The consent of the governed

If people don’t consent, no government is possible. Here we’re going to see the importance of consent and its relation with the representative government.

Today, I want to speak to you about consent in politics.

It’s well known that consent is the cornerstone of representative government. It’s meant that rulers depend on people’s consent to govern the country. Otherwise, they wouldn’t hold any authority. That’s because, in any constitutional system, the government is subordinated to society. It exists to fulfill the public interest.

But the question here is, how did consent become the pillar of this sort of system? And also, how does it work? That’s what we’re going to see now.

We have to start with the origins of the representative government. That is related to the last video about the origins of the parliament. If you haven’t watched it, I leave the link up here.

However, here I want to focus on the political theory behind the representative government. But theory is not necessarily disconnected from facts. That’s why we need to revise some historical events in the Modern Age because they led to this form of government.

The first successful representative government was born in England. And with successful I mean long-lasting. It was the response of the English elite to the absolutist inclinations of the Stuart kings.

Because of the legal gaps in the constitution, it wasn’t clear the king’s prerogatives and the rights of the parliament. The Stuart kings were disruptive because they tried to introduce absolutism by ruling alone. In this way, they resulted in innovators due to the new methods they adopted. However, it involved the break of the customary political traditions. That alienated the parliament, stirred up the people’s anger, and spread opposition all around the country.

The constitutional quarrel revolved around which institution had the political supremacy in the government. Each side had its reasons to support their stance on this issue. The crown appealed to the theory of the divine right of kings. So, the monarch holds its position as head of the State because he inherited it from God, who vested him with absolute powers to rule over his families and servants. 

This theory had its foundations in the Bible to justify the supreme authority of the king, and therefore to keep him free from all human control. Consequently, the king is not bound by the acts of his predecessors, for which he is not responsible. Nor by his acts because a law must be imposed by another upon the person bound by it. In brief, the king alone is the maker of laws, and they derive their power purely from his will.

The work of Robert Filmer is the most famous exponent of this argumentation. This point of view is contradictory with that one which claimed the House of Commons wields the supreme authority.

Advocates for parliament supremacy argued that society is the result of a pact among all its members. Hence, there is no doubt that they can call a king to account. This political stance wasn’t new in the seventeenth century, and it had already been put forward by the Spanish historian Juan de Mariana in the sixteenth century.

Besides this, the parliamentarian perspective involved the idea of consent. The king rules with the parliament insofar as laws need parliamentary approval. In the middle of the national crisis of the Charles I reign, this argument gained relevance because it supported the resistance to the new taxes levied by the king.

During the English civil war emerged many different political theories that vindicated the supremacy of the parliament. In this way, this was a period of political and philosophical innovation aimed to provide the parliamentary side with strong arguments to limit the government of the king.

The threat of an absolute king lurked during the whole seventeenth century, and it stimulated political innovation, both in institutional and theoretical terms. At that time, it arose the need to devise constitutional limits to the government. That explains the appearance of some fundamental ideas, such as the rule of law outlined by James Harrington.

It was an attempt to support the parliament supremacy and to subject the king to the law and prevent him from introducing exceptions in law enforcement.

The seventeenth-century brought the emergence of different social contract theories. Some of them advocated for absolute monarchy, but the majority supported the representative government. John Locke stands out among the theorists of the latter group. Although he based most of his political reflections on previous works, he contributed substantially to the development of the constitutional system.

To go into depth, we need to contextualize the historical, and political environment in which Locke developed his main ideas on the representative government.

The Glorious Revolution in 1688 was a tipping point in the development of the English constitutional system. The absolute threat of James II forced his removal from the throne.

The conflict between this king and the parliament revived old constitutional quarrels about the crown’s prerogatives. But also it boosted the need to restrict the government and assert the representative principle as the cornerstone of the political system.

John Locke’s point of view was that the government, the king specifically but not less parliament itself and every political agency, is accountable to the people. But also its power is constrained by the moral law and constitutional customs of the kingdom. Although he considered the government indispensable, it exists just for the well-being of the nation. Therefore, the government is the result of a social contract that settles the aim of this institution. Its legitimacy comes from its purpose. In addition to this, Locke’s perspective reflects an individualistic philosophy that discuesses the right of the people to bring down the government.

Locke based his ideas on the theory of natural law, which means there are innate, indefeasible rights inherent in each individual. The aim of the government is the defense of these rights to make possible the well-being of the nation. For this reason, the individual and his rights figure as the ultimate principles in Locke’s theory. As a result, when the government fails to defend these principles, it loses its legitimacy, and the people have the right to fight what has become a tyranny.

It’s necessary to keep in mind that Locke’s ideas took place in a particular moment of English history. It was essential to justify in the realm of political theory the Glorious Revolution and set the political foundations of the new regime. That explains the revolutionary character of Locke’s theory because it justifies rebellion in the name of natural law against the government.

