REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL ELITES IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

In: Parliamentary affairs: a journal of representative politics, Band 19, Heft 1, S. 91-102

Abstract

An underlying assumption of representative gov is that the legislator will identify with the values & reflect the att's & aspirations of the constituents & that he will manifest some of their other characteristics; evidence contradicting this popular conception is found in recent studies of the backgrounds of legislative decision-makers. The data here presented & analyzed suggest that the members of a US Senate & (to a lesser extent) the members of a Canadian House of Commons constitute pol'al elite groups which were highly unrepresentative of the pop's of which they were a part. This may be due to the low level of interest in pol on the part of the average citizen in the US & Canada, & to the high cost of entering & remaining in pol in these countries. IPSA.