Voting does not constitute a mandate of trust in representatives

Evidence

The lack of clarity in the mechanisms for the formation of trust is based, first of all, on the fact that, in politics, the impetus towards commitment – both the advance made by the person trusting, and whatever he is putting his trust in – evaporate into a cloud of uncertainty. The metaphor of the ‘social contract’, according to which naturally free people undertake to trust each other or the established sovereign, has no counterpart in real life. Certainly, the citizen casts his vote. But to vote is not to mandate someone to represent one’s interests. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 222

Categorization

• XREF: Underscores the facelessness of political commitment — a voter delegates without personal facework, exactly the condition Giddens describes and Stevens lives (his professional devotion substitutes for any actual interpersonal mandate). — connects to: Legitimacy requires a visible link between votes and policy, not just good results — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 98