In representative democracies, the right to participate in elections is a right of participation far removed from that which was enjoyed in ancient Athens. It is a right only to choose a representative who, it is expected, will pursue the policies which the voter wishes to be pursued. In other words, it is an expectation entirely based on trust, which may or may not be honoured. In effect, the right to participate amounts to no more than a consent to power held by others, not a right to exercise power oneself. It also carries with it of course, the right to stand for office. But that right is largely skewed in favour of those within certain demographic bands, as the high proportion of graduates, public school alumni, lawyers and businessmen in Parliament testifies. And ultimately, this somewhat emaciated right to participate is only likely to be taken up if electors are actually motivated to vote or stand for election. But as we have seen in Unit 1 Democracy in difficulty: Topic 3 Beyond representation - Disempowerment, many today find they lack that motivation. In contrast, political scientist Hélène Landemore believes that the right to participate should include not just voting rights and the right to run for office:

"On my proposal, participation rights thus include all imaginable rights that can clear a path from the periphery of power to its center. Participation rights, in particular, ensure access of ordinary citizens to agenda-setting power rather than just allow citizens to consent to power or protect citizens from power." Landemore, Open Democracy. [7]

In a true democracy, direct access to power is available to all, i.e. fully inclusive. In a representative democracy however, the core processes of agenda-setting and decision-making are, by definition, performed on behalf of citizens. This is cited by critics as a failure in the principle of inclusiveness as exemplified by the Athenian assemblies, since it reduces citizens' direct access to power. As Landemore comments: "Under assembly democracy, access to power is open to all, either immediately or over time (through the strict equalization of chance offered by lottery and rotation), whereas under representative democracy, it is gated at all times and largely closed to most people over their lifetimes." Landemore, Open Democracy. [7] Even though the task of agenda-setting in ancient Athens was delegated to a Council of 500 citizens, this amounts to more than 'representation' - see representativeness in this Topic.

The legitimacy feature asks the question 'by what right do those exercising power do so?' Without legitimacy, those governing will lack authority in the eyes of the governed. Underlying the question is the matter of how those making decisions were selected. In a representative system, parliamentary candidates are first self-selected simply through the act of putting themselves forward. A second stage of selection follows where the person's political party endorses their nomination. Finally, a third stage of selection occurs where the candidate is elected. Critics claim that nowhere in this process is there a real chance for input from the citizen. By the time she or he comes to vote, the candidate is a fait accompli, chosen by agents remote from the voter and thus nowhere as legitimate as they might be. Even where primaries in some electoral systems provide an initial 'filtering' process, genuine legitimacy can still be questioned because selection has been mainly prompted by a small, influential elite, not the citizens at large. Further obscuring the matter of legitimacy is the disproportionate effect the media have on the public's perception of current issues and a government's policies for dealing with them. The media in effect turn serious issues into a combative spectacle, manipulating opinion in accordance with their own political perspectives. Add the considerable pressure business interests can bring to bear on government decisions, and the question of legitimacy assumes an importance almost as great as that of representativeness. In the early 2000s, sociologist Colin Crouch coined the term post-democracy ? to refer to this new mix of influences on political life. Ultimately, the political philosophers say, the highest degree of legitimacy (which they tend to call citizens' majoritarian authorization) can only be achieved through self-selection where all citizens have an equal chance of putting themselves forward. However, that raises the question whether all citizens equally have both the time and financial resources to put themselves forward. This is an issue which citizens' assemblies need to address effectively.

The question of representativeness is a crucial one for any discussion of democracy, since the preceding three elements - participation rights, inclusiveness and legitimacy - are dependent upon it to some extent. The question can be defined as: to what extent does a sample of citizens mirror the wider population in terms of its characteristics? It is plain that in the case of a representative electoral system, the opinions and beliefs of one elected official are unlikely to be able to encompass all those of, say, the 50,000 people they represent, except in the very broadest terms. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to assume that a sample of 50 people, selected at random, has a far better chance of doing so, if only by sheer numerical probability. However, purely random selection (sortition) still runs a residual risk of missing some characteristics deemed relevant to the political process, though that is hard to establish unless those characteristics are defined. In order to try to increase the probability of covering all 'desirable' characteristics, citizens' assemblies in the past have resorted to selection along recognised demographic lines, such as gender, age and economic status. Unit 3: Making Citizens' Assemblies work examines this process more closely. Although we must concede that the only way of achieving 100% representativeness is impracticably to include the whole population directly, it can be argued that the methods used for citizens' assemblies produce far higher degrees of representativeness than does an election process.

Accountability refers to the relationship between principal and agent whereby the latter is obliged to account for their actions to the former, including any policies or laws they endorse. In the representative system however, examples of MPs and governments failing to account for their actions are legion. Two examples in particular might be cited. The first caused widespread concern in the early 2000s when Tony Blair and his government went against strong public opinion and sanctioned the invasion of Iraq alongside the Americans under President George W. Bush. The other example, which in mid-2021 was causing quite a row in government watchdog quarters, concerned the vast sums of taxpayers' money expended on PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and other pandemic-related services with scant regard for formal procurement procedures. Both examples are signs of a failing democracy, made worse when judicial proceedings designed to hold our politicians to account come to nothing. Fallout from the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq affair amounted to little more than reputational damage for Blair and Bush, although whether the affair was a factor in Labour's election defeat in 2010 is still debated today. In the case of the pandemic messaging advice procured from Public First Limited for a mere £840,000 (see Unit 1: Democratic Deficit Case Studies - Case Studies #07), the government tried to discourage the litigants from pursuing their claim by inflating its legal costs to more than £500,000 for a one-day judicial review. Democratic accountability should not come at such a punishing price. Conn, Government to spend up to £600,000 defending Covid contract [9]

Jolyon Maugham, the barrister behind the Good Law Project tweeted: "Indeed, so staggering are the Government's costs of a one day judicial review, that they spent 42 hours just preparing the schedule of costs." Twitter, @JolyonMaugham. [10]

Some commentators claim that elections have an important function in allowing the electorate to punish their representatives by threatening defeat at the ballot box. Landemore [7] comments that this assumes that voters vote primarily on past performance and have a fairly cavalier attitude towards any untried successor. It also assumes, she says, that this threat encourages agents to be accountable. Landemore rejects both assumptions, citing another author (James Fearon) who, she says, more believably claims that elections are more about creating functioning governments than holding them to account. Even if there were some truth in the claims, it is hard to see that elections are anything more than an extremely imperfect and blunt tool for sanctioning elected officials. The right to hold a recall election would be far more effective.