Executivelegislative Relations, Political Institutions

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Executive-legislative Relations, Political
Institutions Democratic Survival Lessons from
Comparative Studies
Sing Ming Sept 18, 2004
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1. Objectives

• 1.1 To explain democratic survival around the
  world between 1950 and 2000 with a wide range of
  possible institutional and non-institutional
  causes.
• largest updated sample to-date.
• Through combining many cross-national
  databases, I will test various models covering
  every regime that has been democratic for some
  time between 1950 and 2000, worldwide, with a
  population of no less than one million.
• 1.2 To test whether parliamentary democracy is
  more capable of enhancing democratic survival
  than presidential democracy around the world
  between 1950 and 2000.
• 1.3 To assess whether other institutional and
  non-institutional causes have shaped democratic
  survival around the world.
• 1.4 To draw initial implications on the design of
  Hong Kongs political institutions should it
  become fully democratic.

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2. Introduction
Original title Balancing the Executive and
Legislative Branches of Government is not clear
Balance is too vauge a concept to be useful
Dynamic Probit analysis is used to explain the
annual probability of democratic breakdowns of
presidential or parliamentary democracies in the
period with some theory-driven explanatory
variables.
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Dynamic Probit Specification
The model examines the transition from a lagged
one year R of zero or one to a current year R of
zero or one, where R is political regime with
coding 1 refers to autocracy and 0 refers to
democracy, X represents the vector of the
exogenous variables at one-year lagged time, t
1.
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Some of those variables have been ignored in the
most well-known recent works (Boix, 2003
Cheibub, 2002), including institutional,
historical, political , cultural and
socio-economic ones.
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2.1 Independent variables involved and their
presumed effects on democratic breakdowns
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2.2 Hypotheses about Institutional Factors
H1 Presidential regime (vs. Parliamentary) ?
Democratic Breakdown Many cross-national findings
show presidential democracies are more prone to
collapses than parliamentary ones in the last few
decades
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H2 Larger number of (Effective) Parties
(ENPP)-----? Democratic Breakdown When a
president does not have a legislative majority
or near- legislative majority in the
legislature, his/her motions/bills are more
likely to fail to secure passage. The repeated
failures favor democratic breakdowns in
presidential democracies. When number of
effective parties or mutlipartyism is increased
in legislatures, the failures to secure at least
a near- legislative majority are more likely
than the otherwise.
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H3 Proportional Representation (PR) System (vs.
non-PR) ? (ENPP) ? Democratic Breakdown H4
Ineffective or Partially effective legislature ?
Democratic Breakdown H5 Legislative Deadlocks ?
Democratic Breakdown (deadlock the largest
party controls more than 1/3 but lt to 1/2 of
seats)
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H6 Party Coalition ? Whether the government is a
coalitional one formed by various parties has
negative effect on democratic breakdown.   H7
Presidential Runoff (two-round voting system) is
more likely than plurality method (one round) ?
Democratic Breakdown   Plurality method is
less associated with multipartism than the
two-round system in various parts of the world
(Jones, 1995).
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3. Findings
Given the quasi-presidential political structure
of Hong Kong, and the importance of inertia on
institutional designs (Foweraker, 1998, 652
Sadurski, 2001, 459), this paper focuses on
conditions for adopting the presidential system
in Hong Kong.
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Samples
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Nations
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3.1 Full Samples Probit Estimates
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Presidential Probit Estimates
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Parliamentary Probit Estimates
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3.2
There is no evidence that presidential regimes
are by themselves more favorable for democratic
breakdown than parliamentary ones. This finding
has contradicted many recent research papers
(Przeworski, 2000).   But we need to heed
under what conditions presidential regimes will
be more likely to survive.
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3.3 ENPP
There are several competing interpretations of
the effects of ENPP on democratic survival a.
Mainwaring (1993 1999) multipartism
exacerbates the problems of presidentialism by
increasing the probability of immobilism in
executive/legislative relations, by promoting
ideological polarization and by making
inter-party coalition-building difficult to
observe. He argued for two-party system.   He
has more or less assumed a positive linear
relationship between ENPP and democratic survival
(consolidation).
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b. Lijphart (1999) multipartism can cater for
multiple cleavages or issue dimensions among
plural societies marked by regional, ethnic,
linguistic, religious or political
divisions.   c. Cheibub (2001 2002) argue for
a quadratic relationship with their descriptive
statistics, and that probabilities of breakdown
were the highest when 3lt ENPP lt4.   Yet, their
descriptive statistics were not conclusive, as
they have not statistically controlled the
effects of other factors.
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Findings