All of this denotes the importance of justice as a universal value, regardless of the positive law. Insofar as moral rules are broader, they’re valid whether the government observes them or not. The duty of any government is, hence, to give effect to natural law. If it fails to carry out this task, rebellion is reasonable.

At this point, we have to speak about the role of consent in power relations. And its implications in social stability.

From Locke’s perspective, the base of power is the consent of the people. If people don’t consent, the government breaks down. Consent is the source of legitimacy because the government itself is the result of a social contract to achieve the well-being of the community. Indeed, the community is the result of this contract. So, rights preexist the political community, and the individual keep them with him because they are natural. Therefore, he is unable to surrender them unconditionally neither to the community nor to the government. On the contrary, Locke considered the surrender of individual rights as conditional against both society and government, only to preserve themselves, their liberty, and property.

The civil power has no right except as this is derived from the individual right of each person to protect themselves and their property. The legislative and executive power of the government is nothing except the natural power of each individual resigned into the hands of the community. And it’s justified because it’s a better way of protecting natural rights than self-help to which each person is naturally entitled.

When the government breaks the social contract, consent fades away, and rebellion outbursts. Here is the core of the explanation of this topic, that is to say, the representative government bases its legitimacy on a clear mandate to preserve natural rights. That also has a relation to the principle of representation, namely, when elected officials cease to represent the people, and they betray their mandate. In that case, the government becomes an agent of tyranny, and elected officials turn into despots. As I said before, that happens when the government stops protecting individual rights and starts to interfere with them.

Everything I’ve already commented on has remarkable implications in the political organization. Now, I’m going to address the way consent works in a representative government, and how much it differs from Locke’s picture of a limited government.

First of all, it’s essential to note that the government’s power is fiduciary because the people have supreme authority to alter the political order when the government misbehaves against the trust of the public. For this reason, both powers, legislative and executive, are limited. At the same time, they are separated for the sake of freedom, something that reminds us of the separation of powers theory.

However, Locke established a clear differentiation between force and moral rights. The use of force, inherent to the government activity, needs the support of legitimacy that finds it’s base on natural law. So, the validity of the former depends on the latter. And consent is what articulates this relation, and makes possible cooperation in the political frame of a parliamentary system.

The main conclusion we draw from this is that the moral order is permanent and self-perpetuating. At the same time, governments are only factors in the moral order. When governments fail to fulfill this task, consent breaks and power reverts to the people, who must provide by a new act of constitutional legislation for a new government.

In the context of English history, this is related to the king’s pretension to rule without the parliament. But the same notion was recreated during the American independence war under the motto “no taxation without representation.”

Nowadays, the representative government works in a very different context compared to the seventeenth century. However, consent is still an essential feature of this system because it allows the creation of legitimacy without ripping away the constitutional order. Political changes are possible, but just in the frame of this system. If the trust of the public in the government ends, a new election restores it.

The over-expanded executive branch altered the balance of power inside the representative government, up to the point of overcoming its traditional constraints. Security imperatives boosted this process. As a result, the legislative, which historically has been the fiduciary of the people’s sovereign, is powerless before the executive Leviathan. Since then, the aim of the government has been its safety and has subjected everything to this goal.

The consequence of this process is evident. The development of a powerful executive involves, at the same time, the rise of permanent power structures. These structures are non-elective, and for this reason, they need legitimacy from the people. That explains the existence of elections to choose representatives. So, the system resorts to polls to create public consent, and by doing so, it creates a new legitimacy and keeps social peace.

Hence, there are two different sets of institutions. On the one hand, non-elective institutions, that is, the power structure of the executive with all its agencies and departments. On the other hand, elective institutions, such as the legislative branch, representatives of the people, and so on.

As Michael Glennon said, in the same vein as the nineteenth-century British journalist Walter Bagehot, both sets of institutions have to remain on the same page publicly. There can be no delay between the two. They have to project an image of harmony to the public. No disagreement.

Therefore, elections are how non-elective institutions achieve legitimacy from the people through their representatives. In this way, they create consent to the system and the public policies. Then, the consent of the governed is shaped from above to keep social peace, and if it breaks, the government restores it with fresh elections. In brief, this is the inversion of Locke’s notion of representative government.

Question of the day

Question of the day! What is the future of the representative government? Post your opinion in the comments section below, and I’ll check it out.

Bibliography used:

Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution

Glennon, Michael, National Security and Double Government

Stone, Lawrence, The Causes of the English Revolution

Pincus, Steve, 1688: The First Modern Revolution

Sabine, George, A History of Political Theory

Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government

Filmer, Robert, Patriarcha

Blumenau, Ralph. Philosophy and Living

Ives, Eric W. (ed.), The English Revolution 1600-1660

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