The role of the politician in the liberal democratic state

Abstract

Politicians are elected to represent the people. But what if barely half of the people voted? And how can she (the politician) represent an electorate that has a range of very different, if not contradictory, opinions on the matter? The fact is politicians are permanently confronted with all sorts of dilemmas that make their job of representing the public a near impossibility. These dilemmas include that (1) of conscience—their own, if the loudest portion of those represented want something the politician is convinced is morally wrong; (2) of loyalty—when her party wants something she thinks will make her re-election impossible; (3) of patriotism—when what is proposed is, in her view, wrong for the country; (4) of short versus long term—when a quick fix is proposed instead of a well-thought-out solution; (5) of ends versus means—when the way to get to a solution is fraught with all sorts of difficulties.

The greatest art of a politician is to render

vice serviceable to the cause of virtue

Lord Bolingbroke

Comment (c. 1728) in Joseph Spence, Observations, Anecdotes and Characters, in The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, Anthony Jay, ed. (Oxford: 1997), p. 50. I believe Bolingbroke would have loved The FederalistPapers for this very reason: it is the best exposition ever written of how to render vice thus serviceable in a liberal democratic state. We will reference several of the papers below.