Author(s): Hotma P. Sibuea, Dwi Seno Wijanarko
The doctrine of people sovereignty is a modern-day political doctrine developed by Jean Jacques Rousseau with a starting point from the Social Contract doctrine. The Social Contract doctrine is rooted in the philosophy of natural law (natural law). According to Rousseau, people's sovereignty is reflected in the "general will" as the will of all individuals involved in the Social Contract. The doctrine of Rousseau's people's authority is one of the ideologies that influence various countries' state administration systems in modern times. The philosophy of people's sovereignty later developed into a doctrine that justified the representative democracy system even though Rousseau wanted direct democracy. In a representative democracy, the general will reflects the people's sovereignty is expressed by the representative institution. Representative institutions are seen as state organs representing the "general will" in the reality of state life and state administration practices. In particular, this paper focuses on discussing the implementation of the doctrine of the Rousseau people's sovereignty in the bicameral representation system of Indonesia and America. The representative system model of Indonesia and America shows different characteristics even though the two countries' bicameral representation system is influenced by the doctrine of Rousseau's people's sovereignty. The bicameral representational structure shows a weakness in Indonesia's features. Asymmetric (symmetric soft bicameralism) system due to the supremacy of DPR's strength. America's bicameral representation system is characterized as a strong and symmetrical representative (strong two-chamber symmetry) since power is equally distributed between the House and the Senate. The differences in the characteristics of Indonesia and America's representative system, which are influenced by the doctrine of the sovereignty of the Rousseau people, are caused by various factors such as the history of the state administration of the two countries, philosophical foundations, customs, traditions, habits, and others.