Summary of Principles of Representative Government by Bernard Manin (Chapter 5)

In Chapter 5 of his book, entitled "The Verdict of the People", Manin begins by exploring the notion of an "elitist" theory of democracy,  and denies that Schumpeter's theory is elitist. Manin can see why some people will see Schumpeter's theory as elitist. Part of the reason is because S recognizes that the "empirical reality of representative democracies is not that the electorate makes decisions on public affairs".

The author then turns to address what seems to be the focal point of the chapter: "do representative institutions represent any kind of link between the decisions of those who govern and the electorate's policy preferences?" In other words, are the electorate's decisions taken into account in policy making? What measures are in place to ensure that the representatives reflect public will? What will happen to the representative if he doesn't?

Manin begins by recognizing two voids in the institutional mechanism: imperative mandates and discretionary revocability of representatives. These two voids results in problems of accountability. He takes us through the history of the English, American and French parliament to illustrate that while these institutional mechanisms did exist at some point, their existence was short-lived. He suggests that the fundamental problem with imperative mandates is that it requires the electorate to know in advance the issues government will confront. When large numbers of concrete decisions have to be made at a daily level, this seems impractical. With regards to revocability, Manin puzzles over why it is never implemented (since it is theoretically feasible), and concludes that its lack of use is due to "principle".

From there, two conclusions are drawn. First, since the link between the will of the electorate and the behavior of elected representatives is not rigorously guaranteed, the latter always retain a certain amount of discretion.  Second, those who insist that in representative democracy the people govern through their representatives must at least acknowledge that this does not mean that representatives have to implement the wishes of the electorate.

Manin moves on to discuss public opinion and the impacts it has representative democracy. First of all, he lays out the conditions of free public political opinion: access to political information, and freedom to express political opinion. This freedom, then, "appears as a counterpart to the absence of the right of instruction". In other words, it compensates for the lack of imperative mandate, and is a crucial contributing reason to why representative democracies are democratic. It not only "brings popular opinions to the attention of those who govern, but also of connecting the governed among themselves." The "horizontal" communication between the governed affects the "vertical" relationship between the governed and the government: the more people are aware of each other's opinions, the stronger the incentive for those who govern to take those opinions into account. Hence, through freedom of political opinion, accountability is created.

However, there are problems. Most of the time, expressions of public wills are partial and incomplete. First, the electorate as a whole seldom expresses itself outside elections. This is an empirical point. Second, polls, which has been the dominant gauge of public opinion, have their own flaws. The sample size is often too small, and the manner in which the questions are drawn often carries with it biases. The subject has been "chosen by a particular group in the society". Considering the dynamics of opinion expression, Manin quips that opinions often are expressed by a small group and diffuses outwards. Crowd psychology is hinted at, but only implicitly. Further criticisms against opinion polls are launched ("impose questions foreign to people's concern", "do not disclose pure, undistorted opinion of the public"). Manin really emphasizes the difficulties in gauging public opinion, and suggests it is the presence of freedom of opinions that differs a "hobbesian" absolute representation (where the voice of the represented is entirely substituted by that of the representative) from a representational democracy.

Repeated nature of elections.

With regards to the repeated nature of elections, Manin makes a few claims. First, the recurring nature of elections is important for representative democracy. It ties in with Schumpeter's notion that the true power of the represented lies in their ability to dispose of the rulers. Second, he claims that this distinguishes it from Hobbesian government, which emphasizes that the represented can once and for all transfer to some entity its right to govern itself. Third, the reason why it's important is because it confers two kinds of power to the voters: one, votes can be used to express rejection and stop incumbents from pursuing a certain policy, or two, it may show favour for the implementation of a new policy. These two powers are combined in varying proportions. Immediately, a paradox is presented: by not electing an incumbent, the voter signals that he does not favour current policies; but by electing a new candidate, they cannot guarantee the bringing about of a new policy. The voter does not gain much, without imperative mandates.

Manin then argues that the "central mechanism" of repeated elections lies in that subjects "anticipate future judgements" made against them, in the form of "prospect of possible dismissal". He emphasizes the practical force of this incentive. He also insists that Schumpeter is wrong "failing to note the central importance of anticipation in the decision-making of representatives". He argues that S cannot simply dismiss the voter's influence on public decisions wholesale.

Turning it around, Manin seems to imply that voters have a duty to vote on the basis of "retrospective considerations". In other words, the sole criteria of their judgment ought to rest on the "track records" of the politician, because the internal coherence of representative democracies depend on this logic. If they do not, politicians have no incentive to be accountable. This raises the question of: what happens to new political candidates without track records? Manin's answer would probably be: voters can vote for them if, and only if, the track records of the incumbent has proven to be terrible. However, in many cases, there will be some aspects of the old party which is good, and some aspects of the new party which is appealing but you're uncertain of because it could be all talk, and Manin's view is less strong for it de-emphasize the tedious process of risk calculation.

Three conditions for effective retroactive judgments:

Firstly, voters must be able to clearly assign responsibility. Second, voters should be able to get rid of those whose policy they reject. Third, incumbents much not have access to resources that their opponents don't have, because it's "structurally more difficult for voters not to reelect a representative than to reelect him".

An important question that Manin hints at is how political parties can, in a way, pursue whatever policy they want, if they assume that the voters will only judge them for what they're about to promise for the future. In other words, the voters do not practice retroactive judgement. This also ties in with difficult questions of electorate amnesia. If political parties can manipulate the coverage of events such that their promises made 4 years earlier are swept under the carpet, then they have a much higher chance of winning.

Towards the last part of the chapter, Manin touches on the issue of discussion. He first brings up the notion that discussions are intrinsically valuable in bringing us closer to the truth, citing the likes of Montesque, Madison, Burke. The term "government by discussion" - which is essentially what parliament is - has to be broken down if we were to make sense of why parliament functions the way it does. While not necessarily privileging the normative value of discussions, Manin emphasizes that it is the "collective and diverse character of the representative organ...that explains the role conferred on discussions". The fundamental value that lies in discussions is that it is a equal playing field. ("no intrinsic superiority gives certain individuals the right to impose their will on others",  "all participants must seek to win the consent of others through debate and persuasion"). Also, importantly, debate works in producing consent.  Following through, Manin claims that the chief function of persuasive discussion "[is] neither to make decisions, nor necessarily to generate proposals for decision, but only to produce consent in a situation in which no individual will is entitled to impose itself on others". In a sense, debate has a very instrumental, situational role in representative democracies - it's chief role is to overcome the problem of transference of sovereignty.