Principals, Agents, Parties and the EU

Abstract

As we saw in the previous, introductory chapter, delegation of political power is at the heart of representative democracy. As in many other parts of life, we select other people to act on our behalf when we lack the capacity (often in the form of time) or competence (such as specialist, expert knowledge or talent) to get the job done ourselves, or when we face problems of social choice or collective action that hinder us in other ways (Bergman and Strøm 2004: 92). Representation, therefore, is a concept that legitimates the transfer of power. At the same time, it circumscribes the representative’s scope to act in ways contrary to the will of the represented. According to some theorists, representation ideally requires that there is no fundamental difference between the will of the represented and the action of the representative (Pitkin 1972). Of course, however, reality is almost never that simple. In practice, we cannot assume that representatives really act in accordance with this principle — and especially not in politics. Indeed, the starting point of our inquiry into the internal workings of Nordic political parties must be that the delegation of political power is a complex process that demands both theoretical precision and empirical investigation.