Representative democracy and information society - A postmodern perspective

Representation is a key concept for parliamentary democracy. It is, however, a broader concept than is commonly believed. Representative democracy has a fourfold meaning. First, representative democracy is a depiction of the people’s will. Secondly, it is a process of deliberation and negotiation. Thirdly, representative democracy is the institutional linking mechanism between political power and political control. Fourthly, representative democracy is the constitution of democracy in the broad sense of a public domain with ‘checks and balances’. Whilst these four images narrate the story of a vital democracy, in the praxis of democracy serious flaws can be identified within them. On the hand the political parts of the politico-administrative institution claim their primacy according to the classical Weberian doctrine. On the other hand, societal developments have led to new and autonomous domains of politics and governance. As a consequence the functioning of representative democracy has come under pressure. ICT developments play a very important role in this respect, because they tend to function as a catalyst for broader societal developments, thus causing serious flaws in the various perspectives on representative democracy. Here the argument is that in an information society three trends – horizontalization, deterritorialization and virtualization – are both magnifying and radicalising already existing flaws in the functioning of representative democracy. In an information society, representation must be reinvented. The conclusion seems justified that representation as constitution of a democratic republic is most suitable for the information society.