The meaning of political representation

"It is necessary for the government of a country to constitute a unity of decision and action. Hence, authority, the government, is always an inescapable dimension of every dynamic social organism. Thus it seems the formulation of some liberals that the state (or, rather, the government) is a "necessary evil doesn’t seem."

As the philosopher Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde says, "the task consists rather in admitting the existence of this directional power and of these representatives, giving them stability in the possible, but at the same time in subjecting them to democratic legitimation in an open process of formation of the democratic will, as well as to bind them to responsibility and to democratic controls, so that its action can be valid as an action authorized by the people and in the name of the people, and even simply for this action to take place."

This view refers to a theoretical and practical question that is difficult to reconcile: that of the nature of political representation. Consider the representatives of the legislative bodies. To whom do each individual federal/state deputy or senator represent? And what freedom of action do they have?

There are two extreme theses that we need to avoid. The first considers that each elected congressman represents only and exclusively the set of citizens or the electoral base that elected him and therefore he must always vote in accordance with the will of this group or base. His power would come from a mandate. This thesis, of the binding character of the congressman's power, completely impedes the democratic game and the function of legislative bodies, since there wouldn´t be a possible construction of the consensus or of the search for the best solutions, which require freedom for those involved to negotiate and compromise.

The second thesis considers that, once the congressman is elected, there is no link to the basis that elected him, and his performance is not legally bound to any commitment to voters. This view is false or downplays the democratic character of political representation to the extreme.

Without going deeper into the topic, it seems that the solution requires a paradigm that would serve as reference or purpose for the performance of the representatives. According to Böckenförde, "it was clear that this broader reference point of material democratic representation contains and must necessarily contain a normative moment, that is, a moment that refers to beyond the domain of the natural empirical will and the corresponding delegations of will.”

But what is this broader point of reference of a democratic representation? The problem - the reality that the power of representatives can be neither a totally discretionary nor a totally bound power - clearly refers to the idea of the common good, with all the difficulties that it may entail and even if this concept does not properly bring a practical solution. But this is the most appropriate "normative concept" and one that can gradually acquire the concrete contours that each society needs.