The Importance Of Representative Democracy

Elections aim to preserve our democracy in a number of ways, and they are effective in doing so from the way they are currently set up. Our elections take place under representative democracy and are efficient, have minimal transaction costs, and strive to reduce agency loss as much as possible (491, 7th Edition). The roles that elections serve are to maintain a stable representative democratic government without having any agency loss, which is accomplished by: 1.) Allowing citizens to vote and choose for any representative that represents them, 2.) giving those delegates more of an incentive to be responsive agents through the opportunity of keeping/improving their jobs, and 3.) encouraging citizens to keep a close eye on the delegated representatives

This gives the representative agents “a reason to care about people’s interests, opinions, and values” (496, 7th edition). Consequently, there will be a much less chance of agency loss to occur. Agency loss can be defined as “the discrepancy between what a principal would ideally like its agents to do and what they actually do” (31, 7th edition). In this case, the word “principal” refers to the citizens, and “agents” would be the candidates representing those citizens. Moreover, any adult being able to vote is “maintaining democratic accountability” and, as I have previously stated, allows for “electing a preferred candidate”, which are considered to be collective benefits for citizens (496, 7th edition). The way our elections are currently set up have an outstanding impact on our government, in a good way. In essence, the main role of elections are to maintain a representative democracy, which has fortunately been the case due to every adult being able to vote on a candidate/representative that they prefer. Elections also serve to minimize agency loss, and they have fulfilled that role as well; representatives will care more about people 's interests in order to receive votes. This is good because in a successful democracy, a system of government is being run by elected representatives that are trusted by citizens. There is, however, another reason representatives want to care for their interests and build a form of