INSTITUTIONS OF DEMOCRACY

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INSTITUTIONS OF DEMOCRACY

• Presidentialism, Parties, and Legislatures, Courts

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WEEKLY READING

• Smith, Democracy, chs. 5-6
• Modern Latin America, ch. 6, 11 (Andes, Brazil)

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OUTLINE

• Democratic challenges survival and consolidation
• Presidentialism or parliamentarism?
• Proposals for reform
• The legislative arena
• The plight of political parties
• The judicial branch
• Sources of disenchantment

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DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGES

• Survival and consolidation of democracy
• Avoidance of the past (and military coups)
• Questions Would institutional changes help?
  Did prior crises result from institutional
  problems? And could they be repaired?

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THE NEW INSTITUTIONALISM

• Individuals seek to maximize gain
• Institutions (rules) shape incentives
• And can therefore determine behavior
• Ergo, institutional design can affect the
  collective behavior of political actors

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PRESIDENTIALISM OR PARLIAMENTARISM?

• Presidentialism
• Head of government (president) is directly
  elected
• Fixed term in office
• Cannot be removed by legislature (except through
  impeachment)
• Selects cabinet ministers
• Head of government is also head of state
• Separation of legislative-executive powers

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• Parliamentarism
• Voters elect MPs
• MPs select head of government (PM)
• MPs approve cabinet appointments
• PM (and cabinet officers) dependent on continuing
  confidence of parliament
• Head of government (PM) is not head of state
• Fusion of legislative-executive powers

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PRO-PARLIAMENTARY ARGUMENTS

• Avoid temporal rigidity, so crises of
  government would not become crises of regime
• Avoid polarization from zero-sum game
• Avoid paralyzing deadlock
• Thus superior durability of parliamentary regimes

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PRO-PRESIDENTIALIST ARGUMENTS

• Clarity of fixed time horizon
• Checks and balances
• Democratic election of head of government
• Not the cause of immobilism (PR the cause)
• Empirical findings result from selection bias

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PROPOSALS FOR REFORM

• Brazil
• Argentina
• Chile
• Why not?
• Insistence on election of chief executive
• Advent of polling, reduction of uncertainty
• Low esteem for congress, parties
• Politics of nostalgia

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ENGINEERING PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS

• Electing presidents
• Plurality vs. MRO
• MRO a magic bullet
• Reelection or not?
• Power domains
• Constitutional or partisan?
• Bureaucracy, judiciary, military
• Decree authority

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THE LEGISLATIVE ARENA

• Electoral Systems
• SMDs and two-party politics
• PR and multi-party politics
• Effects of district magnitude
• Closed-list vs. open-list ballots
• The problem of term limits
• Institutional Performance
• Essentially reactive legislatures
• Removing presidents?

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LEVELS OF POPULAR TRUST(1996-2007)

• Church 70
• Armed Forces 50
• Media (TVprint) 40
• Congress 30
• Parties 20

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THE PLIGHT OF POLITICAL PARTIES

• Diversity of party systems
• Levels of popular confidence

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Counting Political Parties N 1 / (S
pi2) Where pi is the proportion of votes earned
by the i-th party (or, alternatively, the
proportion of seats in the legislature)
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THE JUDICIAL BRANCH

• Authoritarian Regimes
• Control of courts
• Emphasis on legalities
• Rule by law ? rule of law
• Advent of Democracy
• Deference to executive authority
• Weak checks and balances
• Extrajudicial killings (meta bala)
• A Continuing Challenge
• Mexico 1994 reforms, drug trafficking threats
• Venezuela packing of courts
• Strong in Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica 12/18
  countries in bottom one-third of all (World Bank
  on rule of law)

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THE POLITICS OF DISENCHANTMENT

• Weakness of representative institutions
  judiciary branch (i.e., rule of law)
• Constraints on modern-day democracy
• Inadequate policy performance
• Tendency toward delegative or illiberal
  democracy
• Thus 55 would support authoritarian government
  if it could improve economic situation (2004)

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AND THE RISE OF THE LEFT

• Hugo Chávez, Venezuela (1998)
• Lula, Brazil (2002)
• Evo Morales, Bolivia (2005)
• Reliance on democratic elections
• Vote as popular protest
• Possibilities of winning
• Challenge of governing