WHAT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD FOR EVALUATING POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES?

Abstract

Democracy is a political system that has the features of political participation as well as political representation. Through a proper electoral procedure, the citizens delegate authority to few members who will be political actors representing their constituents. As Hanna Pitkin would say that as political actors, 'they speak, advocate, symbolize, and act on behalf of others in the political arena.' The elected representatives are agents who will make and determine how policies are to be implemented.

This thesis focuses on Nigeria, a democratic country. There have been experiences of political representatives not properly representing the interest and needs of the people in the policy making. The virtues of political representation are often lacking in many countries. Giving the fact that political representatives have been authorized to act on behalf of their constituents, they are also to be held accountable for their duties as political actors. The thesis addresses the question of what should be the standard for evaluating political representatives, ethical perspectives of democratic representation, the institutional evaluative framework, and the use of the virtues of representation to evaluate democratic representatives.

This study assess to what extent the political actors represent their constituents. It identifies key barriers to effective political representation in Nigeria which includes corruption, limited civic education, deficient electoral design and voters' apathy. The thesis recommend policy interventions to strengthen political representation in Nigeria, the need for political representative to build truest in the political system, promoting citizens' political participation as well as enhancing accountability mechanism for representatives.

The thesis ultimately calls for balancing the role of effective governance with ethical consideration; a holistic to evaluation that involves a practical application of the institutional and ethical evaluative frameworks.