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Representative democracy is a variety of democracy founded on the principle of elected people representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy.^[1] For example, two countries which use representative democracy are the United Kingdom (a constitutional monarchy) and Germany (a federal republic).

It is an element of both the parliamentary system and presidential system of government and is typically used in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons (UK) or Bundestag (Germany), and is generally curtailed by constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber. It has been described by some political theorists as Polyarchy.^{[citation needed]}

Characteristics[link]

The representatives form an independent ruling body (for an election period) charged with the responsibility of acting in the people's interest, but not as their proxy representatives nor necessarily always according to their wishes, but with enough authority to exercise swift and resolute initiative in the face of changing circumstances. Moreover, democracies in the modern and contemporary world as so called since the representatives are voted for by the people. Such a method makes them solely accountable to the people. It is often contrasted with direct democracy, where representatives are absent or are limited in power as proxy representatives. Edmund Burke was an early proponent of these principles:

...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.^[2]

There is no necessity that individual liberties be respected in a representative democracy: one that does not is an illiberal democracy. A representative democracy that emphasizes individual liberty is a liberal democracy.^{[citation needed]}

In his book "Political Parties", written in 1911, Robert Michels demonstrates that most representative systems deteriorate towards an oligarchy. This is known as the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" and also as the First Law of Politicology. In line with this law, all Representative Democracies are known to become after time a Particracy. ^[3] Representative Democracies, which are stable have been analysed by Adolf Gasser and compared to the unstable representative democracies ^[4] in his book "Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung Europas" which was published in 1943 (first edition in German) and a second edition in 1947 (in German)^[5]. Adolf Gasser noted the following requirements for a representative democracy in order to remain stable, unaffected by the "Iron Law of Oligarchy":

• Society has to be build-up from bottom to top.

As a consequence society is build up by people, which are free and have the power to defend themselves with weapons.

• These free people join or form local communities. These local communities are independent, which includes financial independency, and they are free to determine their own rules.
• Local communities join together into a higher unit e.g. a canton.

There is no hierarchical bureaucracy.

• There is competition between these local communities e.g. on services delivered or on taxes

The system of Stochocracy has been proposed as an Improved System compared to the system of Representative Democracy, where representatives are elected. Stochocracy aims to be at least reduce this degradation by having all representatives appointed by lottery instead of by voting. Therefore this system is also called lottocracy. The system was proposed by the writer Roger de Sizif in 1998 in his book “La Stochocratie”.

Today, in liberal representative democracies, representatives are usually elected in free and fair multi-party elections. Different methods of selecting representatives are described in the article on electoral systems, but often a number of representatives are elected by, and responsible to, a particular subset of the total electorate: this is called his or her constituency.

Powers of representatives[link]

Representatives sometimes hold the power to select other representatives, presidents, or other officers of government (indirect representation)^{[citation needed]}

The power of representatives is usually curtailed by a constitution (as in a constitutional democracy or a constitutional monarchy) or other measures to balance representative power:^{[citation needed]}

• An independent judiciary, which may have the power to declare legislative acts unconstitutional (e.g. constitutional court, supreme court)
• It^{[clarification needed]} may also provide for some deliberative democracy (e.g., Royal Commissions) or direct popular measures (e.g., initiative, referendum, recall elections). However, these are not always binding and usually require some legislative action—legal power usually remains firmly with representatives^[where?].
• In some cases, a bicameral legislature may have an "upper house" that is not directly elected, such as the Canadian Senate, which was in turn modeled on the British House of Lords.

History[link]

A European medieval tradition of selecting representatives from the various estates (, classes, but not as we know them today) to advise/control monarchs led to relatively wide familiarity with representative systems.^{[citation needed]}

Representative democracy came into particular general favour in post-industrial revolution nation states where large numbers of subjects or (latterly) citizens evinced interest in politics, but where technology and population figures remained unsuited to direct democracy. As noted above, Edmund Burke in his speech to the electors of Bristol classically analysed their operation in Britain and the rights and duties of an elected representative.

Globally, a majority of the world's people live in representative democracies including constitutional monarchy with strong representative branch– the first time in history that this has been true^{[citation needed]}.

Relation to republicanism[link]

The related term republic may have many different meanings. It normally means a state with an elected or otherwise non-monarchical head of state, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran or Republic of Korea.

Sometimes in the US it is used similarly to liberal (representative) democracy.^{[citation needed]} For example:

The United States relies on representative democracy, but its system of government is much more complex than that. It is not a simple representative democracy, but a constitutional republic in which majority rule is tempered.

—^[6]

See also[link]

• Citizenship
• History of citizenship
• Non-partisan democracy
• Stochocracy or Lottocracy
• Totalitarian democracy

References[link]

[[tr:Temsilî demokr

Eleanor Fulton Laing, née Pritchard, (born 1 February 1958) is a British politician. She is Conservative Member of Parliament for Epping Forest, and was first elected in 1997.

