the revolt was against their low social status, which the allies broke off and the Social War (9091 bce) ended with all of Italy, south of the Po, receiving complete citizenry, save those who were enslaved. When the Republic fell in 27 BCE and gave way to the Roman Empire, the use of the comitia and the authority of the people who exercised it changed.

It was this Roman style of democracy that formed the foundation of the majority of modern-day representative democracies. The same is true of Venice, Florence and the other city-states that arose in Italy in the centuries after the collapse of the Roman Empire in western Europe: they all had elections of their leaders and governors, and all were called republics, but they restricted citizenship to a small fraction of their male population. Simon de Montfort. In medieval England, Simon de Montfort was involved in two parliaments that are seen as significant to the emergence of representative democracy. The former, which was in 1258, was a group of barons who deprived King Henry III of his unlimited powers, through what amounts to the writing of the first-ever written constitution in England. The second, in 1265, encompassed the townfolk of England. In the 17th century, the British Parliament opposed British monarchical power during the civil wars of 1642 to 1651, and through the enactment of the Bill of Rights in 1689, Parliament was able to stage the Glorious Revolution, which turned Parliament, and not the monarch, into the ruling body of Great Britain. Suffrage was extended to various groups of people in Britain in subsequent Reform Acts of the 19th and 20th centuries, which again highlighted the powers of Parliament in Britain and the concept of representative democracy.

The United States and France are republics which have been significant in the establishment and propagation of representative democracy. After the American Revolution of 1787, a new constitution was made by the United States that took up the policies of representative democracy, and the members of the House of Representatives were to be directly elected by those who exercised the right to vote. The senators (until 1913) were indirectly elected. Other groups that were given voting rights over time were women, non-property-owning males, and blacks. In 1789, France passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and in 1792, universal male suffrage was used to elect the deputies who comprised the short-lived National Convention. These rights to vote were, however, undermined, and as time passed, it took another revolution in 1848 before those rights were reinstated; it took almost another one hundred years before women were finally granted the right to vote.

Institutions of a representative democracy

Modern representative democracies have come into being through a variety of political institutions, most of which made their first appearance in Europe and the United States in the 18th century. The concept of representation is itself the most important, because it enables government officials whom citizens elect to make significant decisions and establish policies. Important institutions include:

• A constitutional document providing a written, documented manner of how the election should be conducted and in what ways the voters and candidates are qualified to participate in the election. It also lays down the extent of power possessed by those who are elected as representatives. There are also other possibilities that a constitution may set up situations of direct democracy, such as referendums or recall elections.
• Freedom of elections, free, fair, and frequent elections where citizens have the freedom to participate in elections as voters and candidates.
• Exercise of freedom of expression, which entails that citizens are able to make statements on publicly considered issues or subjects that are related to politically sensitive matters without fear of reprisal.
• The freely accessible political information that the government or any particular group does not control. These sources have the right to publish information or disseminate information under the protection of the law.
• Freedom of association: Freedom of association guarantees that the people in a country have the freedom to form and join other independent political associations, such as parties and interest groups.
• A pluralistic system with a non-partisan and independent judiciary at the level to rule the decisions made by the elected representatives as unconstitutional.

Types of representative democracies

Over fifty per cent of the world's nations are of a representative democracy type. Others are parliamentary constitutional monarchies where a monarch is the hereditary head of state and where most or all political decisions and actions are left to a hereditary parliament elected. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands are among them. The federal parliamentary republics, like Germany and India, possess a bicameral parliament. In a bicameral parliament, one house (usually referred to as the lower house) is a popularly elected house of parliament directly by the people of the country. Regional/individual state representatives of the country choose the other house (the upper house). The people indirectly vote in the upper house because the regional representatives will be subsequently elected by the people who are citizens of those regions. The parliamentary republics (federal) enable every state or region to have an opinion over the decisions made at the national or federal levels. The United Kingdom also possesses a bicameral legislature, yet the upper chamber, the House of Lords, does not elect its members; they assume their posts either through appointment or are appointed in reference to the fact that they occupy a hereditary seat.

