Normative Models of Democratic Governance

Normative Models of Democratic Governance: Decentralism, Centralism, and Centripetalism ABSTRACT Why are some democratic nations better governed than others? What kind of institutions promote better social outcomes? This paper outlines two normative models of democratic governance, decentralism and centralism. It then proposes an alternative model, centripetalism, which proposes that good democratic governance arises from institutions that successfully meld two goals: authority and inclusion. Democratic institutions work best when they bring together a wide array of diverse interests into a single locus of effective authority. In practical terms, we suggest that unitarism, parliamentarism and proportional representation together promote these goals. An empirical test of the impact of a variable combining historical measures of these three institutions on six indicators of governance across the world suggests that centripetal institutions promote good governance. Plurality which does not reduce itself to unity, is confusion. Unity which is not the result of plurality, is tyranny. — Pascal1 Of the many analogies that have been remarked between Law in the Physical and Law in the Moral World, none is more familiar than that derived from the Newtonian astronomy, which shows us two forces always operative in our solar system. One force draws the planets towards the sun as the centre of the system, the other disposes them to fly off from it into space. So in politics, we may call the tendency which draws men or groups of men together into one organized community and keeps them there a Centripetal force, and that which makes men, or groups, break away and disperse, a Centrifugal. A political Constitution or frame of government, as the complex totality of laws embodying the principles and rules whereby the community is organized, governed, and held together, is exposed to the action of both these forces. The centripetal forces strengthens it, by inducing men (or groups of men) to maintain, and even to tighten, the bonds by which the members of the community are gathered into one organized body. The centrifugal assails it, by dragging men (or groups) apart, so that the bonds of connexion are strained, and possibly at last loosened or broken. . . Accordingly, the history of every community and every constitution may be regarded as a struggle between the action of these two forces, that which draws together and that which pushes apart, that which unites and that which dissevers. — James Bryce2 What is the best way to organize a representative democracy? How should democracies be designed? Historically, the question of how to organize a representative democracy could be conceptualized only once there came to be such a thing as representative government. Thus, it is not surprising to find that the intellectual history of this question is coeval with the birth of constitutional government within nation-states, i.e., in the 17th and 18th centuries, and with the histories of the western democracies (primarily England, France, and the United States). Since that time, work on the subject of democratic governance has oscillated between two idealtypes, a decentralist paradigm and a centralist paradigm. According to the first, good government arises from institutions that are diffuse and decentralized, where multiple veto points check the accrual of power in any single source. According to the second, good government arises (within a democratic framework) wherever power is effectively centralized in the hands of a single party, thus establishing a system of effective accountability at all levels of government. We begin by reviewing the history and arguments associated with these influential models of governance. However, our primary purpose is to introduce a third model of democratic governance, one that combines features of the previous types but which is, in logic and in associated institutions, distinct. This model, dubbed centripetal, proposes that good governance within a democratic framework arises from institutions that successfully meld two goals, authority and inclusion. Specifically, political 1 Pensee #870 (Pascal 1958: 261). institutions should work best when they maximize centralized authority and the inclusion of diverse interests, ideas, and identities. The remainder of this section briefly outlines the intellectual lineage and principal arguments of the decentralist and centralist paradigms. It then puts forth our alternative model, centripetalism, and compares it to the two predominant modes of thought both conceptually and institutionally. The second section of the paper discusses centripetalism as an empirical concept, focusing on three specific political institutions: unitarism, parliamentarism, and proportional representation. The final section of the paper provides a brief empirical test of the effects of centripetal institutions on a variety of governance outcomes across the world. DECENTRALISM At the present time, theories of democratic governance are mostly decentralist in nature. The general assumption on the Right and the Left is that government works best when political institutions diffuse power broadly among multiple, independent bodies. This is the model of good government embraced by most lay citizens (at least in democratic countries), political scientists, NGOs, and international organizations. It is the reining paradigm of governance at the outset of the twenty-first century. The decentralist paradigm is by no means new. In western thought, the idea may be traced back to early attempts to constrain the abuse of political authority. Commonly cited exemplars include Greece and Rome in the classical age and the Italian, Swiss, and Dutch polities in the early modern era.3 