Country United Kingdom Publisher Parker, Son, and Bourn Media type Print Originally published 1861 Genre Politics | Language English Publication date 1861 Pages viii, 340 pp. | |
 | ||
Similar John Stuart Mill books, Politics books, Democracy books | ||
Considerations on Representative Government is a book by John Stuart Mill published in 1861.
Contents
Considerations on representative government by john stuart mill preface free audio book
Summary
Mill argues for representative government, the ideal form of government in his opinion. One of the more notable ideas Mill puts forth in the book is that the business of government representatives is not to make legislation. Instead Mill suggests that representative bodies such as parliaments and senates are best suited to be places of public debate on the various opinions held by the population and to act as watchdogs of the professionals who create and administer laws and policy. In his words:
Their part is to indicate wants, to be an organ for popular demands, and a place of adverse discussion for all opinions relating to public matters, both great and small; and, along with this, to check by criticism, and eventually by withdrawing their support, those high public officers who really conduct the public business, or who appoint those by whom it is conducted.