7. Political institutions: power-sharing vs power-concentrating Flashcards
Why are constitutions important for Regime building/ democratisation
- They define the basic power structure of the country
- Choices are made about power-sharing vs power concentrating
presidentialism vs parliamentary,
electoral system
checks + balances
Constitution - definition/ what is included in it
Ultimate source of state authority
ground rules of a political system.
includes:
* Who is part of demos
* rights of citizens
* how political power can be gained
*what every institution can do (scope of power)
* Interaction between different insittutions (seperation of powers, checks + balances)
* How constitution can be changed
Why is constitution hard to change?
- to prevent instability
- to prevent autocratisation
Changing constitution opens up all the rules of the games, which causes conflict
Functions of constitution (4)
- Enable self-governance
- constrain abusive capacitities of the state
- embody political ideals
- express + maintain collective identity within democratic arrangements over time.
3) bills of right –> defines poltical ideal state
4) represents values people stand for, collective identity as nation-building tool
Consequences of Constitutions being made after a Civil War / Revolution
- May represent frozen identities, frozen conflicts, or at least frozen compromises
- So another function is temporarily ending conflict/ agreeing to solve conflict peacefully
- this can mean that these decisions will not work in long run, because they are made for issues at particular time
(example: freedom of religion in education in NL)
When did most new + changes in constituions occur
- Second and especially Third Wave of democratisation due to decolonisation –> new countries need new constitution
- In the 90s changes due to a lot of transitions
–> safer to tweak constitution than to open it up again.
Constituent Assembly elections
- in many countries after conflict/ transition
- temporary parliament to formulate new constitution
- So: new constitutions are often made by representatives of the people
Example of a succesful new constitution
South Africa
* Extreme power-sharing constitution
* Despite past power-sharing with white people
* Inclusive + large human rights section
Example of failed new constitution
Egypt
Collapse because muslims and secularists did not want to give each other power
* Tension caused military to intervene
Constitution making is a combination of:`
- Balancing political and economic interests
- institutional learning/ borrowing
(international help, colonial legacies) - ideas/ experiences of those involved in constitution making process at the time
(frozen compromise/ conflict)
When do changes in constitution usually happen?
They see big changes in beginning and then it slows down
Changes usually happen when countries transition to a democracy. Maybe switching from presidential system to parliamentary one.
Overtime changes become smaller which helps to stabilise the democracy
- Authoritarian Constitution changes also slow down over time, but happen more often to ensure the incumbent can stay in power.
How do Constitutions affect democratisation?
- can stabilise regimes, depending on how you design it
- Limits on power, and thus authoritarian actors
3.limits what’s possible in institutional change
- Can also legitimate + strengthen authoritarian rule.
1) it has to be representative for minorities to prevent grievances + conflict
Power-sharing
- is about thinking about different groups in society
- it helps democratisation in the way that a group will not feel left behind which prevents conflict
Power-concentrating
- more centralised
- institutions could be a unitary state
- more efficient
Vertical and horizontal power-sharing
Vertical: about national, regional, provincial, federal states
Horizontal: about executive, judicial, and legislative
Consensus democracy- Lijphart
The pure idea of democracy according to its definition:
is the government of the WHOLE people BY the WHOLE people equally represented
Majoritarian democracy
majority rules
Key features of concensus democracy
- Power-sharing
- Group autonomy: can be about devolution of power (certain schools, churches, newspapers for each group)
- idea is that in divided societies, democracy can still work within consensual institutions
10 Institutional features which determine if a democracy is consensus or Majoritarian
- Electoral system
highly proportional vs
highly disproportional - party system
multiparty vs two party - Cabinet:
broad support vs minimum support - Executive:
balance of power vs dominant - interest groups:
consultation vs competition - federalism:
decentralisation vs censtralisation (unitarianism) - Parliament:
bicameralism vs unicameralism - Constitution:
rigid vs flexible - Judicial review:
yes vs no - Central bank:
independent vs dependent.
Pro’s vertical power-sharing
- more democratic: closer to the people
more accessible/ responsive government. - more efficient: closer to people, better adaption to local circumstances
- Self-government for local minorities:
geographically concentrated minorities self-rule - more creative/ different solutions: local government is better able to respond quickly to changing circumstances, plurality also leads to more creativity.
Cons of vertical power-sharing
- Dual legitimacy problem:
both are democratically elected; so who is right when they disagree? - national government means economies of scale + capacity to override collective action problems.
- can lead to inequality of laws/ inequality of service provision, centralised government can redistribute resources to counteract inequality.
3 main families Electoral system:
- Plurality/ FPTP/ winner takes all
- district votes, if you get more than opponent you win entire district
(even if you got less than 50% of votes) - Proportional: votes are directly translated to seats
- Mixed: combination of both: proportional outcome with regional representation
mixed becoming more popular because a lot of countries have regionally concentrated minorities and switching to proportional is too big of a change
Electoral systems in Presidential system 4 characteristics
- plurality: person with most votes becomes president
- absolute majority: you need 50% of votes, so often two round system
- Qualified majority: constitution decides if maybe 40% of votes is sufficient
- Electoral college: only USA
3 factors the proportionality depends on in an electoral system:
- district magnitude: amount of seats per district
- Tiers (mixed systems have a national + regional list)
- electoral threshold
(can promote disproportionality, but also means more parties have to work together)
Effect of Proportional Representation on democratisation
- more representative: more stable
- less efficient: so more unstable
- more representative: also means extremist parties can get into parliament: unstable
- small parties can have extreme power in coalitions because they’re needed for a majority, more democratic
effect majoritarian electoral system on democratisation (4)
- less inclusive
- more efficient
- technically: it would be democratic because majority rules. But we tend to see that presidents get elected with maybe 30% of votes,
which is not the majority and this creates resentment - smaller parties have no access to government due to strategic voting. But can prevent extremist parties from getting access.
extremist parties voices could take over larger parties, giving them more influence
