constituency. Such an approach can be enforced by provisions for recall of an
elected member who does not comply with the wishes of their constituents.
Problems
Introduction
There are several problems with representative democracy. One is a problem
inherent in aggregating individual choices to construct a social choice, a
problem exposed by Arrow’s impossibility theorem. Other problems concern
authenticity, agency and domination.
Authenticity
Legislators’ choice on behalf of their electors is authentic only when full
preconditions for democratic elections are met.
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These conditions include
that the system of voting is fair, that voters have full access to the information
necessary to make an informed choice,
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that candidates have fair and equal
access to the media regardless of their resources, and that legislators are not
corrupted by money or improperly swayed by lobbyists. The problem is that
in the practice of democracy these conditions are often not fully achieved, and
in this way the resulting choices made by legislators are not authentically
representative.
Aggregation
Social choice refers to a choice for society made by aggregating choices of its
individual members. In this sphere there are two such choices, election of
legislators by the electorate and the making of a law by legislators. For these
tasks there are arguments that aggregation of individual choices cannot
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Burnheim (1985)
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One impediment to access to information is media management by an
incumbent government. Greg Callaghan and Drew Warne-Smith wrote an article
“Rise of Rudd’s sentinels of spin” The Weekend Australian
6-7 June 2009 dealing
with the media management tactics of the Australian Government under the
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. They reported how a media adviser would walk
through the parliamentary press gallery asking journalists “What are you
writing?” There were criticisms that journalists were not given early enough
access to press releases or proper access to question the Prime Minister and his
Ministers. The authors quote one member of the press gallery: “It’s very obvious
what the strategy is. Get an image for nightly news for people who don’t follow
politics – an image that makes the government look like it’s frenetically trying to
help people through the economic crisis – and then make life as hard as possible
for journalists who try to analyse the Government”. As a Liberal Party consultant
put it: “Why deal with the media who ask informed questions if you don’t need to
do so?”
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