User:HaroldMDub/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Deliberative Opinion Poll

 * 1) The article doesn't make clear what sense "random" is being used. Random, in common parlance is taken to mean haphazard and not - as the article intends - "an equal chance of being chosen". This could be remedied by hyperlinking the first instance of the word "random to the "simple random sample"  wikipedia page to clarify the sense in which the world is being used.
 * 2) The article contains instances of bias -  e.g. "Critics might say that careful moderation of discussions might create captive audiences in which participants behave differently from what is likely to occur in real-world settings. However, the point is to create an environment in which people are effectively motivated to consider competing arguments and become informed. Democratic institutions always raise questions of institutional design. This democratic design is intended to produce a representation of informed and thoughtful opinion and that is likely to be different from the inattentive and sound bite driven public opinion found in ordinary life." It is by no means established that public opinion is "inattentive and sound-bite driven. Indeed some of it is, but to claim without qualification that all of it is obscures that there may be other ways in which the behavior of participants in deliberative polls differs from  their real-world behavior apart from their becoming  more informed and more receptive to considering alternative view points.
 * 3) The author relies too heavily on Fishkin's thought on deliberative polling. Other academics have written about deliberative polls. The article would benefit from an inclusion of their views.
 * 4) There is a lack of balance in the articles discussion of the advantages and disadvantages. In fact, there isn't a clear section of the article where the possible advantages of deliberative polling are discussed. On the other hand, there is both a section for the disadvantages and criticisms of deliberative polling.
 * 5) This article is not adequately referenced, several paragraphs have been marked as needing citation.
 * 6) Unlike our class discussion the article fails to contrast deliberative opinion polls with alternative "democratic" institutions like representative government.
 * 7) The article's talk page has not been used yet. I wonder whether that's due to a lack of public interest in the topic (the deliberative democracy article talk page also hasn't been used yet)?. If so, is that not a limit of wikipedia? That, because its content is created, curated, and read, by "the public", only articles concerning issues that are currently on the public radar will receive attention from both from the readers and - more crucially - the editors of wikipedia.

Potential Articles (c Late February)

 * 1) Epistocracy (Redirects to "Noocracy"). I don't think this should be the case. Epistocracy may need its own article and maybe Noocracy should redirect to Epistocracy
 * 2) Deliberative opinion poll for the reasons above (article evaluation)
 * 3) Representation (Politics). This article is poorly cited. Granted, many of the claims made without citation can be regarded as "common knowledge" -  for example that the House of Representatives is an example of a  "rep-by-pop" legislative body may be common knowledge to US citizens and people familiar with US, but I don't see why it should be so for anyone else. These things need to be cited. I'll add that the article also doesn't explain any of the different forms of representation well. Here's an example, "Dyadic representation refers to the degree to which and ways by which elected legislators represent the preferences or interests of the specific geographic constituencies from which they are elected". This sentence, apart from not having a citation, is unclear. The author makes no attempt to tease out what different degrees and ways of representation look like, how they are measured etc.

Thoughts As I edit my article: March 12
That this is the only page [Representation (politics)] in wikipedia dealing with the concept of representation is worrying. I am struck by how spot on the introduction to the same topic in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is when it says, "The concept of political representation is misleadingly simple: everyone seems to know what it is, yet few can agree on any particular definition".

Hmm.

More on this later. But to remind me - what are the consequences of this thought? Every Wikipedia article claims/aspires to be an "objective" representation of the what is thought about the subject which the article addresses. What are the duties/obligations of this representative to what/who it represents and to whom/what it is a representation to? The question of duties/obligations in reference to an article may seem odd but it shouldn't be. This article on representation, for example, is political in more than its subject. It makes political claims. In its introduction the article links representation with democracy and goes on to discuss representation only in that context. What is represented to the reader then? That representation is the preserve of democrats? For me this seems like an attempt to straw man autocracy. It's easier to argue against autocracy if it is a priori assumed to be incapable of providing representation. But I am jumping the gun. What is representation?

