Editors’ introduction

Certainly, gentlemen, 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. Edmund Burke, 3 November 1774 (Burke 1999) How should we reconcile the ideal that citizens in democracies aspire to control their political representatives with the reality that elected representatives have substantial leeway to act as they themselves see fit? This leeway, which is sometimes described as the monitoring problem, is often portrayed as a defect of the representative process – to be minimized if it cannot be abolished. But, as Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol suggests, this is not the only possible view of the matter.

Duke Scholars

Author Alexander Kirshner Political Science

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