Hindess, Barry

Deficit by design - 2002

This paper focuses on the distinguishing concern of the discourse of democratic deficit: namely that appear to be some striking discripancies between democratic norms and institutional practice. I argue in this paper that the problem of democratic deficit is in fact the normal condition of the institutions of representative government. Indeed, early arguments in favour of representative government insist that it departs from and is superior to democracy itself. If representative government provides the predominant modern understanding of democracy, then democratic deficit is an integral part of its design