Oligarkia - edustuksen väistämätön seuraus?

Kirjoittajat

• Pertti Lappalainen

Abstrakti

The problem of oligarchy is usually connected to Robert Michels’s name. Michels’s theory of parties is, however, only a part of the discourse which at the beginning of this century dealt with the workability of representative government. The idea of this article is to review the party critics of so-called German berufständisch and British guild socialist schools of thought. They both argue that representation of the people always results in oligarchy. The main purpose of the article is to elaborate some counter-arguments to their theory of oligarchy. From the viewpoint of rhetoric, the constituents are the audience of the representatives. They have to convince those they represent and therefore they cannot act totally autonomously, if they want to renew their mandates. The logic of representation means in this article that representatives are also obliged to pay attention to the interests of the whole nation in addition to the interests of constituents. This may look like an independent activity, but it does not mean oligarchy. Finally, the rationalization of party activities may call for different kinds of interests at the different levels of the party organizations. So the leadership may have different interests than the membership. The activity of representation is in some degree autonomous from the people represented, but this does not imply the formation of oligarchy.