But the theory of decentralism was not, as yet, fully formed. As a selfconscious and fully articulated theory of governance, decentralism owes its origins to developments within the English polity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The English Revolution, in particular, played a formative role. In the wake of this shocking event, a cavalcade of scribblers and activists including William Blackstone, Lord Bolingbroke, Major Cartwright, Edward Coke, William Godwin, Charles Grey, John Hardy, James Harrington, John Locke, John Milton, Robert Molesworth, Joseph Priestley, Algernon Sidney, and John Trenchard — collectively referred to as the Old Whig, Country, Commonwealth, or Dissenting traditions — formulated various facets of the decentralist model.4 It was the English state, as a matter of fact and a matter of principle, that supplied a primary touchstone for these writers — even those, like Montesquieu and Rousseau, who resided abroad.5 2 Bryce (1905: 96-7). Gordon (1999). 4 Brewer (1976), Foord (1964), Gunn (1969), Kramnick (1968b), Robbins (1959/1968), Vile (1967/1998). 5 In principle, these writers were largely agreed. But there was some considerable difference of opinion as to how principle matched up with reality. Many of the aforementioned authors were highly critical of the actual workings of English government in the post-Revolutionary era. The dominance of the Crown and of the ‘Court’ party was thought to compromise the formal principles of balance, separation, and member independence. It was alleged by these writers that the Commons was controlled by corrupt factions, which extended royal munificence to those who obligingly supported its policies on the floor of the Commons, and whose insidious influence threatened to upset the 3 All this began to change after the American Revolution, a revolution motivated by Old Whig principles.6 As the British polity became increasingly centralized a new polity appeared that embodied the decentralist ideal in a much more explicit fashion. The US Constitution wrote decentralist principles into the country’s fundamental law, and the Federalist Papers provided an interpretive catechism to accompany that law. If ever a country was founded self-consciously according to the decentralist ideal, that country was the United States. Thus, over the past two centuries when we speak of decentralist political institutions we are usually referring to the institutions and the example of the United States.7 Among Old Whigs perhaps the most revered writer of all was William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England educated generations of British jurists. Blackstone’s interpretation of the English constitution would endure for several centuries (until Bagehot’s English Constitution, discussed below). The key feature of this interpretation was the ‘mixed’ constitution, an idea derived from Aristotle. Blackstone explains: The legislature of the kingdom is entrusted to three distinct powers entirely independent of each other, first, the King; secondly, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, which is an aristocratical assembly of persons selected for their piety, their birth, their wisdom, their valour, or their property; and thirdly, the House of Commons, freely chosen by the people from among themselves, which makes it a kind of democracy; as this aggregate body, actuated by different springs, and attentive to different interests, composes the British Parliament, and has the supreme disposal of every thing; there can no inconvenience be attempted by either of the three branches, but will be withstood by one of the other two; each branch being armed with a negative power sufficient to repel any innovation which it shall think inexpedient or dangerous.8 The theory of the mixed constitution, with all its parts in balance, was said to extend back to AngloSaxon England.9 This notion led directly to the theory of the separation of powers, as articulated initially by Montesquieu and later by Madison.10 “The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others...,” writes Madison in Federalist #51. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition... In republican delicate balance of center and periphery. 6 Bailyn (1967; 1968), Pocock (1975), Pole (1966), Shalhope (1972; 1982), Wood (1969). 7 Switzerland, along with pre-modern polities in England, the Netherlands, and Northern Italy, are also occasional reference points. 8 Blackstone (1862: 36). 9 Pocock (1957/1987). 10 “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistracy, there can be then no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner. Again, there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor” (Montesquieu, quoted in Casper 1989: 214). government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on society will admit.”11 Putting together the work of Montesquieu, Madison, and countless other constitutionalists from the eighteenth century to the present, M.J. Vile arrives at what he calls a ‘pure doctrine’ of separate powers. It is essential for the establishment and maintenance of political liberty that the government be divided into three branches or departments, the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. To each of these three branches there is a corresponding identifiable function of government, legislative, executive, or judicial. Each branch of the government must be confined to the exercise of its own function and not allowed to encroach upon the functions of the other branches. Furthermore, the persons who compose these three agencies of government must be kept separate and distinct, no individual being allowed to be at the same time a member of more than one branch. In this way each of the branches will be a check to the others and no single