Abstract
Geographic definitions of constituency—the set of voters eligible to vote for a representative—have been criticized by theorists and reformers as undermining democratic values. I argue, in response, that there is no categorical (or even generally applicable) reason sounding in political equality to reject geographic districts. Geographic districting systems are typically flexible enough that, when properly designed, and matched with an appropriate electoral system, they can satisfy the requirements of political equality. More generally, I argue that it is a mistake to evaluate the egalitarian character of constituency definitions in isolation from the political decision-making process as a whole. While it is conceptually important that we can detach constituency definition from other features of electoral systems, when it comes to normative and evaluative judgment, we ought to judge holistically. When we do so, we will rarely find general reasons to prefer one type of constituency definition to another. Geographic districts may offer benefits of logistical convenience and information circulation, even given the existence of advanced information technology. The best reason to reject geographic districts is their liability to anti-democratic abuse. Their defensibility in any given polity thus depends on how feasible it is to protect against such abuses while retaining a geographic districting system.
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Notes
This is most obviously true of voluntary districting systems, as more elaborate voting rules would be needed to prevent malapportionment—i.e., to preserve roughly equal voting weights according to the “one person, one vote” principle. Pogge (2002) gives a sense of just how elaborate the rules might be.
This is a major thesis of Rehfeld 2005.
It rules out, for instance, views that voting equality (with, perhaps, basic protections for political speech) are sufficient for political equality. These conceptions are surprisingly common, especially in the U.S. See Wilson 2019, chs. 3, 10.
Rehfeld (2005, ch. 9), for instance, considers in some depth the holistic features of his proposed random districting scheme in comparison to alternatives.
Each of these endorsements has qualifications, though; see note 13.
On this unreasonable burden test, see Wilson 2019, ch. 10, part II.
There is a parallel to complex, long-standing arguments about political obligation, which I cannot survey here. For one example of this view that consent is not necessary for justice nor legitimacy, see Rawls 1999, Sect. 18. Simmons (1999) has argued that legitimacy with respect to some individual does require a “particular relation” between the state and that individual. But there may be “particular relations” that are not grounded in consent, such as the mutual enjoyment among citizens of non-domination (Pettit 2012, ch. 3) or social equality (Christiano 2008, ch. 6).
I make a structurally similar point about why we cannot treat elections as consensual waivers of citizen authority in Wilson 2019, 130 − 32.
This may be why some endorsements of voluntary districts are highly qualified: Rehfeld (2005, 197) considers the preference for voluntary districts to be “weak and unimportant.” James (2015, 385) endorses voluntariness of “subjective” constituency formation—that is, forming coalitions to elect a candidate—but not voluntariness of “objective” constituency—that is, forming the set of voters eligible to elect a candidate.
This, I believe, is Pogge’s view. He claims that his proposed system of voluntary constituencies has “freedom” benefits, but in elaborating those benefits, he emphasizes not the value of free choice itself, but improvements in the quality of representation that he expects to flow from the system (Pogge 2002, 43).
For a sense of how complex a voluntary constituency system would need to be, see Pogge 2002. Complexity is not necessarily objectionable, but it can be if it makes it difficult for some voters to exercise their authority or power without undertaking unreasonable burdens.
For a good criticism of free-agent representation, see Beerbohm 2012, ch. 8. This does not mean that political equality requires representatives to be “delegates” in the sense of following particular instructions of constituents. This is because many constituents judge that the representative ought to follow more general principles, such as “legislate for good outcomes,” or even “do what you think is best.” Representatives thus face the challenge of synthesizing, in an egalitarian way, constituent demands at various levels of generality. Rehfeld (2009) notices the distinction between (in my terms) granting authority to citizen judgments and acting according to particular mandates.
Attending to citizen judgments equally is consistent with favoring the judgments of a winning electoral coalition, and of larger coalitions between elections (Wilson 2019, ch. 6, secs. III.B-C).
It is possible that such instability, undermining citizen oversight of representatives, would lead to worse forms of representation, even if the representation were consistent with political equality. This would be a serious concern, though this, too, requires fairly extreme instability, as well as failures of other checks, such as electoral sanction by the new constituents at the next election.
I say “voted on” instead of “voted for” because I assume that the defenders of stability (reasonably) require accountability of some kind to all constituents, not just those in the winning electoral coalition.
Nothing in this argument depends on the idea that the partnership is a single group agent. Accountability to multiple, individual partners is more complicated than accountability to a unified corporate voice, but is possible.
