Public Choice III

There is a radical distinction between controlling the business of government and actually doing it.

Views are divided on the role and function of elections in the democratic process and, therefore, on one of the basic constitutive elements of democratic theory. In one view, elections serve primarily to choose a government – a cabinet, administration, or executive – and only secondarily, if at all, to reflect the preferences or opinions of citizens. In that view, a cabinet governs as long as it retains the confidence (reflects the preferences or opinions) of the elected parliament. … There is a tendency for those who opt for that view – which we should note provides the foundation for the theory of responsible government – to focus on questions and issues that pertain to cabinets more than on those related to parliament and to citizens.

According to a second view, elections are primarily instruments in the hands of the public to signal particular preferences or opinions to competing representatives and only secondarily to fulfill the function of choosing a government. The basis of that view, which provides the foundation for the theory of representative government, is the assumption that governments seek to meet the preferences of citizens for public policies which would otherwise be unavailable or available in suboptimal quantities.