group of people will be able to control the machinery of the State.12 Separate powers thus refers to the diffusion of power at national levels (or indeed at any single level of government). Federalism, a second critical theoretical component of decentralism, refers to the diffusion of power between levels of government. Federalism, like separate powers, is an ancient idea. Broadly interpreted, the federal idea may be traced back to city-state confederations in classical Greece, the medieval Hanseatic league, and the equally venerable Swiss confederation. If we take a more restrictive view of what it means to be federal, the arrival of this form of government has a fairly precise date: the founding of the American republic. Indeed, the United States was the first polity to invoke federalism as an explicit theory of governance. As a general definition, William Riker’s well-traveled statement will serve. “A constitution is federal,” writes Riker, “if 1) two levels of government rule the same land and people, and 2) each level has at least one area of action in which it is autonomous, and 3) there is some guarantee (even though merely a statement in the constitution) of the autonomy of each government in its own sphere.”13 Thus, the theory of decentralism has two fundamental axioms, one pertaining to divisions at the national level (separate powers) and the other pertaining to divisions between national and subnational levels (federalism). Both are enshrined in the US Constitution. Potentially, the theory of decentralism extends to other political institutions as well, a matter we shall shortly explore. In the lineage of decentralism, and in present-day practice, one finds two quite different perspectives on the virtues of decentralization. The dominant strand, including Blackstone, 11 12 Madison, Federalist #51 (Hamilton et al. 1787-88/1992: 266-67). Vile (1967/1998: 14). See also Brennan and Hamlin (1994), Gwyn (1965), Marshall (1971: 100), Tomkins (2001). 13 Riker (1964: 11). On the theory and intellectual history of federalism see also Beer (1993), Davis (1978), Montesquieu and Madison, sees in decentralized institutions a mechanism to prevent direct popular rule, or at least to moderate its effects. A majoritarian system, it is feared, is prey to manipulation by unscrupulous leaders and envious masses bent on the redistribution of wealth.14 A second strand, associated with Paine, Rousseau, and others of a Radical (or in present parlance, Left-wing) persuasion, perceive the decentralization of power as a mechanism bringing government closer to the people. Their assumption is that centralized power is always controlled by elites, whose interests run contrary to the masses. The only hope for popular control of government is therefore to decentralize the locus of decisionmaking. Radicals share with their Establishment confreres a belief that government is mostly to be feared, rather than trusted. Both Madison and Paine see good government as equivalent to limited government. In the much-quoted words of Adam Smith: Every system which endeavors, either, by extraordinary encouragements, to draw towards a particular species of industry a greater share of the capital of the society than what would naturally go to it; or, by extraordinary restraints, to force from a particular species of industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be employed in it; is in reality subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote. It retards, instead of accelerating, the progress of the society towards real wealth and greatness; and diminishes, instead of increasing, the real value of the annual produce of its land and labour. All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order to men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society. According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.15 In pithier, though perhaps over-stated, terms, Thomas Paine writes, Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. The former Filipov et al. (2004), Mogi (1931). 14 Riker (1982a). 15 Smith (1776/1939: 650-1). Several centuries later the idea is reiterated in public choice work. “Rentseeking activity,” writes James Buchanan, “is directly related to the scope and range of government activity in the economy, to the relative size of the public sector” (Buchanan 1980: 9; see also Colander 1984: 5). promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one... Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.16 Among twentieth-century writers decentralism takes a number of different forms, each with its own terminology, theoretical framework, and policy concerns. This far-ranging camp includes early group theorists;17 British pluralists;18 American pluralists;19 writers in the public choice tradition, especially those oriented around the intertwined ideas of separate powers, fiscal federalism, veto points, and insulation;20 Guillermo O’Donnell’s conception of horizontal accountability;21 Arend Lijphart’s consensus model;22 and certain renditions of principal-agency theory.23 It is for the most part consonant with modern conservativism (i.e., nineteenth-century liberalism), as articulated by A.V. Dicey, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, Herbert Spencer, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Ludwig von Mises. Despite their evident differences, all twentieth century decentralists agree with several core precepts — diffusion of power, broad political participation, and limits on governmental action. Fragmentation sets barriers against the abuse of power by minorities, against the overweening ambitions of individual leaders, against democratic tyrannies instituted by the majority, and against hasty and illconsidered public policies. Decentralist government is limited government. Each independent institution acts as a check against the others, establishing a high level of inter-branch accountability. Bad laws have little chance of enactment in a system biased heavily against change, where multiple groups possess an effective veto power over public policy. The existence of multiple veto points forces a consensual style of decisionmaking, in which all organized groups are compelled to reach agreement on matters affecting the polity.24 Limitations on central state authority preserve the strength and autonomy of the market and of civil society, which are viewed as separate and independent spheres. Decentralized 16 Paine (1776/1953: 4). James Madison (1973: 525) concurred, though in more moderate tones: “It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune.” 17 Bentley (1908/1967). 