Ideal Representation: Difference between revisions
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Ideal Representation is the property that the representation of the diversity of opinion of the population is exact and weighted by the relative importance to each voter. It is one of many [[types of representation]] which can be considered in a [[w:Representative
Lay people often mean [[Ideal Representation]] when they speak of [[Proportional Representation]]. The distinction is that [[Proportional Representation]] is only definable in terms of parties and individuals ideologies are rarely totally aligned with any party.
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==Introduction and Discussion==
The biggest debate when designing a [[w:Representative
The allocation of representatives to citizens is the primary issue of a representative democracy. For example, if the assembly contains 100 seats to fill, it still needs to be decided how citizens are to elect representatives for each seat. The historically most common and simplest way to do this is to have citizens grouped so that each group is entitled to elect who fills each seat. Forming each group at random from the population is clearly not useful, since the groups would be less prone to have a unique message for representation than other groupings. Since elections are in principle a delegative process, the primary split line between groups should be based on some feature of the citizens.
The ideal result of representation would represent all the political perspectives of all citizens weighted directly by the number who support each perspective. This [[Ideal Representation]] of the diversity of opinion is not possible. There are more mutually exclusive opinion groups than there are seats to be filled by representatives. [[Ideal
There are two well defined splits possible for systems, [[Partisan Systems]] and [[Regional Systems]]. In practical terms, this means voting for a person in Regional Systems or voting for a party in a Partisan System. These are closely related to the concepts of [[Proportionate Representation]] and [[Proportional Representation]] which define the typical outcomes of such systems. The degree of [[Proportionate Representation]] for each region is defined by the difference between the percent of seats obtained and the percent of the population (not voters) in that region. The degree of [[Proportional Representation]] for each party is defined by the difference between the percent of seats obtained and the percent of the popular vote for that party. If one wants to combine each of these differences into a global measure there are many methods to accomplish this. The typical measure for [[Proportional Representation]] is the [[w:Gallagher index]].
[[Regional Systems]] tend to have a high degree of [[Proportionate Representation]] and [[Partisan Systems]] tend to have a high degree of [[Proportional Representation]]. It is important to clearly distinguish between the design structure of a system and the expected outcome for each type of representation. All systems either have some amount of Proportional Representation although it may not be able to be defined adequately. [[Proportionate Representation]] is more difficult because in systems where there are no defined regions no useful statement can be made. However, many systems commonly have outcomes where some regions or parties elect no representatives even though they have the population to warrant representation.
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