SEMESTER 2 POLITICAL SCIENCE PROJECT ROHIT MOHAN.docx

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J S MILLS VIEW ON REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

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A PROJECT ON

J S MILL VIEW ON REPRESENTATIVE

GOVERNMENT

SUBMITTED TO

Dr.B.K. MAHAKUL

(FACULTYPOLITICAL SCIENCE)

SUBMITTED BY

ROHIT MOHAN

SEMESTER- II

(POLITICAL SCIENCE- MAJOR)

ROLL NO- 116

(B.A., L.L.B.)

DATE OF SUBMISSION 06- 03 -2013

HIDAYATULLAHNATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY,

RAIPUR (C.G.)


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I, ROHIT MOHAN, feel myself highly elated, as it gives me tremendous pleasure to come out

with work on the topic J S MILLS VIEW ON REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. I

started this project a month ago and on its completion I feel that I have not only successfully

completed it but also earned an invaluable learning experience.

First of all I express my sincere gratitude to my teachers who enlightened me with such a

wonderful and elucidating research topic. Without her, I think I would have accomplished only a

fraction of what I eventually did. I thank her for putting her trust in me and giving me a project

topic such as this and for having the faith in me to deliver. Her sincere and honest approach have

always inspired me and pulled me back on track whenever I went off track. Mam ,thank you for

an opportunity to help me grow.

I also express my heartfelt gratitude to staff and administration of HNLU in library and IT lab

that was a source of great help for the completion of this project.

Next I express my humble gratitude to my parents for their constant motivation and selfless

support. I would thank my brother for guiding me. I also express my gratitude to all the class

mates for helping me as and when required and must say that working on this project was a great

experience. I bow my head to the almighty for being ever graceful to me.

Thanks,

ROHIT MOHAN

(SEMESTERII)

ROLL NO.116


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INTRODUCTION

John Stuart Mill was born in Pentonville, then a suburb of London. He was the eldest son

of James Mill, a Scotsman who had come to London and become a leading figure in the

group of philosophical radicals which aimed to further the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy

Bentham. John Stuart Mill's mother was Harriet Barrow, who seems to have had very little

influence upon him. James Mill's income was at first slight, as he struggled to make his

living as a reviewer. But hisHistory of India secured him a position in the East India

Company and he rose to the post of Chief Examiner, in effect the chief administrator of the

Company. In spite of these duties and the work they entailed James spent considerable

time on the education of his eldest son. The latter began to learn Greek at three and Latin

at eight. By the age of fourteen he had read most of the Greek and Latin classics, had made

a wide survey of history, had done extensive work in logic and mathematics, and had

mastered the basics of economic theory. This education was undertaken according to the

principle of Bentham's associationist psychology, and aimed to make of the younger Mill a

leader in views of the philosophical radicals.

At fifteen John Stuart Mill undertook the study of Bentham's various fragments on the

theory of legal evidence. These had an inspiring influence on him, fixing in him his life-

long goal of reforming the world in the interest of human well-being. At eighteen he spent

considerable time and effort at editing these manuscripts into the long coherent treatise

that they became in his hands. Guided by his father he threw himself into the work of the

philosophical radicals, and began an active literary career. Shortly thereafter, in 1823, his

father secured him a junior position in the East India Company. He rose in the ranks,

eventually to occupy his father's position of Chief Examiner. A visit to France in 1820 had

made Mill thoroughly fluent in the language, and he became a life-long student of French

thought and history.


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OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE

The book which is referred in making this project report is J.S MILLS VIEW ON

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

To what extent forms of government are a matter of choice.

To examine the criterion of good form of government.

To examine whether representative government is the best of government or not.

To be cognizant of the limitations of representative government.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This project is based upon non-doctrinal and secondary method of research. This project has

been done after a thorough research based upon intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of the project.