France is a semi-presidential republic where the president is a directly elected (and by the people) head of state; however, the president has a cabinet which is answerable to an elected legislature that is the National Assembly, which is the one backing the appointment of a prime minister. Conversely, the United States has a presidential republic where the president is democratically selected and has the freedom to appoint a cabinet, but lives in a separate form, not part of elected regional legislature organs (the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives).

The two sides of a representative democracy

In a representative democracy, the voters have a chance to choose a representative they want and such a person is supposed to adopt the will of the electorate whenever making decisions. In this way, the citizens take themselves out of the burden of daily decision-making, though they still have the freedom to express their views and to campaign or lobby for their views. Legislators have the potential to design laws and policies that are most beneficial for individuals. However,

But after being elected, the representatives are under no legal obligation to represent the intentions of the people. Political corruption may be the consequence of the temptations of money and/or power, and so on, and it may compromise the reputation of an elected body. Elected leaders have the option of not keeping their pledges, as they are safe in the fact that they have the job until the next election is over. The lack of connection to the political processes may also result in apathy among citizens, making them less willing to vote or otherwise engage in elections and other decision-making processes. Finally, the Election of representatives may be a very polarising issue for the citizens, particularly in cases where the election outcome is close or controversial, and there is a suspicion over the victory of a representative. When this happens, a large part of the population may feel they are not represented. Thus, the elected representative is doing them wrong, leading to apathy among citizens or noise by them to be heard, like protesting or going on strike.

How does representative democracy differ from direct democracy?

Representative democracy and direct democracy mainly have differences in decision-making. Representative Democracy is when the people of a country choose people to govern them and act on their behalf. The people select people who will be making decisions and enacting laws on their behalf. These are the representatives who must be answerable to the voters with their behaviours and choices. Conversely, direct democracy refers to the method of governing by the citizens through their direct involvement in the decision-making process, eg they vote on the laws and policies and not their representatives. It can happen through mechanisms such as referenda and initiatives. Meanwhile, direct democracy implies direct intervention of citizens, whereas representative democracy is easier and more applicable to contemporary nation-states whose size does not enable the entire population to participate.

What are the basic principles of representative democracy?

Representative democracy refers to the form of democracy where there is the election of people who are to make decisions on behalf of the citizens and make laws. Others are essential principles like:

• Representation: This means that the representatives are elected by the citizens to represent their interests and to make policymaking choices.
• Accountability: Representatives elected by the population are held accountable by the people for their actions and decisions.
• Free and Fair Elections: Free and fair elections would be conducted periodically.
• Constitutional Framework: The method of election, who can get elected, and elected officials' powers are described in a written constitution.
• Freedom of expression and association: Freedom of expression and the freedom to form political groups are allowed to citizen, and it is their right.
• Independent Judiciary: Judges can make decisions to check government actions and declare them unconstitutional, thus making justice independent.

Why is voting important in a representative democracy?

It is essential to have voting in a representative form of democracy since it entitles voters to choose their leaders who will come up with decisions on their behalf, so that the government that will emerge represents the will of the people. It makes the elected leaders responsible for their activities, since they have to face reelection, and they therefore become sensitive to the community's view. The voting process also makes the authority more valuable. Thus, the stability of the political structure is enhanced as there will be a peaceful switch of power within the political structure. It also produces civic participation and political training, as well as the feeling of belonging to the political community, and it enhances personal fulfilment as a citizen.

Conclusion

The political system of India has established a form of representative democracy so that the elected representatives represent all the citizens. It facilitates accountability, openness and inclusive government and enables effective decision-making in a diverse country. This concept is fundamental among the aspirants of UPSC, and the idea relates to the Constitution, governance, ethics and administration of the people. It is also a manifestation of the democratic Indian state ethos and the Indian institutions. A good understanding of representative democracy not only reinforces the answers in tests, but it also forms the viewpoint of the aspiring civil servant as a future servant of democracy.

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