18 Laski (1917, 1919, 1921). For writings by G.D.H. Cole and J.N. Figgis see Hirst (1989). 19 Dahl (1956, 1961, 1967), Herring (1940), Truman (1951). 20 Aghion et al. (2002), Brennan and Hamlin (1994), Buchanan and Tullock (1962), Hammond and Miller (1987), Henisz (2000a, 2000b), Keefer and Stasavage (2002), Lake and Baum (2001), Mueller (1996), Niskanen (1971), North and Weingast (1989), Oates (1972, 1999), Ostrom (1973), Persson et al. (1997a), Rasmusen and Ramseyer (1992), Tiebout (1956), Weingast (1995). For skeptical discussion of these assumptions, on purely formal grounds, see Treisman (2003). 21 O’Donnell (1999). 22 Crepaz et al. (2000), Lijphart (1977, 1984b, 1999), Powell (2000). 23 Crisp, Moreno, and Shugart (2003). 24 Buchanan and Tullock (1962). Although this vision of politics is associated with the work of George Tsebelis (1995a, 2000, 2002b), Tsebelis himself does not present a normative argument for multiple veto-points. authority structures may also lead to greater popular control of, and direct participation in, political decisionmaking. Efficiency is enhanced by political bodies that lie close to the constituents they serve, by a flexible apparatus that adjusts to local and regional differences, and through competition that is set into motion among semi-autonomous governmental units. So much for the theory. What are the specific institutional embodiments of decentralism? Separate powers implies two elective lawmaking authorities as well as a strong and independent judiciary. Federalism presumes the shared sovereignty of territorial units within the nation-state. Both also suggest a bicameral legislature to further divide power at the apex and to insure regional representation. In addition, the decentralist model seems to imply a written constitution, perhaps with enumerated individual rights and explicit restrictions on the authority of the central state, and strong local government. Most decentralists embrace the single-member district as a principle of electoral law, maximizing local-level accountability. There is disagreement over whether this should be supplemented by mechanisms to enhance intra-party democracy, e.g., open primaries or preferentialvote options. If we take the principle of decentralism literally we are led toward several additional institutional features: multiple elective offices, frequent elections (short terms), staggered terms of office, nonconcurrent elections, fixed-term elections (no possibility of premature dissolution), term limits, popular referenda, recall elections, decentralized party structures, independent agencies, and small political units.25 Although one might quibble over details, there is clear consensus on the basic institutional embodiments of a decentralist political order, where power is diffused among multiple independent actors. This is the reigning paradigm of good governance. CENTRALISM The centralist paradigm may also be traced back to English antecedents in the seventeenth century — in this case to Thomas Hobbes, Jean Bodin, and the nascent concept of sovereignty. Arguably, the primordial theory of democratic governance is Hobbesian. The most important task of government is to prevent humans from killing each other. Keeping the peace is necessary if civil society is to persist, and is achievable only in a political system that monopolizes power in the hands of a single individual. Challenges to unitary sovereignty lead to discord and, at the limit, to civil war, as Hobbes himself witnessed. The sovereign’s will is thus a secret ally of good government, for a successful assertion of sovereignty produces a reign of tranquility. The stronger the sovereign, the stronger and more durable the peace. This is, to be sure, a rather limited vision of good governance. Hobbes did not expect the sovereign to perform good works — beyond suppressing rebellion, that is. In later centuries, the 25 Many of these institutional implications have been explored by Arend Lijphart (1984b, 1999). centralist ideal became more expansive. By the end of the nineteenth century it was possible to envision a sovereign who was at once supreme (for a limited time) and accountable. Walter Bagehot, who perhaps more than any other writer deserves to be credited as the theorist of democratic centralism, identified this new model of government in his classic work, The English Constitution, where he contrasted the developing English polity with the established (non-developing) American polity: Hobbes told us long ago, and everybody now understands, that there must be a supreme authority, a conclusive power, in every State on every point somewhere . . . 