Sources of Data:

The following secondary sources of data have been used in the project-

1. Articles.

2. Books

3. Journals

4. Websites

Method of Writing:

The method of writing followed in the course of this research project is primarily

descriptive.

Mode of Citation:

The researcher has followed the Blue Book mode of citation throughout the course of this

project.


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To what extent forms of government are a matter of choice.

All speculations concerning forms of government bear the impress, more or less exclusive, of

two conflicting theories respecting political institutions; or, to speak more properly, conflicting

conceptions of what political institutions are.

By some minds, government is conceived as strictly a practical art, giving rise to no questions

but those of means and an end. Forms of government are assimilated to any other expedients for

the attainment of human objects. They are regarded as wholly an affair of invention and

contrivance. Being made by man, it is assumed that man has the choice either to make them or

not, and how or on what pattern they shall be made. Government, according to this conception, isa problem, to be worked like any other question of business. The first step is to define the

purposes which governments are required to promote. The next, is to inquire what form of

government is best fitted to fulfill those purposes. Having satisfied ourselves on these two points,

and ascertained the form of government which combines the greatest amount of good with the

least of evil, what further remains is to obtain the concurrence of our countrymen, or those for

whom the institutions are intended, in the opinion which we have privately arrived at. To find the

best form of government; to persuade others that it is the best; and, having done so, to stir them

up to insist on having it, is the order of ideas in the minds of those who adopt this view of

political philosophy. They look upon a constitution in the same light (difference of scale being

allowed for) as they would upon a steam plow, or a threshing machine.

To these stand opposed another kind of political reasoners, who are so far from assimilating a

form of government to a machine, that they regard it as a sort of spontaneous product, and the

science of government as a branch (so to speak) of natural history. According to them, forms of

government are not a matter of choice. We must take them, in the main, as we find them.

Governments can not be constructed by premeditated design. They "are not made, but grow."

Our business with them, as with the other facts of the universe, is to acquaint ourselves with their

natural properties, and adapt ourselves to them. The fundamental political institutions of a people

are considered by this school as a sort of organic growth from the nature and life of that people; a

product of their habits, instincts, and unconscious wants and desires, scarcely at all of their


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deliberate purposes. Their will has had no part in the matterbut that of meeting the necessities of

the moment by the contrivances of the moment, which contrivances, if in sufficient conformity to

the national feelings and character, commonly last, and, by successive aggregation, constitute a

polity suited to the people who possess it, but which it would be vain to attempt to super induce

upon any people whose nature and circumstances had not spontaneously evolved it.

It is to be borne in mind that political machinery does not act of itself. As it is first made, so it

has to be worked, by men, and even by ordinary men. It needs, not their simple acquiescence, but

their active participation; and must be adjusted to the capacities and qualities of such men as are

available. This implies three conditions. The people for whom the form of government is

intended must be willing to accept it, or, at least not so unwilling as to oppose an insurmountable

obstacle to its establishment. They must be willing and able to do what is necessary to keep it

standing. And they must be willing and able to do what it requires of them to enable it to fulfill

its purposes. The word "do" is to be understood as including forbearances as well as acts. They

must be capable of fulfilling the conditions of action and the conditions of self-restraint, which

are necessary either for keeping the established polity in existence, or for enabling it to achieve

the ends, its conduciveness to which forms its recommendation.

The failure of any of these conditions renders a form of government.


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THE CRITERION OF GOOD GOVERNMENT

The proper functions of a government are not a fixed thing, but different in different states of

society; much more extensive in a backward than in an advanced state. the character of a

government or set of political institutions can not be sufficiently estimated while we confine ourattention to the legitimate sphere of governmental functions; for, though the goodness of a

government is necessarily circumscribed within that sphere, its badness unhappily is not. Every

kind and degree of evil of which mankind are susceptible may be inflicted on them by their

government, and none of the good which social existence is capable of can be any further

realized than as the constitution of the government is compatible with, and allows scope for, its

attainment.

