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Institutions Want stable democracy? Get the institutions right! Institutions: humanly devised...
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Transcript of Institutions Want stable democracy? Get the institutions right! Institutions: humanly devised...
![Page 1: Institutions Want stable democracy? Get the institutions right! Institutions: humanly devised constraints that shape and guide behavior. Who plays the.](https://reader036.fdocuments.in/reader036/viewer/2022062511/55189b72550346881f8b4648/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Institutions
• Want stable democracy? Get the institutions right!
• Institutions: humanly devised constraints that shape and guide behavior. Who plays the game, how they play the game, and consequently, who wins and who loses.– Examples of political institutions: term limits, the
Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, campaign finance laws, etc. etc. etc.
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Institutions
• Do institutions matter?
– Traditionally in Comparative Politics: NO. Institutions are subordinate to social, economic, and cultural forces.
– More recently: YES. Institutions do not simply reflect culture or economics, they actually shape outcomes.
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Presidential Democracy
• Original presidential system: ours! But also very common in Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia. Not popular in Europe.
• Core element of presidential systems: separation of power between the executive and legislative branches of government. This does not imply that the branches are independent. Rather, it refers to their separate origin and separate survival.
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Presidential Democracy
• Separate origin: Both branches are elected separately, in different elections.
• Separate survival: Both branches are elected for a fixed term, neither can dismiss the other.
• Cabinet answers only to president.
• Personnel of each branch is non-overlapping.
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Presidential Democracy
• Implications:
– Divided government is possible.
– Power is fragmented.
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Parliamentary Systems
• Original parliamentary system: Great Britain. Very common form of government in Western Europe, former British colonies.
• Core element: the executive and legislature are fused. Survival and origin of each branch are not separate.
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Parliamentary Systems
• Origin not separate:
– One popular election fills parliament, then cabinet (the executive) is selected from parliament.
– Head of cabinet is the Prime Minister. PM is not directly elected.
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Parliamentary Systems
• Survival not separate:
– Cabinet must “maintain the confidence” of parliament (sustain the support of a majority of MPs) or resign.
– Terms of office are not fixed, so cabinet can dissolve parliament and call new elections when it sees fit.
– Thus, the executive can dissolve the legislature and the legislature can axe the executive!
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Parliamentary Systems
• Implications:
– Divided governments are constitutionally impossible.
– Power is concentrated: cabinets rule with the entire weight of parliament behind them.
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Types of Parliamentary Systems
• Majority rule: one party has a majority in parliament, can form a cabinet and rule on its own. Power is highly concentrated. (Most common in two party systems).
• If no party has a majority (more common in multiparty systems):– Minority rule: a minority party forms a cabinet and rules alone
but depends on support from other parties in parliament to stay in office.
– Coalition government: formal agreement between multiple parties to form a cabinet and rule together.
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The Pres/Parl debate
• Do these differences matter?
• One argument: YES. Presidential democracies are less stable than parliamentary ones.
• The retort: NO. Both systems can be stable or unstable, depending on context. Furthermore, we can’t study them in isolation. They interact with the party system to shape outcomes.
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The case against presidentialism
• Divided government => Deadlock => War between branches of government => Democratic breakdown.
– In contrast, in parliamentary systems, you can’t have divided government, so this never happens.
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The case against presidentialism
• Because of the fixed term of office, coups are the only way to get rid of a unpopular president.
– In contrast, in parliamentary systems, parliaments can remove unpopular cabinets at any time. This produces cabinet instability, but not democratic instability.
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The case against presidentialism
• Presidentialism is “winner takes all.” The office of the president can’t be shared. The winner gets all of it. The loser gets nothing. Loser gets mad: has a coup!
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The case against presidentialism
• And the winner gets to rule however he wants – even if he won by a small margin, and even if he won less than a majority.
– In contrast, coalition governments in parliamentary systems are more inclusive and force parties to work together. Furthermore, losers continue to play an active role in politics.
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The counter-argument
• Presidential systems have better “identifiability,” i.e the link between voting and government formation is more transparent.
– Presidential systems: very transparent. The candidate with the most votes wins.
– Parliamentary systems: when there is no majority, government formation is a result of bargains between parties, not just voting. So transparency is lower.
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A hypothetical election result . . .
• An election is held and five parties win seats:– The Greens: 45% of the seats– The Reds: 30% of the seats– The Blues: 15% of the seats– The Purples: 10% of the seats
• What coalition forms?
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The counter-argument
• Lower identifiability => Voters peripheral?
• Lower identifiability => Less accountability
– Accountability: degree to which elected leaders rule in the interests of the electorate. The threat of losing an election is said to promote accountability.
– However, if there is a coalition in power:• How do you vote it out if you didn’t vote it in in the first place?• If things are going badly, who do you blame?
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The counter-argument
• Presidential systems are not necessarily more “winner-takes-all.”
– Presidential branch might be this way, but the system as a whole splits and divides power.
– Furthermore, parliamentary government can be extremely winner-takes-all, i.e. under majority rule.
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The counter-argument
• Cabinets can be highly unstable in parliamentary systems, especially when there is no majority. Not the same as democratic instability, but can still be problematic!
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The counter-argument
• The performance of each of these systems depends the party system.
• Parliamentary systems:– Majority rule: stable, high identifiability, winner-takes-
all. Most likely with 2 parties.
– Coalition government: unstable, low identifiability, inclusive. Most likely with >2 parties.
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The counter-argument
• Presidential systems:– Divided government is most severe when the
President’s party is weak in the legislature – This is most likely when many small parties split the
vote.
• Thus, we can’t consider presidential and parliamentary systems in isolation. We also have to look at their interaction with the party system.
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What about the empirical record?
• Most stable democracies since WWII have been parliamentary, not presidential.
• Coups are much more common in presidential systems.
• Amongst new democracies, countries with parliamentary systems have been more likely to stay democratic.
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What about the empirical record?
• BUT, correlation is not the same as causation! – Most parliamentary systems are located in Western
Europe. Most presidential systems are located in Latin America and Africa.
– Western Europe is rich, LA and Africa are poor.– Democracy is established in Western Europe, but not
in LA and Africa.
• Thus, correlation between democratic stability and parliamentary government may simply reflect the European context of these institutions.
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Conclusions
• First, prior to debating which institution is best, we must first deal with the more fundamental question: “when are institutions complied with in the first place?”
• Second, assuming we can solve this initial problem, then the effects of institutions may indeed be profound.
• However, the effect of these institutions cannot be considered in isolation. We have to look at how they interact with other factors, namely, other institutions.