26 The splitting of sovereignty into many parts amounts to there being no sovereign . . . The Americans of 1787 thought they were copying the English Constitution, but they were contriving a contrast to it. Just as the American is the type of composite Governments, in which the supreme power is divided between many bodies and functionaries, so the English is the type of simple Constitutions, in which the ultimate power upon all questions is in the hands of the same persons . . . The English Constitution, in a word, is framed on the principle of choosing a single sovereign, and making it good; the American, upon the principle of having many sovereign authorities, and hoping that their multitude may atone for their inferiority . . . Parliamentary government is, in its essence, sectarian government, and is possible only when sects are cohesive. 27 For reform Whigs, Tories, and nineteenth-century Liberals including Burke, Peel, Disraeli, Gladstone, and Bagehot, strong government — personified in the bureaucracy and the cabinet — was a mechanism to resist popular pressures, restrain corruption, and limit the extravagances of monarchy. A quite different motivation could be found among social liberals such as T.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse, Graham Wallas, and the Webbs.28 For the Fabians (aka New Liberals), strong government was a vehicle for social progress — strong enough to deal with the complexities of a turbulent, industrializing society and to overcome the resistance of privileged classes. Thus, like decentralism, the centralist vision draws on two, radically different, perspectives. An aristocratic, conservative (‘Whig’) version of centralism sits beside an egalitarian, social-democratic (‘Fabian’) version. Both survive today.29 These are centralism’s intellectual roots. What about its political-institutional forms? As a specific set of institutions, centralism is usually identified with the British ‘Westminster’ system of government as it developed in the nineteenth century. During this busy century the ancient English constitution underwent a slow but dramatic transformation. The unelective branches of the state — the monarchy and the House of Lords — became increasingly vestigial while the effective electorate grew to include a majority of adult males. Constituencies became exclusively single-member. These factors were sufficient to cause a dramatic centralization of power in the hands of Liberal and Conservative party leaders. British politics was thus transformed in the course of a century from one of Europe’s 26 Bagehot (1867/1963: 214-5). Bagehot (1867/1963: 219-22). 28 Freeden (1978). 29 Samuel Huntington is an articulate exemplar of centralist conservatism (e.g., Huntington 1968, 1981; see also Crozier et al. 1975). Most contemporary social democrats are centralists in the Fabian tradition. 27 most decentralized polities to its most centralized.30 Meanwhile the American polity, while undergoing some degree of centralization, did not evolve nearly so fast nor so far as the British polity. American commentators, like Bagehot, noticed a divergence taking place on the two shores of the Atlantic, and were often critical of the American trajectory.31 In later years, the Westminster model became the touchstone for a school of thought known as responsible party government, whose adherents deplored the lack of party strength and consequent lack of electoral accountability that seemed to characterize the American polity.32 Today the centralist model, although rarely articulated in a self-conscious fashion, is attractive to scholars in a wide range of research traditions including economics and rational choice,33 new institutionalism,34 the welfare state and the developmental state,35 and various critiques of interest group liberalism, porkbarrelling, side-payments, and political rents, evils commonly attributed to a fragmented (‘hyperpluralist’) political structure.36 For these writers, the secret of good government is to be found in the centralization of political power (within a framework of democratic elections). This is usually understood in terms of unitary government (rather than federalism), parliamentarism (rather than presidentialism), a first-past-the-post electoral system, strong parties, two-party dominance, a hierarchical bureaucracy, an unwritten constitution, and a restrained judiciary. These, of course, are the hallmarks of the Westminster model.37 CENTRIPETALISM 30 Cox (1987), Harrison (1996). Ford (1898/1967), Goodnow (1900), Lowell (1889), Wilson (1879/1965, 1885/1956). 32 American Political Science Association (1950), Burns (1963), Fiorina (1980), Ranney (1962), Schattschneider (1942). 33 Downs (1957), Schumpeter (1942/1950). 34 Moe and Caldwell (1994), Olson (1982; 1986). 35 Evans et al. (1985), Immergut (1992), Katzenstein (1978), Krasner (1978). 36 Fiorina (1977), Lowi (1969), McConnell (1966). We do not include Lijphart’s ‘majoritarian’ ideal-type since he does not look favorably on this form of government (Lijphart 1984b, 1999). 37 For the most part, we use the terms centralist and Westminster interchangeably. However, one other model of democratic centralism has attracted the attention of scholars in recent years. Fifth Republic France, in a marked departure from previous French republics, has managed to centralize political authority in the hands of a directly elected president, whose powers include the selection of the prime minister and the dissolution of parliament. The French president thus has considerably greater powers than the American president, under normal circumstances. The caveat is that in order to achieve this centralization it is necessary that parties have a strong electoral presence, a strong presence in the legislature, and party competition must also be reduced to two major parties or coalitions. Otherwise, the president and his appointed prime minister will be unable to muster consistent majorities in the legislature and thus will be forced into a situation not unlike that of presidents in other polities (e.g., in the US). ‘Cohabitation’ appears to be on the rise in recent decades; indeed, it may be a semi-permanent feature of the Fifth Republic. If so, the latter no longer serves as a paradigm of centralism. And even if not, we may doubt whether other polities, in societies less advanced and with shorter lineages of party competition, could achieve the requisite levels of party organization to assure that majorities in parliament regularly complement presidential victories. In short, as a general system of constitutional design (leaving aside the French experience) it seems that the French model of semi-presidentialism combined with single-member districts is unlikely to be as centralist as the Westminster model. 