Mill asserts that the best form of government for a people at a time is the one that best

achieves

two goals:

(1) improving the virtue and intelligence of the people under its jurisdiction, and

(2)organizing such good qualities of the people as currently exist to promote as far as possible

the long-run common good (the legitimate purposes of government). He does not say what to do

if the two criteria yield conflicting recommendations in given circumstances.

Being a utilitarian, Mill presumably is committed to picking as best the form of government that

will bring about maximal aggregate long-run utility, utility being understood as excellence

weighted pleasure. (A unit of pleasure taken in a non excellent activity such as pushpin is less

morally valuable than a same-sized unity of pleasure taken in an excellent activity such as

poetry).

The test of excellence and of the overall value of any kind of pleasure are fixed by the

preferences of experienced experts.


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WHETHER REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IS THE BEST FORM

OF GOVERNMENT OR NOT.

Mill is arguing that representative government is ideally best. According to Mill, even if a good

despot could be secured, which is an unlikely supposition, the result would be a passive

population, whose collective affairs are managed for them, without their intelligent participation

in the management. Such a despotism would massively fail test of good government.

This argument moves too swiftly. Even if the despotic monarch holds all power, she might

require intelligent participation in public affairs by all members of the public, as input into a

decision making process the monarch controls. So it is not necessarily so that a despotism must

fail to improve the virtue and public spiritedness and political capacity of the people who are

ruled. Otherwise how would an educational dictatorship be possible at all? Moreover, even if

despotism in practice did not develop the political virtue and intelligence of the people ruled, the

effective and efficient operation of government might leave the bulk of the moral and material

resources of the nation for individual self-development in the private sphere. This development

of private virtue and intelligence might quantitatively overshadow any hindrance to public and

political virtue and intelligence, so on balance good despotism might satisfy test (1) for a good

form of government.

A perhaps better argument is that any autocratic government that succeeds in educating

and improving the people who are ruled will eventually produce people who demand

representative institutions. Either the rulers acquiesce in this demand or society moves in a

retrograde direction. Good despotism might exist for a time but eventually undermines itself in

this way.

The ideally best form of government is that in which the sovereignty, or supreme

controlling power in the last resort, is vested in the entire aggregate of the community; each

citizen not only having a voice in the exercise of that ultimate sovereignty, but being, at least

occasionally, called on to take an actual part in the government, by the personal discharge ofsome public function, local or general.

According to Mill, in a country with a large population, direct democracy is unfeasible, so a

democratic government should be a representative democracy.Mill opines that the rights and

interests of every or any person are only secure from being disregarded when the person

interested is himself able, and habitually disposed tostand up for them and that the general


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prosperity attains a greater height, and is more widelydiffused, in proportion to the amount and

variety of the personal energies enlisted in promoting it.

Under What Social Conditions Representative Government is Inapplicable?

According to Mill, there are two conditions if obtained would prove representative government

to be the best form of government. They are:

1. The first constraint is that it must be possible for representative government to be set in

place and to last over time.The conditions necessary according to Mill are that the people

must be willing to accept democracy, must be able and willing to do what must be done

to keep this form of government in place, and must be willing and able to fulfill the

duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them .

2. The second constraint is that under some conditions democracy, though possible, would

not be desirable. Mill believes that these are conditions in which the people to be ruled

are in a backward uncivilized state and require despotic rule in order to advance and

develop better characters.


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The Proper Functions of Representative Bodies.

Mill argues that representative institutions should be assigned only limited functions, consistent

with their having supreme power in the last resort.According to Mill the functions of

representative bodies are as follows:1. the representative (elected) body is not fit to administer public policies. The executive

branch of government should be separate and distinct from the legislative. Administration

according to Mill should be done by qualified experts.

