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Full Idea
Bernard Manin (1995) revealed how, immediately after the American and French revolutions, the electoral-representative system was chosen with the intention of keeping at bay the tumult of democracy.
Gist of Idea
Representative elections were developed in order to avoid democracy
Source
David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 3 'procedure')
Book Ref
Reybrouck,David van: 'Against Elections', ed/tr. Waters,Liz [Bodley Head 2016], p.62
A Reaction
At the time America and France were two of the largest countries in the world, and communication and transport were slow. That has changed.
| 20086 | Nowadays sovereignty (once the basis of a state) has become relative [Reybrouck] |
| 20085 | Democracy is the best compromise between legitimacy and efficiency [Reybrouck] |
| 20089 | Technocrats may be efficient, but they lose legitimacy as soon as they do unpopular things [Reybrouck] |
| 20090 | Today it seems almost impossible to learn the will of the people [Reybrouck] |
| 20087 | There are no united monolothic 'peoples', and no 'national gut feelings' [Reybrouck] |
| 20088 | Technocrats are expert managers, who replace politicians, and can be long-term and unpopular [Reybrouck] |
| 20093 | In the 18th century democratic lots lost out to elections, that gave us a non-hereditary aristocracy [Reybrouck] |
| 20091 | Representative elections were developed in order to avoid democracy [Reybrouck] |
| 20094 | You don't really govern people if you don't involve them [Reybrouck] |
| 20095 | A referendum result arises largely from ignorance [Reybrouck] |