In politics, representation describes how residents of a country are empowered in the government. Representation usually refers to representative democracies, where elected representatives speak for their constituents in the legislature. Generally, only citizens are granted representation in the government in the form of voting rights, however some democracies have extended this right further. The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. ... Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the peoples representatives. ... Constituent may mean; Constituent (linguistics) Constituent (politics) Category: ... A legislature is a type of representative deliberative assembly with the power to adopt laws. ... The word citizen may refer to: A person with a citizenship Citizen Watch Co. ...

Representation by Karl and Ginge

In this method, elected representatives will be chosen by more or less numerically equivalent blocks of voters. This is not always practical for historical and current political reasons, and sometimes are impractical purely on the basis of logistics, as in regions where travel is difficult and distances are long. The shortened term, "rep-by-pop" is used in British English but is unknown to American English.

Historically rep-by-pop is the alternative to rep-by-area, a system when applied with broad strokes infamously created "rotten boroughs" of near-empty countryside as another form of "pocket borough", that is, a district which is in a party or a candidate's pocket, what is known in countries with the British parliamentary system today as a "safe seat". However, in the colonial countries, the geographic realities made a necessity of low-population electoral districts in order to give meaningful representation to remote communities, and only in urban and suburban areas has there been any success with applying rep-by-pop more or less evenly. The term rotten borough (or pocket borough, as they were seen as being in the pocket of a patron) refers to a parliamentary borough or constituency in the Kingdom of England (pre-1707), the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707-1801), the Kingdom of Ireland (1536-1801) and the United Kingdom...

In the United States and other democracies, typically the lower house of a bicameral (two-chamber) system is based on population—more or less—while the upper House is based on area. Or, as it might be put in the United Kingdom, on title to land, as was originally the case with the old pre-Reforms House of Lords. In the Senate or the Lords, it does not matter how many people are living in your jurisdiction, it matters that you have the jurisdiction (by election, heredity or appointment—the US, the UK and Canada respectively). In government, bicameralism is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. ...

Representation by area

The principle of rep-by-pop, when brought in and promoted publicly, removed many archaic seats in the British House of Commons although some northern and rural counties necessarily still have variably lower populations than most urban ridings. British colonies like Canada and Australia also have rural and wilderness areas spanning tens of thousands of square miles, with fewer voters in them than a tiny urban-core riding. In the most extreme case, one riding of the Canadian parliament covers more than 2 million square kilometres, Nunavut, yet has less than one third the average number of voters for a riding, with a population of about 30,000. Making the riding larger would be difficult for the elected member, as well as for campaigning and also unfair to remotely rural constituents, whose concerns are radically different from those of the medium-sized towns that typically dominate the electorate in such ridings. In the British Isles since Anglo-Saxon times, a riding is traditionally a sub-division (especially in three) of a county, in Australia analogous. ... To help compare orders of magnitude of different surface areas  here is a list of areas between 1 million km² and 10 million km². See also areas of other orders of magnitude. ... Motto: Nunavut Sannginivut (Inuktitut: Nunavut our strength or Our land our strength) Capital Iqaluit Largest city Iqaluit Official languages Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English, French Government - Commissioner Ann Meekitjuk Hanson - Premier Paul Okalik (Consensus government) Federal representation in Canadian Parliament - House seats 1 (Nancy Karetak-Lindell) - Senate seats 1 (Willie Adams) Confederation...

The American Constitution has built into it a series of compromises between rep-by-pop and rep-by-area: two Senators per state, at least one Representative per state, and representation in the electoral college. In Canada, provinces such as Prince Edward Island and Quebec have unequal representation in Parliament (in the Commons as well as the Senate) relative to the booming Western provinces, partly for historical reasons and partly because those electoral allotments are constitutionally guaranteed. Seal of the U.S. Senate Federal courts Supreme Court Chief Justice Associate Justices Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures State Courts Counties, Cities, and Towns Other countries Politics Portal      Senate composition following 2006 elections The United States Senate is... Seal of the House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives (or simply the House) is one of the two chambers of the United States Congress, the other being the Senate. ... An electoral college is a set of electors, who are empowered as a deliberative body to elect a candidate to a particular office. ...