2. Mill suggests that the representative body should take care that the persons who have to

decide [matters of administration] shall be the proper persons, but Even this they

cannot advantageously do by nominating the individuals . Again, selecting persons for

administrative posts is a job for experts. In this respect the role of the representative body

is confined to the task of selecting the chief executive or of selecting a small group from

whom the chief executive shall be selected. Here Mill is assuming a party system in

place. Candidates from different political parties offer themselves to the voters, and the

party that wins the vote is entitled to have its chief serve as chief executive. The top

executive official is then responsible for appointing capable individuals who shall fill

other administrative posts. Mill also supposes there will be a civil service of expert

administrators whose professional role is to implement whatever policies are being

pursued by the ruling political party.

3. Mill envisages that the representative body shall assign the commission the task of

drafting a law on a topic and to serve a purpose the representative body specifies. The

independent legislative agency then should draft the law, which is brought back to the

representative body for ratification. Mill holds that the representative body should not

have the authority to impose amendments on the law proposed by the legislative

commission. The representative body can pass the proposed law or turn it down or send it

back to the Commission for redrafting. Commission members are appointed (not by the

representative body itself) and serve for a fixed term unless a member is guilty of

personal misconduct or the Commission refuses to draw up a law in obedience to the

demands of the representative body.


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Summarizing, Mill says, Instead of the function of governing, for which it is radically unfit, the

proper office of a representative assembly is to watch and control the government: to throw the

light of publicity on its acts; to compel a full exposition and justification of all of them which anyone considers questionable; to censure them if found condemnable, and, if the men who

compose the government abuse their trust, or fulfill it in a manner which conflicts with the

deliberate sense of the nation, to expel them from office, and either expressly or virtually appoint

their successors . This gives the representative body supreme controlling power in the

last resort as Mill conceives it. The main function normally of the representative body is talk

about the great public interests of the country.

He also opposes appointment of other officials in the executive branch by popular suffrage. He

favors an independent civil service with appointments filled according to the merits of the

candidates, with top officials of the branches of the executive departments and agencies being

appointed by the chief executive. He also rejects appointment of members of the judicial branch

of government by popular suffrage. He favors giving the chief executive the power to dissolve

Parliament (the representative assembly body) and order new elections. Otherwise members of

Parliament should serve for a sufficiently long term to enable them to carry out policies

independent of the changing moods of the electorate.

The Infirmities and Dangers to Which Representative Government is Liable?

According to Mill, the negative defects of a form of government come under two headings:

failure

to concentrate sufficient power in the authorities to enable them to carry out their tasks, and

failure to develop by exercise the actual capacities and social feelings of the individual

citizens.

Mill calls the positive defects a form of government may exhibit are defects that are

genuinely problematic for representative government. He sees two such defects:

(1) insufficient mental qualifications in the controlling body and

(2) the danger of its being under the influence of interests not identical with the general welfare

of the community.


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Problem 1: Mill thinks that monarchy and hereditary aristocracy dont tend to outperform

representative government. The only exception is when aristocratic rule essentially becomes rule

by trained professional functionariesa bureaucracy. Since bureaucracies can ossify and

become resistant to needed change, we should choose representative government over

bureaucracy if we had to choose. Still better is to design a constitution in which representative

government combines with bureaucracy to yield the best of both.

Problem 2: The problem of sinister interests, is roughly the problem of majority tyranny. Under

representative government a numerical majority might direct the government to be run in its own

interest. Oppression of the minority can result. Mill mentions the dangers of a majority of

Catholics ruling over Protestants, a majority of English ruling over Irish, and a majority of

propertyless workers ruling over propertied classes.

Mill regards the fact that with universal suffrage a stable majority of voters will be laborers and a

stable minority employers of labor to be the major likely deep cleavage to be found in a modern

society not divided within itself by strong antipathies of race, language, or nationality .

So he sees a persistent problem: laborers may be tempted to vote for policies that expropriate the

property of the wealthy, either by taking wealth in large chunks or by enacting taxation systems

that unfairly gouge the wealthy. He sees such expropriation and gouging as against the long-run

interest of propertyless workers, but a problem nonetheless, because voters are moved by their

perceived interests not necessarily their enlightened long-run interests.


