THE CONCEPT OF REPRESENTATION

The Concept of Representation

The Concept of Representation

Representative democracy is a kind of political government in which the leader and representatives take on political control through ways of an aggressive battle for the votes of the people. An example of a representative democratic country is the United States of America. There are two fundamental matters that concern the representative nature. The primary matter is whether the representative needs to share the demographic features of the constituency majority? The second matter is whether the representative has to listen to his conscience or should he comply with the majority's will of the constituency?

In responding to the former query, we should interpret both of the representation's conceptions i.e. substantive and descriptive. Descriptive representation is known as the statistics association of the features of demographic of representatives with their components (Guinier, 1994). They supposed that people of the ethnical or racist backdrop ought to be presented by individuals of the similar backdrop. Substantive representation is the association amongst opinions of the representative and the constituents. They think that it is not an issue if the representative belongs to the same backdrop as the constituents as long as he presents their beliefs and views.

Melancton Smith, an Anti-federalist, in one of his speech he delivered at Poughkeepsie Convention on June 21, 1788, backed the descriptive representation. He thought that the awareness required for a representative to look for the proper concerns of the individuals is not only the knowledge of commercial and political information but is also the inclusion of the sort of association with the individuals' common occupations and worries. Smith reasoned that a representative could not realize his constituents until he is one of them (Guinier, 1994). The circumstances, abilities and nature of the individuals should be understood in order to present ...