Mandates that Matter: A (New) Democratic Innovation

• In Event: Innovations in Democratic Theory

Abstract

Presidents and Prime Ministers routinely claim to possess electoral mandates that afford them the right and duty to enact the policies on which they campaigned. Claims of this kind often attract controversy but when they secure general acceptance they compel legislators to pass bills they would otherwise oppose, enabling sweeping policy change. Despite their prevalence and political effects, mandate claims have attracted limited attention from democratic theorists who argue variously that mandates lack normative substance, cannot be known, and do not exist. These criticisms have force but rejecting the practice of claiming mandates creates a dilemma for representative democracy. Mandate claims are entailed by the mandate theory of political representation, which remains central to the normative description of electoral democracy. In consequence, critics of mandate claims must either disavow the mandate theory of representation or discover a justifiable form of mandate claim. This article pursues the second option. Mandate claims could enhance democratic politics given their normative reconstruction and formal recognition within the electoral process. Formal recognition could be achieved via the institutionalization of mandate voting, a novel practice the rudiments of which we describe. Where these desiderata are satisfied, mandate claims promise to enhance the responsiveness and accountability of elected representatives, yielding benefits prized by several competing models of democracy.

Authors

• JK Sass, Australian National University

• Ana Tanasoca, Macquarie University