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CONCLUSION

The invention of representative government is often taken to be the central achievement of

modern politics. In its European homeland, it took seven centuries (and quite a few

rebellions and revolutionary upheavals) to consolidate representative institutions. Church

hierarchies had to be resisted in the name of true religion. Monarchs had to be brought

under the control of assemblies. Legislatures then had to be subjected to democratic

election, and in turn these democratic elements had to be grafted onto pre-democratic

institutions of representation. The model of representative democracy that resulted is today

familiar as a cluster of territorially-bound governing institutions that include written

constitutions, independent judiciaries and laws that guarantee such procedures as periodic

election of candidates to legislatures, limited-term holding of political offices, voting by

secret ballot, competitive political parties, the right to assemble in public and liberty of the

press.

Compared with the previous assembly-based forms of democracy associated with the

classical Greek world, the invention of representative government and its subsequent

democratisation greatly extended the geographic scale of institutions of self-government; it

also fundamentally altered the meaning of democracy. Representative democracy came to

signify a type of government in which people, understood as voters faced with a genuine

choice between at least two alternatives, are free to elect others who then act in defence of

their interests, that is, represent them by deciding matters on their behalf. Much ink and

blood was to be spilled in defining what exactly representation meant, who was entitled to

represent whom and what had to be done when representatives snubbed or disappointed

those whom they were supposed to represent. But what was common to the new age of

representative democracy that matured during the early years of the twentieth century was

the belief that good government was government by representatives.

Often contrasted with monarchy, representative democracy was praised as a way of

governing better by openly airing differences of opinion not only among the represented

themselves, but also between representatives and those whom they are supposed to

represent. Representative government was also hailed for encouraging the rotation of


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leadership, guided by merit. It was said to introduce competition for power that in turn

enabled elected representatives to test out their political competence before others. The

earliest champions of representative democracy also offered a more pragmatic justification

of representation. It was seen as the practical expression of a simple reality: that it wasnt

feasible for all of the people to be involved all of the time, even if they were so inclined, in

the business of government. Given that reality, the people must delegate the task of

government to representatives who are chosen at regular elections. The job of these

representatives is to monitor the expenditure of public money, domestic and foreign

policies, and all other actions of government. Representatives make representations on

behalf of their constituents to the government and its bureaucracy. Representatives debate

issues and make laws. They decide who will govern and howon behalf of the people.

What are the current contours and probable futures of representative democracy in this

sense? In practice, there has always been a gap between the ideals of representative

democracy and its actually existing forms. Some observers draw from this the conclusion

that expressions of dissatisfaction with representative democracy are normal, even healthy

reminders of the precious contingency of a form of government that has no other serious

competitors. According to other observers, euphoria about representative government is

unwarranted. The mechanisms of representation that lie at the heart of actually existing

democracies are said to be afflicted with problems. These observers claim that such

difficulties are nurturing public concerns about the future of representative democracy

itself. In democratic systems as different as the United States, India, Germany, Great

Britain, Argentina and Australia, these observers point to evidence of a creeping malaise:

formal membership of political parties has dipped; voter turnout at elections is tending to

become more volatile; levels of trust in politicians and government are generally in

decline; public perceptions of the deformation of policy making by private power, above

all by organised business interests, are rising. When considered together, these disparate

trends have encouraged some analysts and citizens to draw the conclusion that the system

of representative democracy is breeding political disaffection. Others have argued that the

ideals of representative democracy are themselves now under siege, even that we are

heading towards an epoch of 'post-democracy.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

J.S.Mill,Utilitarianism, Liberty Representative Government

Journals

Spodek, Howard (February 1971). "Views Of J.S MILL On Governance". The Journal

of Asian Studies 30 (2): 361372.

Webliography

www.stanfordencyclopediaofphilosophy.com

www.google.com


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