This is an essay from another syllabus, hence why it is so long. However, the salient points remain the same.
Representative democracy, or indirect democracy, refers to the election of officials/lawmakers to represent the views of the electorate in parliament. In the UK, we elect our MPs, our MEPs, our local councillors, and in some parts of the country a Mayor (e.g. London). Whilst there are clear benefits to having a system of representative democracy in the UK, there are two key problems. Firstly, the UK’s electoral system doesn’t always ensure that everyone is properly represented. Secondly, once in power, there is no guarantee that our elected representatives will actually make policies or legislate in a way that is satisfactory to most of the electorate. Both of these issues will be discussed below.
Representative democracy is effectively the opposite of direct democracy (a system in which each individual has the right to initiate policy themselves). Representative democracy is usually regarded as an essential feature of a large society because it allowslegislating and executive decision-making to be carried out more efficiently by a small number of people, many of whom are experts in that job. This means that policy can be formulated really quickly if necessary (e.g. terror legislation post 7/7), and it also allows the electorate to “get on with everyday life” rather than everyone spending swathes of time on political matters. Furthermore, representative democracy in the UK allows the electorate to have easy access to their MP (e.g. through the regular constituency clinics usually held on Fridays across the UK).
The first argument against the effectiveness of the UK’s system of representative democracy is that the system does not necessarily allow everyone to be properly represented. There are a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, the First Past the Post electoral system for MPs means that smaller parties often gain little traction and cannot win enough votes to gain a seat in Parliament. For example, in 2015, the candidate standing for the SDLP in South Belfast won the seat with only 24.5% of the vote – this means that 75.5% of those who turned out to vote in South Belfast are not represented by the person or party to which they were most closely aligned. Therefore many of the votes cast in these types of constituency are effectively wasted votes. We can see this is not a new problem by examining both the share of votes won and the share of Commons seats won by the Tories throughout the 1980s and 90s. In 1979 the Conservatives won 43.9% of the votes and 53.4% of the seats, compared with the 1983 result of 42.4% of the votes and a huge 61.1% of the seats, and then in 1992 winning 42.3% of the votes (i.e. hardly any different to 1983) but a huge change in the proportion of seats at 51.6%.
However, it is difficult to see how the electoral system could easily be changed. FPTP is the most common electoral system globally for legislatures chosen in a representative democracy. The British public rejected the proposal for an AV system in a 2011referendum. Furthermore, alternative systems of more proportional representation (e.g. Germany’s) may result in uneasy coalitions which generate little meaningful policy thereby making representative democracy less effective and efficient. An alternative is for political parties to manipulate the shortlists for election candidates. The Labour Party has, in the recent past, used all-women shortlists to help increase the number of women in parliament. However, this technique is actually quite unpopular with voters – a 2014YouGov poll showed that 56% of the British public are opposed to the AWS system.
Secondly, voter turnout in the UK can be very low. The turnout for General Elections is usually reasonably high compared with other elections, but this rate remains stubbornly below the level prior to 1997 i.e. 66.1% at the 2015 General Election, compared with 77.7% in 1992 and 76% in 1979. There are a number of possible explanations for low turnout, but with regards to this question in particular, perhaps many voters feel that they are not adequately represented by their MP (different ethnicity, different educational/family background etc). Young people may feel that their MP is “out of touch”, and may be more likely to participate in democracy through e-voting (which currently doesn’t exist in the UK) or through protests/pressure groups. However, turnout varies hugely depending on the type of election. For example, national turnout was just 31% in the 2012 local elections (although this hides large disparities between council wards), and 34.2% in the 2014 European elections for MEPs.
One way of improving turnout could be to make voting compulsory (as in Australia), but the downside is that some members of the electorate do not actually want to vote or would be happy to vote if only there was a candidate that they found appealing. Another method could be to change the voting day from Thursday or extending the voting period to being longer than one day in order to improve convenience of voting – but this is difficult in practical terms due to polling stations often being in buildings that are needed for other purposes such as nurseries. The government could also invest into making it easier to vote electronically rather than physically attending a polling station or posting a postal vote. Finally, making it easier to register as a voter could also help – the change from household to individual registration has been blamed for poor turnout amongst young people who were previously often registered by their parents but can no longer rely on this. Movements such as Operation Black Vote (OBV) may also help encourage turnout amongst black and ethnic minority voters – OBV has been credited this Spring with helping Sadiq Khan to victory in the London mayoral election.
The second broad way in which representative democracy could be improved would be to improve the accountability of represented officials and ensure that they actually represent the interests of the people who voted them into power. There are various reasons why representatives may not actually do what we expect them to. One reason is a lack of effective scrutiny, due to, perhaps, weak Opposition (i.e. discord and disagreement in the Labour party following Corbyn’s election as party leader), or overly theatrical Question Times that are about cheap shots and not true scrutiny of the government (although politicians are increasingly held in check by social media responses to their performance). However, the increasing professionalization of Select Committees (e.g. paying the Chair an amount equivalent to that of a Minister) has gone some way to improving scrutiny, as has the use of the FOI Act by the media (e.g. the Telegraph’s investigation into the MP expenses scandal)
Another reason is that it can be quite difficult to actually remove a representative such as an MP from office until the next election. However, the Recall of MPs Act 2015 goes some way to redressing this issue, although the introduction of this new legislation was not without its controversies – Labour MP Geraint Davies said that there was a risk of the process being misused by groups with a vested interest and this could actually undermine representative democracy. Nonetheless the Bill became an Act.
However, maybe we should take note of the words of theorist Edmund Burke on representative democracy – he argued that we should trust the expert opinions of our representatives even if we happen to disagree with them. He wrote “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.
Clearly, the UK’s version of representative democracy is not perfect. However, it seems difficult to come up with ways in which it could be easily improved – efforts to enhance representative democracy are often unpopular with the electorate, or unnecessarily expensive / time-consuming. Maybe the increasing use of social media may help.
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