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  • Essay / The Principal-Agent Model of Representation - 1533

    Although the principal-agent model of representation has undergone rigorous testing for hundreds of years, it has taken various incarnations, but it still shows signs that it This is an inefficient system. The damaging problem with the limitations of this model is not that it is flawed in itself but that it has negative effects on the public, some of which are explored in the writings of Geoffrey Brennan, Alan Hamlin, and Melissa Williams. In this study, several other models will be examined, but only to serve as a reference for a more favorable model that would resolve many of the problems of the principal-agent model. While several authors attempt to challenge the potential of direct democracy, the opposite will be argued here as it has the potential to reshape the idea of ​​representation as well as the way in which policy is determined. The problems within the Principal-Agent model are numerous and detrimental to direct democracy. the functionality of the system when a cost/benefit analysis is applied to the primary stakeholder (i.e. the public). Whereas Geoffrey Brennan and Alan Hamlin see the principal-agent model as a sort of least-worst system that, while flawed, is still repairable while retaining its central features. One of the main criticisms of the Principal-Agent model concerns a question that has been asked almost as long as representative government: does the representative make the decisions his constituents want or does he do what is in his "interest"? ? Edmund Burke, in his famous speech to the voters of Bristol, noted that a representative's "mature judgment" and "enlightened conscience" enable him to choose what is in the best interests of his constituency. This form of thinking is necessarily implicit in ...... middle of article ...... ill-suited to a system that goes by the name "Democracy." The Principal-Agent model is either considered a system that is the most practical or the best system that can realistically exist, assuming in either case that a simpler, more straightforward system is unfeasible. Realizing the limitations of the Principal-Agent system means understanding the flaws that make the model so destructive to the democratic institution and which can be repaired in due course. In examining the core problems of the Principal-Agent model, it is clear that the Agent actor is the cause of many of the disabilities that plague this model by perpetuating a false sense of representation. It is becoming abundantly clear that this model cannot continue in its current form without causing further harm to those who are not properly represented or to those who aspire to more equitable representation...