Senate Complications

Folks are arguing that unicameralism (one legislative body) is fine, citing Scandanavian examples:

Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland are unicameral. Bad government? https://t.co/LT8K59tQnp #senca #cdnpoli

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) July 25, 2015

Which is fine.  These countries are well governed.  However, they are not that similar to Canada in that they have very homogeneous populations and not a bit of federalism.  The Canadian Senate, like the American Senate and probably the Australian Senate, are aimed at producing representation from federal units.  This can be both good and bad.  We can get into the pro's and con's at some point. 

But the point here is simply that Canada, despite being mostly cold and very northern, is not that similar to these countries.  Indeed, combined, their populations are smaller than Canada and any kind of union of them would probably include a federal design that insured that each unit would have representation--a Senate.  So, the simplistic comparison needs more work to show why the institutions that work great for homogeneous societies with unitary parliaments apply to heterogeneous, federal countries. 

Now, if one was arguing proportional representation vs. first past the post, that would be interesting.

Harper's Big Strategic Mistake?

The story du jour in Canada is the effort by Stephen Harper to get rid of the Senate.  How so?  By not fulfilling his obligation to name new Senators.  He says this would get folks serious about reforming the Senate.  The problem is that any constitutional amendment would need to be approved by every single province--and with Quebec always having some demands of its own, such consensus is highly, highly unlikely.

You may not think I am an expert on Canada's constitution, but I have been studying the Citizenship Guide for nearly two weeks, so I am on top of this [Um, no, I am not].*

*  My stance on the Senate: I am pro-reform, not abolition.  Why?  Because the Senators should be elected, so that they are accountable  Why not abolish?  Because it would be nice to have some folks in the Parliament Buildings whose agendas are not completely controlled by party leaders and especially the PM.  Of course, elected Senators might have some party loyalty .... Hmmm, anyhow, that is my stance as un-finished as it might be.

Senate-bashing is popular these days due to a variety of scandals, including one that ultimately implicated Harper's closest advisers.  And this might be seen as a play for NDP support given that this is an NDP stance and to put the Liberals in an awkward spot of defending the status quo. 

I have not read heaps of stuff on this, but I have a question: Harper has left a bunch of Senate seats unfilled, so if the NDP win, they could nominate a whole bunch of Senators at once, going from zero (right?) to a healthy percentage.  This is not quite like an American President ending his term without filling vacancies on the Supreme Court, but it is not that different either.  Obviously, the big difference is that the Surpreme Court in the US is far more influential than the Canadian Senate.  So, perhaps the risk is minor, but I would almost vote for the NDP (if my citizenship comes through in time--it will be close!) just to get to this outcome.  Sure, Thomas Mulcair as the new Prime Minister might have to look a bit hypocritical in filling a Senate that he bashed, but he could honestly say that he would be meeting his constitutional obligations.

For a far smarter take on this stuff, see this interview with Emmet Macfarlane.

Fearing Parliamentarism? Afghanistan's Potential Institutional Reform

The news today out of Afghanistan is that the competitors for the presidency have agreed to move the political system towards a parliamentary system.  That the loser becomes chief executive and then in a couple of years, they will modify the constitution to create a more semi-presidential system with a Prime Minister serving as head of the government.

This essentially does one of Afghanistan's original sins: centralizing too much power within the Presidency.  The story suggests that the Americans feared the instability of a parliamentary system.  I guess that is what happens when Americans help draw up the constitution, as American politicians have no experience with parliamentarism.  I am not sure what kind of instability they are thinking of, as I don't think parliamentary systems are associated with coups.  And I am sure that parliamentarism is no worse than presidentialism when it comes to ethnic strife.

Presidentialism vs. parliamentarism has been much debated by scholars of comparative politics.  There are many flaws in presidentialism, but the key is that putting all the power in one person's hands makes it very hard to share, and means that elections are winner take all.  Parliamentary systems can be like that or not, depending on the electoral system.  Proportional representation turns out to be the key (at least for managing ethnic conflict), as it means that minorities can gain meaningful access to the political system.  And if the population is diverse enough, to govern, one needs to form coalitions.  This might be the "instability" that is spoken of in the NYT article, but there are plenty of stable parliamentary systems.

So, as one twitter friend put it,

@smsaideman It's cute when we take credit for unscrewing what was our fault in the first place.
— Gary Owen (@ElSnarkistani) July 14, 2014

Of course, the shift from presidentialism to something else (again, my suspicion is that it will be a mix or semi-presidentialism especially as whoever is president is not going to give away all of his power) misses a key flaw in the system--presidential and parliamentary systems can be too centralized.  What is needed is some kind of federalism.  People fear that federalism leads to secession, but that depends on how the federalism is designed and on other stuff as well.  But having the folks in Kabul call the shots all the way down to choosing who runs each district has clearly been problematic. Federalism can be complicated less because of the secession problem and more because the local majorities may abuse the local minorities.

Anyhow, re-thinking the institutions that govern the Afghan political system might actually lead to actual governing of Afghanistan....  That is, the reach of the government has been limited by the war.  Developing a better design might help reduce the support for violence.  Of course, it might also be a bit late in the game.

A key irony here is that the area experts and the comparativists probably see eye to eye on this: the institutions set up by the outsiders were poorly designed--they did not fit the Afghan context (too centralized) and they did not reflect the lessons of extensive scholarship on post-conflict (semi) democratic institution building.  South Africa, for all of its current challenges, is far better off having listened to the contending experts on how best to design democratic institutions.  Not sure why these folks were ignored in 2002-2004.

As always, it goes back to the noted political philosopher Jeff Spicoli:

"if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus, too."

Stupid Spin of Important Political Dynamic of the Month

Oh, poor USA, its constitution is no longer the model for the world.  Well, just mayhaps it could be that the heaps of scholarship about things like Proportional Representation and Asymmetrical Federalism and other alternative democratic institutions may have had an impact on what countries do. 

Canadians will jump to take pride in the supposed popularity of their constitution, but most new democracies are not adopting British-style political systems.  They are mostly developing rules that pick and choose from existing models.  Lots of effort to avoid tyranny of the majority, which was a key part of the development of US institutions and a key aspect of British-style systems.  Not going to see too much first-past-the-post stuff.

Oh, and even though the Canadians argue with me about it, the reality is that a province or the national parliament can decide to ignore rulings of the Supreme Court with a simple majority vote--due to the notwithstanding clause.  Sure, it only applies to fundamental freedoms, legal rights and equality rights (not democratic rights, language rights or minority language education of citizens (sort of).  That is, provinces and the national parliament can abridge fundamental freedoms but not language rights (well,e except for immigrants in Quebec, I guess).   And only for five years (but renewable every five years). 

Anyhow, the larger point remains--countries with relatively new sets of rules are learning from the past experiences of other countries but also building rules that benefit those already in power.  Because, hey, making the rules is POLITICAL.  In any case, the US system has pro's and con's, as do British-style parliaments as do the European institutions.  Smart folks will try to figure out which circumstances outside their country match their situation and then choose those institutions that have the desired effects (stability vs. adaptability; minority protection vs. efficiency, whatever).  And learning from the social science of this is not a bad way to go.  This is one of the areas that has received much attention and will continue to do so.  Just saying that the American rules are always best is just as silly as saying the Canadian rules rock!  They may rock!  But they may not work elsewhere.  Unless you like a constitutional crisis every fifteen years.

Electoral Laws are Complicated

The UK is in the midst of a referendum campaign to change how folks vote and how voters are turned into seats.  This stuff can be both boring and complicated.  Good to see that folks have found a way to illustrate some of the dynamics (note, naughty language below):