ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the changing character of social life by focusing on the special relation between government and society formed through some form of representation. Three main types of representation are emphasized: popular, as associated with "one-man, one-vote," and a conciliar form of decision-making; interest, as with special corporate groupings seeking special and parochial attention; and functional, as with technicians, planners, civil servants, and so on. The chapter attempts a development approach using stratification to indicate the formation of group needs and interests by means of which representative elites can be identified in a general model and organized separately in a representational model. It discusses that the most (although not all) nondemocratic representation is better seen as "predemocratic," rather than as alternative or hostile to it. The Roman illustration is interesting because it demonstrates the difficulties as well as the typical problems of reconciliation systems that are not democratic; i.e., they exclude part of the community from effective representation.