• For the sub-samples of presidential regimes,
  when ENPP reaches 4.93, the probability of
  breakdown becomes the highest, after controlling
  the effects of other factors at their means).
•  
• ENPP increases the probability of breakdown when
  the former rises initially, then falls off when
  it increases further, i.e., an inverted quadratic
  relationship is found with respect to the
  breakdown of democracies.

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Breakdown Probabilities by ENPP highest when
ENPP reaches 4.93
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Table Breakdown Probabilities by ENPP
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Interpretation
When ENPP rises from 2 to 4.93, controlling other
variables at their means, the probability of
democratic breakdown escalates with a sharply
increased slope. WHY?
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Within the range of 2lt ENPP lt 4.93, when ENPP
rises or multipartism intensifies, it engenders a
greater likelihood for the governing parties to
i./ have smaller share of seats in legislature,
and ii./the largest party in the legislature to
have lt ½ of total seats in legislature
(minority).   Strong initial evidence that
greater ENPP increases the chance for a
Minority  As ENPP and PR are regressed on
minority, a very good model of fit has been
found. The result may imply that when ENPP and
PR increase, the chance for the forming of a
minority govt. may rise.
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DV Minority
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Another explanation when there are about 3 to 4
parties with more or less equal strengths, it
would be difficult for regime stability when each
of which tries to implement their own programs by
itself or in coalitions.   Coalitions under such
conditions may not be stable under the fear that
their partners may defect to shifting coalitions
(Cheibub, 2002).
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3.4 Electoral System
Three competing hypotheses a. Boix (2003) -
electoral systems exert little effect   b.
Mainwaring (1993) PR will increase ENPP, and
thus jeopardize democratic stability especially
when presidentialism coexists with a legislature
produced via Proportional Representation system
(PR).   c. Lijphart (1992) PR will encourage
multipartism and will suit societies with more
cleavages or issue-dimensions.
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Findings
PR favors democratic stability than non-PR in
full sample at 1 level of sig. For the
presidential sample, it is sig. at 10 of level
of sig. (9.8).
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Breakdown Probabilities by Electoral System
highest when ENPP reaches 4.93
Non-PR
PR
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Table Breakdown Probabilities by Electoral System
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For both presidential and parliamentary
democracies, when there are multiple cleavages or
issue-dimensions, PR can enhance the formation of
different parties to address those
issue-dimensions and raise their chance of
democratic survival  
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ENPP PR Effects on Democratic Survival

• As PR will raise the ENPP, and greater ENPP
  reduces chances of democratic survival, how can
  we reconcile the seemingly contradictory findings
  that both PR and larger ENPP will enhance
  Democratic Survival?

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This argument is partly borne out by that PR
ethno-linguistic fractionalization is
significant in the full sample, though not in the
sub-samples for presidential and parliamentary
regimes.   More data on the number and nature
of cleavages and PR system are needed to confirm
their joint effect on Democratic Survival.
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3.4 Importance of Deadlock

• a. Conventional explanation deadlocks in
  presidential democracies explain the higher
  percentage of their democratic breakdown.
•  
• b. Cheibub rejected the claim by arguing
  coalitions can help resolve deadlocks or make
  minority governments work
•  
• I use a proxy it is significant for
  presidential regime.
• How to explain deadlock ENPP and PR limited
  model fit.
• More work needs to be done in future.

