Institutions

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.

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.

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.


• 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.


• Implications:

– Divided government is possible.

– Power is fragmented.

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.


• 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.


• 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!


• Implications:

– Divided governments are constitutionally impossible.

– Power is concentrated: cabinets rule with the entire weight of parliament behind them.

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.

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.

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.


• 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.


• 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!


• 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.

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.

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?


• 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?


• 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.


• 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!


• 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.


• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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Institutions