Proposed Paragraphs
[Lead Section]

In the common view, political representation is assumed to refer only to the political activities undertaken, in representative democracies, by citizens elected to political office on behalf of their fellow citizens who do not hold political office. However, the lack of consensus in the political literature on political representation belies this common view. Theorists of representation differ not only in their definition of representation but also, among other things, on what the duties of a representative are, who can be called representative and how one becomes a representative. In her seminal work on political representation (The Concept of Representation ), Hanna Pitkin defined political representation as, "a way to make [the represented] present again" and identified four views of political representation which, since her book's publication, have shaped contemporary debates on political representation. Recently, Jane Mansbridge has identified four other views of specifically democratic political representation which, although they are distinct, share some similarities with Pitkin's. On the other hand, Andrew Rehfeld has critiqued the failure of theorists like Pitkin and Mansbridge to articulate a purely descriptive view of political representation and has proposed a general theory of representation that recognizes that political representation can be and often is undemocratic.

[Body]

In The Concept of Representation, Pitkin identifies four distinct views of political representation that emerge in the political literature on the subject:


 * 1) Formalistic Representation, including:
 * 2) Authorization
 * 3) Accountability
 * 4) Symbolic Representation
 * 5) Descriptive Representation, and
 * 6) Substantive Representation

Formalistic views of representation identify political representation with the formal procedures (e.g. elections) used in the selection of representatives. Pitkin distinguishes two formalistic views on political representation - the authorization and accountability views. Under the authorization view, a representative is an individual who has been authorized to act on the behalf of another or a group of others. Theorists who take the accountability view argue that a representative is an individual who will be held to account. Generally, the authorization and accountability views of political representation are discussed, separately or in combination, in the context of representative government.

The descriptive and symbolic views of political representation according to Pitkin describe the ways in which political representatives "stand for" the people they represent. Descriptive representatives "stand for" to the extent that they resemble, in their descriptive characteristics (e.g. race, gender, class etc.), the people they represent. On the other hand, Symbolic representatives "stand for" the people they represent as long as those people believe in or accept them as their representative.

Pitkin argues that these views of political representation give an inadequate account of political representation because they lack an account both of how representatives "act for" the represented and the normative criteria for judging representative's actions. Hence Pitkin proposes a substantive view of representation. In this view of political representation, representation is defined as substantive "acting for", by representatives, the interests of the people they represent.

In contrast, in her article, Rethinking Representation, Jane Mansbridge has identified four views of democratic political representation: promissory, anticipatory, surrogate and gyroscopic. Mansbridge argues that each of these views provides an account of both how democratic political representatives "act for" the people they represent and the normative criteria for assessing the actions of representatives. Promissory representation is a form of representation in which representatives are chosen and assessed based on the promises they make to the people they represent during election campaigns. For Mansbridge, promissory representation, preoccupied with how representatives are chosen and held to account through elections, is the traditional view of democratic political representation. Anticipatory, surrogate and gyroscopic representation, on the other hand, are more modern views that have emerged from the work of empirical political scientists. Anticipatory representatives take actions that they believe voters (the represented) will reward in the next election and are assessed. Surrogate representation occurs when representatives "act for" the interest of people outside their constituencies. Finally, in gyroscopic representation, representatives use their own judgements to determine how and for what they should act for on behalf of the people they represent.

[A General Theory of Political Representation]

Invoking the growing importance of undemocratic but representative international bodies like the European Union and the failure of extant theories of political representation to account for such undemocratic representation, Andrew Rehfeld has proposed a General Theory of Representation. Under Rehfeld's general theory of representation, a person is considered a representative as long as a relevant audience judges her as such. Rehfeld argues that his general theory of representation, unlike Pitkin and Mansbridge's, only seeks to describe what political representatives are, not what they should be or do. Hence under Rehfeld's theory, it does not matter to the status of representatives whether or not they are democratically elected or substantively "act for" the interests of the represented. This is not to say that Rehfeld argues that democratic political representatives can be representatives without being elected or be said to represent the represented without substantively acting for their interests. Rather, Rehfeld only seeks to point out that political representation is not limited to the democratic case.