Until recent reforms, there were still many federal and provincial electoral districts in British Columbia and other provinces that had less than a few thousand votes cast, notably Atlin, covering the province's far northwest, with no more than 1,500. The area of the riding was about the size of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia combined, and larger than many American states. In practicality, the voters of the tiny communities scattered across the subarctic landscape, less than the population of a city block, had as much electoral clout as two Fraser Valley municipalities totalling up to 60,000 in population. The population imbalance between largely rural areas and overwhelmingly urban areas is one reason why the realities of representation by area still have sway against the ideal of representation by population.

Descriptive representation

Descriptive representation, sometimes called passive representation or symbolic representation, is the idea that candidates in democratic elections should be elected to represent ethnic and gender constituencies, as well as other minority interest groups, rather than the population at large. According to this idea, an elected body should resemble a representative sample of the voters they are meant to represent concerning outward characteristics—a constituency of 50% women and 20% blacks, for example, should have 50% female and 20% black legislators. Democracy (literally rule by the people, from the Greek demos, people, and kratos, rule[1]) is a [[List of forms of government|form of government]. While the term democracy is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles are also applicable to other groups and organizations. ... An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of a boundary that distinguishes them from other groups. ... Gender in common usage refers to the sexual distinction between male and female. ... The definition of a minority group can vary, depending on specific context, but generally refers to either a sociological sub-group that does not form either a majority or a plurality of the total population, or a group that, while not necessarily a numerical minority, is disadvantaged or otherwise has... An interest group (also called an advocacy group, lobbying group, pressure group (UK), or special interest) is a group, however loosely or tightly organized, doing advocacy: those determined to encourage or prevent changes in public policy without trying to be elected. ... Sampling is that part of statistical practice concerned with the selection of individual observations intended to yield some knowledge about a population of concern, especially for the purposes of statistical inference. ... Image of a woman on the Pioneer plaque sent to outer space. ...

Generally, voting systems that obtain proportional representation also tend to achieve descriptive representation as well, however this can only be guaranteed to the extent that voting patterns in a system of proportional representation also reflect descriptive characteristics of the voters. If a particular trait is not a concern for voters or prospective candidates (for instance, eye color), then an elected body will resemble a random sampling of the voters instead. Voters at the voting booths in the US in 1945 Voting systems are methods (algorithms) for groups of people to select one or more options from many, taking into account the individual preferences of the group members. ... Proportional representation (sometimes referred to as full representation, or PR), is a category of electoral formula aiming at a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates (grouped by a certain measure) obtain in elections and the percentage of seats they receive (usually in legislative assemblies). ... Eye color is a polygenic trait and is determined primarily by the amount and type of pigments present in the eyes iris. ... Sampling is that part of statistical practice concerned with the selection of individual observations intended to yield some knowledge about a population of concern, especially for the purposes of statistical inference. ...

Some [Ulbig 2005] argue that cynicism and distrust towards government of disadvantaged minorities is partly due to not having representatives with similar characteristics. Supporters of this argument point out that as descriptive representation increases, distrust decreases. This can be the basis of laws imposing that half the candidates on a given list be women (for example in France since 2001) or of voluntary symbolic measures (Spain's current government has eight women and eight men). Opponents of such logic argue that practical policies may ultimately play a larger role, making such represenative gestures irrelevant unless already done by a government considered favorable by the community. For example, only 2% of African-Americans support the Bush administration despite the high-profile nominations of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. The Bush administration includes President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Bushs Cabinet, and other select officials and advisors. ... General Colin Luther Powell, United States Army (Ret. ... Condoleezza Rice (born November 14, 1954) is the 66th United States Secretary of State, and the second in the administration of President George W. Bush to hold the office. ...

See also

• Apportionment and redistricting
• Gerrymandering

Apportionment, or reapportionment, is the process of determining representation in politics within a legislative body by creating constituencies. ... The process known as redistricting in the United States and redistribution in many Commonwealth countries is the changing of political borders (in many countries, specifically the electoral district/constituency boundaries) usually in response to periodic census results. ... Gerrymandering is a controversial form of redistricting in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are manipulated for an electoral advantage. ...

References

• Ulbig, Stacy G. (2005) "Political Realities and Political Trust: Descriptive Representation in Municipal Government". Southwestern Political Science Association Meeting. Retrieved from [1] on July 19, 2005.
• Breakdown of Federal Highway Spending, State by State

July 19 is the 200th day (201st in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 165 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Analysis of reapportionment after the 1990 US census, from an Arizona State University website