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3.5 Effective Legislature
Democracies with ineffective or partially
effective legislature are more likely than
effective one to suffer from democratic brakdowns
A legislature is effective if it has significant
autonomy, including the power to tax, spend, and
override executive vetoes.   A legislature is
partially effective if it lacks one or more of
the powers needed to be an effective legislature.
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Breakdown Probabilities by Effectiveness of
Legislature and Electoral System
Non-PR Partially Effective
PR Partially Effective
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Table Breakdown Probabilities by Effectiveness
of Legislature and Electoral System
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3.6 Party Coalition and Presidential Runoff No
Effect on Survival
Whether the governing party is a coalitional one,
and whether the president is chosen by one-round
or two-round elections exert no appreciable
effect on Democratic Survival.
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3.7 Level of Economic Development
Level of economic development measured by GDP per
capita and openness of trade both favor
democratic survival, which generate very positive
implications on Hong Kongs democratic
development.
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Breakdown Probabilities by Real GDP per capita
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Table Breakdown Probabilities by Real GDP per
capita
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4. Lessons on Hong Kongs Executive-legislative
Relations Institutional Design
4.1 Hong Kongs level of economic development is
big enough to secure democratic survival the
probability of breakdown is virtually zero at
Hong Kongs average GDP per capita between 1975
and 2000, that exceeds 10,000 per capita!
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The optimism for democratic survival is further
enhanced by Hong Kongs relatively large degree
of openness to trade and the presence of British
heritage. 4.2 To reduce the risk of democratic
breakdown even further, presidential
regime should not encourage the creation of too
great the effective number of parties (4.93 gt
ENPPgt 2.5).
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• 4.3 Electoral System
• Finding PR favors democratic stability in all
  three samples.
• How to reconcile contradictory findings between
  ENPP and PR?
• PR suits many plural societies (Lijphart, 1992
  Jones, 1995).
• Though PR raises ENPP a bit, PR enhances more
  parties to address multiple issue dimensions/
  cleavages in PLURAL SOCIETIES .

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• 4.4 Overall Recommendations
•  
• 4.4.1. Hong Kong should have 2 and at most, 2.5
  effective number of parties.
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• Justifications
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• Hong Kong lacks the ethnic, regional and
  religious cleavages, as found in some plural
  societies adopting presidential regimes in Latin
  American
•  
• Hong Kong has the cleavage surrounding i./
  socio-economic redistribution ii./ pacing and
  desirability of democracy and arguably iii./ the
  center-periphery (Beijing-Hong Kong cleavage).

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• If and when full democracy is allowed to
  implement, only 1 or arguably 2 major cleavages
  or issue-dimensions remain.
• We may thus just adopt majority electoral
  system, or mixed members system to produce the 2
  party system or 2.5 ENPP, to maximize the chance
  of democratic survival.
• Adopting PR may unnecessarily raise the number
  of ENPP and reinforce some cleavages that should
  have been subsiding when full democracy is
  implemented in the non-plural society of Hong Kong

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• 4.4.2 Adopting the mixed-member system, i.e.,
  with both simple majority system and the PR
  carries the following advantages
•  
• Reduce the danger of multipartism (Norris,
  2004) and the danger of executive-legislative
  deadlocks.
•  

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Strengths of Mixed Members Electoral System

• Encourage the dual emphasis of city-wide and
  individual geographical constituencies
  interests, and hence the deepening of policy
  research (Shugart Wattenberg, 2001).
•  
• Favor professionals who do not want to spend
  too much time on electoral campaigns in
  geographical constituencies to stand for
  elections via the party-nominated party list.

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• 4.4.3 If no full democracy will be implemented
  in the political reform of 2007/2008, the reform
  should Dovetail with Full Democracy in future in
  the following way
•  
• HKSAR Govt. should reduce the fragmentation of
  the existing political parties further by
  increasing the threshold under the existing PR
  formula.
•  
• Better still, HKSAR Govt. should replace the PR
  with either the simple majority or mixed-member
  electoral system.

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• In case Functional Constituencies (FC) are to
  be retained, and/or that its total number of
  seats rises further in 2008, each FC has to be
  chosen by 
• i/ individual vote
•  
• ii./ a reasonably large and broad-based
  electorate to enhance their representativeness
  and the promotion of party development. Or else,
  ENPP may rise, reducing the chance of democratic
  survival and public satisfaction with democracy
  in future (Norris, 1999).

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Definition
Presidential Regime a presidential regime is a
democracy in which the govt. serves at the
pleasure of the elected president. The president
may be directly elected or indirectly elected
the important feature is that the president
selects and determines the survival of the
government.
Parliamentary Regime is a democracy in which the
govt. must enjoy the confidence of the
legislature. The legislature can dismiss the
government.
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Data Source
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End