Talk:Representative Government

Untitled
Hello! I created this page for a college class where we discussed Representative Government. I would like to note that Representative Government, historically, was not the same as Representative Democracy, although it has since become synonymous in everyday use. I use this page to show this difference as well as give us a better understanding of what people in the past believed our government should be. My writings rely primarily on the work of Bernard Manin, Nadia Urbinati and Helene Landemore (with others brought in as well). Please add anything you'd like and reply to this with any questions you have about what I have done!American Lautaro (talk) 21:20, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 January 2021 and 6 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): American Lautaro.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Response to objection
I see that someone has raised an objection that my article is a duplication of the Representative Democracy page. This is a question I myself wrestled with when deciding whether to edit Representative Democracy, incorporating what I had learned in class, or start a new page on Representative Government. However, after thinking it over, I decided that Representative Government merited a separate page from Representative Democracy for the following reasons:

1) Representative Democracy is a more expansive term than Representative Government. Representative Government is the limited set of institutions (free press, freedom to associate, repeated elections) that became a popular form of government in the XVIII and XIX century. Representative Democracy probably includes these, but also includes the fundamental upholding and establishing of democratic principles (equality, inclusion). While you may argue that the USA today is a Representative Democracy, it seems very difficult to argue this was true right after the constitution was written (because of the incredibly limited electorate). The founding fathers established a Representative Government, but democracy had yet to come (they themselves didn't even mention democracy in the constitution). This I believe shows the fundamental difference between the two terms.

2) While Representative Government has become synonymous with Representative Democracy, I think it is important for our conceptual understanding of our current system to establish that this was not always the case. It is good to remember that in the XVIII century, Democracy and Representation were not actually wedded to each other, as it reminds us that you can have one without the other and vice versa. Even now, I would argue that a government with political Representation can be un-Democratic and a Democratic system can lack the electoral mechanisms of Representative Government (for example, selection by lot). I think this separation can help us better understand the modern day debates within democratic theory.

3) I think separating the two ideas not only improves our understanding of the limits of both (Rep. Democracy and Rep. Gov), but it also gives us a better understanding of the intellectual history of our government. As wikipedia is fundamentally about knowledge, I think this better historical understanding is useful in itself.

I hope my arguments have been sufficient in addressing objections to a standalone Representative Government article, which I fully accept is a debate that should be had. Please reply if you take issue with any of them. For the time being, I will be restoring the page to its original state. American Lautaro (talk) 15:27, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this justification - however, you will need to convince other editors before you revert the article back. What you have written sounds like an essay relying on the work of just one scholar. And the definition at the top ("a system of government where citizens elect leaders to carry out and make public policy") makes it sound identical to representative democracy. StAnselm (talk) 15:54, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The Representative democracy article lists "Representative government" as one of rhe alternate names. StAnselm (talk) 17:55, 14 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the point about the first sentence. I think you are correct, I will change that to reflect that Representative Government is a historical term, and while much of what it meant has come to be included within Representative Democracy, they are not the same thing. I do think there are substantive differences however (despite the fact that my first sentence didn't fully reflect that) which I detailed in what I wrote above. On the point of that my writing relies on the work of one scholar, you are not wrong to point out that I cite Bernard Manin frequently (in part because he was one of the first scholars to write a comprehensive history of Representative Government vs. Democracy). However, I do also cite the work of Nadia Urbinati (Columbia University), Pierre Rossanvalon (College de France), and Helene Landemore (Yale University), who corroborate and support what Manin writes. Finally, I think that the Representative Democracy page is just wrong, based on what I have written above: 1) These two terms are substantially different 2) there is significant academic work published in the highest journals that supports this view, and 3) Understanding the difference between these two terms helps us better understand modern political systems. Furthermore, as far as I am aware, the wikipedians who wrote Representative Democracy do not justify their use of Representative Government and Representative Democracy as synonymous with any academic work, whereas I cite 4 respected authors in the field. Finally, to best illustrate this difference, would you feel comfortable saying that the United States was a Representative Democracy at its founding? I probably wouldn't, as the electorate was far too restricted and the society lacked any sort of egalitarian principles. However, I do think we could say it was a Representative Government, as it was a governmental structure that seeked to represent at least some of its people in government, and this is the term those at the time used to refer to their government (according to Manin, Rossanvallon, Landemore and Urbinati). Let me know what you think of my points, I appreciate the dialogue and hope the page will end up the better because of it. American Lautaro (talk) 23:11, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
 * If anyone still has objections to my edits to the article, please let me know! If not, I will implement them on Friday. American Lautaro (talk) 20:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I do not think the article should be restored. As far as I can tell, "representative government" and "representative democracy" are synonyms in common usage. The distinction between them seems to be pretty esoteric and only argued for by a few scholars. The vast majority of readers who search "representative government" will expect to go to our article on representative democracy, not the article you wrote. Also, as a side note, Wikipedia article titles are not capitalized if they are common nouns (see WP:NCCAPS), so if consensus develops to have a separate article on representative government it should be at Representative government rather than this title. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 02:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)