Rousseau Theory Of Representative Democracy

An Application of Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom to the U.S. Political System This paper first discusses Rousseau’s views on freedom and political participation in On the Social Contract. Then, it will analyze how Rousseau would see the modern “representative democracy ” in the U.S. It will support Rousseau in arguing that we are indeed unfree under such political systems. Finally, it will devise changes to be made for this system to make us free. To discuss Rousseau’s views on the representative democracy, there are a few concepts that we need to investigate: Freedom, the general will, the social contract, sovereign, and representation. According to Rousseau, freedom is the basis of human being , but what is it? Rousseau mentions at least three types of freedom: natural freedom, civil freedom, and moral freedom. Like many other philosophers, Rousseau has a concept of the state of nature, “where there is no stable property” (Rousseau, 169).

Rousseau defines the sovereign as the entirety of the community when it is active . “When the whole people enacts states regarding the whole people”, it is what Rousseau calls a law (Rousseau, 188-189). Thus, by being active, Rousseau mostly means making laws. As he explains, the legislative power belongs to and can only belong to the people, the sovereign. Nonetheless, the executive power of the laws cannot belong to the general public, “because this power consists solely in particular acts which are not within the province of the law nor, consequently, within that of the sovereign, all of whose acts can be nothing but laws” (Rousseau, 205). The implication is that the sovereign power is precisely the legislative power – nothing more, nothing less. As a conclusion, a people is free if and only if the legislative power lies in the whole of it, which means the people holds precisely the power of, and thus is, the