Concept of Representation

You will never personally speak in Parliament, yet a law Parliament passes binds you exactly as if you had voted for it yourself. That gap — between the millions who are governed and the few hundred who make the law — is bridged by one idea: representation. This module asks who gets to stand in for whom, and on what basis.

In two minutes

Representation is the mechanism by which the will of a large population, too big to govern itself directly, is expressed and acted upon through a smaller body of elected persons who are understood to speak and decide on its behalf.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Political Science – I: Political Theory and Political Organisation on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.