This suggests a preference for what Mansbridge (2003, 516) calls “promissory representation.”
If a constituency is purely homogenous—everyone holds the same views about everything—there are no minority views to exclude. The more realistic concern is that in districts with overwhelming, but not total, homogeneity (e.g., 85% of constituents are from a salient social group, members of which tend to hold similar political views), minority views will be neglected by citizens and representatives.
This is long recognized in U.S. vote dilution jurisprudence: see, e.g., White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755 (1973).
The key idea is that we can distinguish obstacles to coalition formation that stem from objectionable neglect from those that stem from permissible principled or strategic choices.
I am being deliberately vague about just what just “adequate hearings” involve. For our purposes, differences in such views do not matter, so long as it is agreed that there are some non-trivial requirements of adequacy. Given the concerns expressed by defenders of district heterogeneity, it is clear that they agree there are such requirements.
Rehfeld (2005, 26) writes as if such “majority-minority” districts are necessarily homogenous. But this is false. A district in the U.S. with, say, 55% black voters is hardly homogenous. (Compare Rehfeld’s preferred random districts, which at the time of his writing would have left most districts in the U.S. around 70% white, and which he describes as heterogenous.) In fact, majority-minority districts in the U.S. are often among the most racially heterogenous districts in the country, unless minority voters are intentionally “stacked” by opposing partisans into such districts to decrease their influence in the jurisdiction as a whole. James (2015, 385) astutely makes similar points.
The need for a larger majority to elect a candidate could be due to less-than-total voting polarization along group lines, or differential turnout rates among groups.
Spreading minority members more thinly across districts might enable them to elect a greater number of sympathetic representatives, though fewer representatives that are the favorites of minority members.
Rehfeld (2005, 158) is correct, in my view, to argue that, while territory may sometimes be a reasonable proxy for common interests among constituents, it is a rough proxy, and there is no reason to think that a territorial way of sorting citizens by interest is generally preferable to other ways. He is also right to distinguish representation of territory per se from representation of sub-national political units (such as states or provinces), which raises separate questions of federalism. Carlsen Häggrot (2022) argues that geographic constituencies have an egalitarian benefit in promoting diversity within the legislature. But there are (mostly) non-geographic systems, like various PR schemes, that could achieve this aim better.
Carlsen Häggrot (2022) presents a good treatment of these claims, though he does not discuss much the circulation of information, which I focus on here.
“Effective,” for our purposes, means that they present sufficient opportunities for people to exercise their political entitlements, as these are defined by the proper conception of political equality. That some online activity may be “effective” in getting others to do what one wants through manipulation that violates principles of fair deliberation would not count as “effective” in the relevant sense.
Resources for online access may not be sufficient. There are complicated questions about who bears responsibility for various obstacles to the effective use of the internet for political activity, such as low online literacy, vulnerability to disinformation that may be more common online, disinterest in emails relative to television or in-person candidate appearances, and so on. On the general complexity of fairly dividing responsibility in these cases, though without particular attention to online activity, see Wilson 2019, ch. 10, part II.
This ideal probably requires transnational political justice, but that is a large topic for another day (e.g., Wilson 2022).
Carlsen Häggrot (2022) denies this concern, pointing out (correctly) that some such abuses could be prevented by increasing the number of representatives returned by each geographic district. This is congenial to my argument that geographic districts’ desirability turns on the existence of other mechanisms to check abuse. He also argues that gerrymandering would be possible with some non-geographic districting schemes. But the most relevant consideration, in my view, is that there are some non-geographic systems (like party-list PR) that would easily avoid gerrymandering concerns. Carlsen Häggrot is explicitly “noncomparative” in his analysis, so does not address that consideration. This raises complex questions of non-ideal theory and method that I cannot address here, beyond saying that my concern is comparative in Carlsen Häggrot’s sense—i.e., my question is whether and under what conditions geographic constituencies are preferable to salient alternatives.
This is also one of the strongest arguments for PR: not that it is categorically required by political equality, but that in some cases it is the most effective way to prevent the worst abuses of SMD systems.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful for comments from participants at a MANCEPT workshop remotely hosted by the University of Manchester: Sarah Birch, Lisa Disch, Suzanne Dovi, Benjamin Forest, Marcus Carlsen Häggrot, and Michael James. I am also grateful for the suggestions of two anonymous reviewers, who substantially improved this article, and for the encouragement of the editors of this special issue.
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Wilson, J.L. Political Equality and Geographic Constituency. Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-024-10431-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-024-10431-6