Representative Democracy in Mill
A Response to Rousseau’s Critique of Representation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21796258 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gustavo Hessmann Dalaqua (0000-0002-9672-8703, Universidade Federal do Amazonas, corresponding author), Gustavo Dalaqua |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Revue d’études benthamiennes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1760-7507 • E-ISSN: 1760-7507 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/155fg |
| OpenAlex | W4416245499 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
John Stuart Mill was a reader of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his defense of representative democracy can be read as a response to the critique of political representation advanced in The Social Contract. To develop his theory of democratic representation, Mill had to refute the following theses that Rousseau presented to rule out the possibility of a representative democracy: (1) sovereignty consists only of the will; and (2) representation is always a form of delegation. Mill’s Considerations on Representative Government argues that (1) sovereignty encompasses will and judgment; and (2) representation does not require delegating political power from the represented to the representative. When a representative government is democratic, representation fosters, rather than inhibits, popular participation
Democracy · Mill · Politics · Popular sovereignty · Representative democracy · Sovereignty · European Political History Analysis · Political Theory and Influence · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |