Public Opinion and Politician Essay

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Rethinking Representation

People often mislabel the United States as a democracy. When it comes to the true sense of what that word means, that is really not true. Indeed, the United States primarily functions as a representative republic in that people are elected via a democratic process but the people that are elected can technically vote and act as they wish after being put into office. Other than being jettisoned via the next election, there is really very little recourse beyond that. As such, voters are extending their faith towards a person that may or may not represent what the candidate stated they would do and/or what the voters expect them to do. While the representative republic model has served the United States mostly well over the years, there are valid questions as to whether this model and framework should persist or if it should be altered in favor of something that is more superior and efficacious.

Analysis

The focal point of the analysis conducted within this brief essay centers on an article by Jane Mansbridge from Harvard University, as authored in November 2003. The focal point of her treatise centers on the idea that there is a normal ebb and flow to how legislators relate to their constituents.

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Concurrent to that, there is much talk about what it means to be a "good legislator." That being said, there has apparently been a divergence between the accepted answer to that question and the current empirical data that underlies the answer to the same given modern realities and contexts. When it comes to the idea of candidates and the promises they make, this model can be referred to as promissory representation. This model focuses on what candidates say they will do and what they do after elected. Of course, the idea is to compare what was promised and what actually ended up happening (Mansbridge, 2003).

That being said, there are other models that exist and those include anticipatory, gyroscopic and surrogate. Anticipatory is what it sounds like. Rather than simply react to what is stated as being the desire now, politicians instead focus on what will probably be craved and desired by the time the next election cycle rolls around. Gyroscopic representation is when a representative looks at his or her background and/or common sense when it comes to making a decision. Finally, surrogate representation is when there is representation of….....

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