Early life[link]

Laing was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire in 1958 and raised in the nearby village of Kilmacolm, where she attended the local St Columba's School. In 1976, she left for the University of Edinburgh, graduating with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws qualifications.^[1] She was the first female President of the Edinburgh University Students' Association. She worked as a solicitor in Edinburgh and the City of London.

Parliamentary career[link]

Laing contested Paisley North in the 1987 general election.

When Laing was first elected to the Epping Forest constituency in 1997, the seat had been reduced to marginal status by the Labour landslide. Before election, she had had been offered support by Malcolm Rifkind and was generally considered to be a Europhile. Once in Parliament, she appeared to sign up to the Eurosceptic-wing of the party, first supporting Michael Howard then William Hague for the Conservative leadership. After the election she sat on the Education and Employment Committee, chaired by Labour Margaret Hodge although apparently attended none of its sessions. She was seen as a rising star in her early career, with good performances in the Commons and strong attacks against Labour.

She was a strong critic of devolution, and attacked the government on many of the details of the transfer of power. In December 2000 she was appointed as opposition Scottish spokeswoman.

In 2001 the seat returned to safe status with a 19.8% majority. In 2005, she increased that majority to 32%. She has an interest in education, transport, economic policy, constitution and devolution. In 2008 she was one of 172 MPs who voted to preserve what critics call a lax and over-generous system of Parliamentary expenses which permit Members of Parliament to claim for expenses without producing receipts.

After the 2010 General Election, and the return of the Conservatives to power, Laing received no post in the government, and now sits on the backbenches.

Past and present positions[link]

• 1999–2000 Opposition whip
• 2000–2001 Opposition spokesperson, constitutional affairs
• 2001–2003 Spokeswoman for education and skills
• 2003–2004 Opposition spokesman, home, constitutional and legal affairs
• 2005 Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland
• 2004 Shadow Minister for Women and Equality
• 2007–2010 Shadow Junior Justice Minister

All-women shortlists[link]

Laing voiced her disagreement with all-women shortlists in 1997, calling it a 'millstone round your neck' for those who were selected by that process.

Hunting[link]

In November 1997 she voted against a hunting ban in a Commons debate.

Gay Rights[link]

In a Commons debate in June 1998 Laing sponsored the motion for lowering the homosexual age of consent to 16, saying 'Nothing that is being proposed tonight is in any way encouraging physical sexual activity among young people before they are sufficiently mature.' She differed with many of her Conservative colleagues, saying 'It is nonsense to say that there cannot be equality between 16-year-old boys and 16-year-old girls. Young people need protection, but young people are not protected by being made into criminals.' She opposed fellow Tories such as Nicholas Winterton who said that 'a homosexual act is unnatural', and replied that it did not challenge Christian teaching, and that the bill was not legalising anything which did not already go on.

While bishops were told to vote against an equal gay rights law in March 2007, Laing spoke in favour of the law arguing that that "her brand of Christianity" preached "live and let live".

38 Degrees[link]

Eleanor Laing complained about 38 Degrees for allowing members to send "clone emails".^[2] In a "Speaker's Debate", Laing complained that "we have to be very careful about who we are listening to out there... I always worry about that tyranny of the vocal minority against the silent majority, and last week I had some very nasty emails telling me that I didn't have the courage to vote against my government ... I'm talking about an organization called 38 Degrees which floods our systems with emails, the same email over and over again hundreds of times; people don't even put their full name and address so they cannot be identified as real people. It is cowardly to hide behind the anonymity of an email, which has been proposed by someone else for the purpose. 38 Degrees is for the purpose of bringing down the system".

MPs' expenses scandal[link]

After details of MP's expense claims were released in the press, it was shown that Laing had avoided paying £180,000 Capital gains tax on the sale of her Westminster flat by declaring it as her primary residence. This was due to it having a higher value than her constituency home making it her primary residence under CGT rules. However, she had registered the flat as her second home with the Parliamentary Fees Office, and by doing so had claimed through her Additional Costs Allowance some of the interest due on her mortgage. Her constituency is Epping Forest, which is close to London and less than an hour's journey by tube. When questioned she said that prior to the sale of the flat she had sought the advice of her solicitor. Laing was cleared by the Legg Inquiry.;^[3][4] nonetheless, she voluntarily repaid £25,000.^[5] As a result of the scandal she also had to face an attempt to deselect her by her constituency party, led by the Leader of Essex Council - which she survived.^[6] The Telegraph subsequently published an apology into their reporting of the story.

Private life[link]

Laing has one son, born in June 2001. She married Alan Laing in 1983 and divorced in 2002. Her turbulent private life has attracted press comment on occasion ^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Eleanor Laing MP official constituency website
• Profile at the Conservative Party
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live

News items[link]

• Becoming Shadow Scottish Secretary in 2005
• Eleanor Laing, BBC News, 10 February 2005^{[dead link]}
• Sticking up for teenage mothers in 2004
• Abhorred at discrimination by academic fees between Scottish and English university students in 2000

Audio clips[link]

• Discussing gender gap pay inequality in 2006 on The Westminster Hour
• Discussing Conservative conference in 2004 on Woman's Hour
• Discussing women in Westminister in 2007 on Women's Parliamentary Radio