Democracy and Representation

In what follows, I will review the question of the moral justifi cation or legitimacy of parliamentary representation in modern democratic socie-ties – an institution established in a specifi c period of European history as a technical device to ensure the effective validity of the rights and liberties of one particular social class: the bourgeoisie. This genealocigal link between institution and social class has often been at the root of assertions claiming that the institution is obsolete because the socio-po-litical conditions that gave rise to it no longer obtain. It is therefore not without interest, fi rst of all, to take a brief look at the arguments which at the time of its establishment were given in favour of parliamentary representation and which were also often used later to criticize parlia-mentary democracy (I); in this fi rst part of my essay, Edmund Burke and Carl Schmitt will serve as guides. Secondly, I will discuss some central aspects of the democratic foundation of a parliamentary political system; here, I will refer mainly to two classical studies by Hans Kelsen (II)