ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses distributed self-government and elective office. Distributed self-government provides an easy transition from the electoral system to the decisional apparatus. The elected public official is a key instrument in any government that makes a pretense of being democratic. The American plan of distributed self-government, depending on many elected officials, makes special demands for clear thinking about the authority of elected officials, the conditions of choosing them, and provision for their continuing attention to public expectations and demands. The relation of the three-level distribution of governmental authority to widespread civic awareness and the vigor of political leadership has been the subject of intensive study, both speculative and empirical, by political scientists and sociologists. Finally, existing theory relating to the role of elected officials in government suffers from inadequate attention to the limitations imposed by a society unwilling to give its government too much power.