Rehfeld's theory is as follows: in any case of political representation, there are representatives (formally a set), the represented, a selection agent, a relevant audience and rules by which the relevant judge whether or not a person is a representative. Formally, representatives are a set who are selected by a selection agent from a larger set of qualified individuals who are then judged to representatives by a relevant audience using particular rules of judgement. The rules by which a relevant audience judges whether or not a person is a representative can be either democratic or non-democratic. In a case where the selection agent, relevant audience and the represented are the same and the rules of judgment are democratic (e.g. elections), the familiar democratic case of political representation arises and where they are not, undemocratic cases arise.

Lead Section: Edit Justification and Plan
"In politics, representation describes how some individuals stand in [where and for what? What is being represented - opinions, interests etc? Where is it being represented - parliament, media etc?] for others or a group of others, for a certain time period. Representation usually refers to representative democracies [This is somewhat true, but wouldn't it be better to say, "Representation is often discussed in the context of representative democracy, however some theorists, i.e. Rehfeld, have articulated theories of representation that allow for undemocratic representation", where elected officials nominally speak for their constituents in the legislature. Generally, only citizens are granted representation in the government in the form of voting rights; however, some democracies have extended this right further."

This introduction makes it seem like there is a consensus among political thinkers about what, "representation describes". I plan to change this introduction in order to make it clear that there is in fact no consensus on what representation describes/is. For this I plan to use sources that came to my attention through the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I'll probably start with Pitkin (1967), from my reading of the the SEP and my conversation with Prof. Landémore, Pitkin seems to be the go-to theorist on representation. I'll try to integrate Rehfeld (2006) too because his account of representation allows for a possibility often ignored in the political literature on representation - undemocratic representation. Update: Pitkin also notes that representatives can be undemocratic (Pitkin, 1967).

Lead Section: Edits
Self-review: How have I established that there is indeed a "common view" on what political representation (PR) entails ? I worry that I haven't. Certainly the SEP entry on PR disputes that there is a "common view". On the other hand, there is definite sense outside academic circles that political representation is an idiosyncrasy of representative democracies (should I say government?)

Body: Edit Justification and Plan
For now I think I'll only pay attention to the "Theories, Descriptive and Substantive Representation" sections of the body. I will:
 * 1) Change "Theories" section header to " Pitkin's Four Views of Representation"
 * 2) Under types of representation,  I will add sub-sections: Formalistic, Symbolic, Descriptive and Substantive Representation. Under each, I will give an account of what Pitkin took these to mean and then I will, bring other authors into conversation with her. For example, under Descriptive Representation, I will bring in Alcoff's skeptical views on the possibility of speaking for others at all, even those others who share our backgrounds, aspirations etc.
 * 3) I may add this as bonus (2, above, and my edit of the lead section put me at the required 5 paragraphs of "original"), but it seems to me that the Burke section tries to capture more or less what the SEP captures under its, "Delegate vs. Trustee" section. I think this could be a valuable edit, since it will allow me to bring out what I am referring to in my version of the lead section when I say theorists disagree, on what the duties of representatives are/ should be. It also has the added benefit that it will allow me to bring in the views of some of the, so to speak, "original" theorists of representation Burke, Madison, Rousseau etc. I worry though that if I do this that the article will look like a carbon copy of the SEP's article on political representation. I'd really appreciate it if anyone reviewing my edits approaches their review with this concern in mind.

Updated Edit Justification and Plan
The above edits focus too much on Pitkin's views on political representation. Instead of the above, while retaining the original header and my more extensive discussion of Pitkin's discussion of formalistic representation (because the SEP claims that this view has been central in the discourse on representation), I will:


 * 1) give briefer accounts of Pitkin's three other views of representation.
 * 2) To reflect more recent thought on political representation, I will give a brief account of Jane Mansbridge's account of how empirical political scientist have rethought representation.
 * 3) Invoking the trustee/delegate controversy that emerges in Pitkin and Mansbridge discussion of how democratic political representatives should  substantively "act for" those they repesent,
 * 4) I will then bring in Rehfeld's thoughts on how even Mansbridge "rethinking [of] representation" should be "rethought". Particularly, I will focus on Rehfelds claim that the trustee/delegate controversy applies to anyone who make decisions on how to "act for" others regardless of whether or not they democratic political representatives.
 * 5) Proceeding from the foregoing, I will give an account of Rehfeld's General Theory of Political Representation.