31 As British politics evolved in the course of nineteenth century, a small group of high-minded (and highborn) reformers began to wrestle with the implications of a political system that centralized power in the hands of two political parties and, more alarmingly, in the hands of the person who happened to lead the majority party. Dissent gradually crystallized around a set of reforms centered on the electoral system. Proportional representation (‘PR’) was the general remedy sought by a group of vociferous reformers across Europe including Leonard Courtney, Thomas Hare, Sir John Lubbock, and John Stuart Mill in England, Victor d’Hondt in Belgium, Eduard Hagenbach-Bischoff in Switzerland, and A. SainteLague in France.38 Their criticisms were varied, and not all would stand the scrutiny of later generations. But three points deserve mention here. First, PR reformers objected to the localist tendencies of the British electoral system, centered as it was on small (1-2 member) constituencies. A proper political system, they thought, should act in the general interest, not in the interests of particular constituencies. PR reformers were also bothered by the vulnerability of such a political system to the vagaries of popular opinion. Since elections in a Westminster system rested on the votes of a few electors in swing districts party leaders had to test the current of public opinion carefully before taking the initiative. This led, it was charged, to a populist style of leadership, one oriented more toward pleasing the electorate in the short-run than advancing its long-run interests.39 Third, and most important, PR reformers objected to a system of election that effectively represented only two groups in parliament, and only one group in government. “In a really equal democracy,” wrote Mill, “every . . . section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. . . Man for man [the minority] would be as fully represented as the majority. Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege: one part of the people rule over the rest.” Indeed, Mill continued, “[d]emocracy, thus constituted, does not even attain its ostensible object, that of giving the powers of government in all cases to the numerical majority. It does something very different: it gives them to a majority of the majority, who may be, and often are, but a minority of the whole.”40 In the wake of initiatives launched by Mill and other early protagonists, PR became a reform cause with global dimensions. Many arguments were added to the arsenal, and a few subtracted. Perhaps the most important change in perspective concerned the reformers’ views of the role of political parties. While early PR enthusiasts were leery of the “machine” elements associated with organized parties and the consequent loss of member independence, later PR boosters turned the argument on its head. PR would magnify the strength of political parties, and this would be a good thing 38 This section draws on Carstairs (1980), Commons (1907), Droop (1869), Farrell (2001), Hart (1992), Mill (1865/1958), Noiret (1990). Of the outpouring of literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century on the subject of electoral reform, Droop (1869) is perhaps the most impressive example of early thinking about the role of electoral systems in politics and policymaking. 39 Hart (1992), Mill (1865/1958). 40 Mill (1865/1958: 103-4). for democratic governance, for it would achieve the insulation from popular pressures that Mill and his cohort desired. Indeed, the operation of political parties under a PR system is quite different from its operation in a first-past-the-post electoral system. In the latter, party leaders cater to the median voter, small shifts of public opinion typically lead to great shifts in party control, and party leaders are therefore vulnerable. Not only do they risk losing office, and with it virtually all policymaking influence, but they also risk losing their place at the head of the party, for party losses are quite naturally blamed on the leadership. In PR systems, by contrast, party leaders can more easily ride out bad electoral weather. Secure in their leadership posts (since intra-party selection is generally controlled from above), secure from rapid alterations in the public mood (since they need only please a small contingent of hard-core supporters whose electoral support tends to be constant from election to election), and secure from the necessity of implementing an electoral mandate (since governments are formed after extensive periods of negotiation, and subsequent policymaking obscures party responsibility), party leaders approximate Mill’s ideal of an ‘instructed minority’ with long timehorizons.41 The electoral-system debate, first broached by J.S. Mill and his contemporaries in the midnineteenth century, has drawn a great deal of academic attention in recent years. Yet, the debate is narrowly cast in terms of electoral systems (not broader features of constitutional design), and tends to focus on the rather simple question of how electoral systems structure party competition.42 We argue that there is a coherent theory of politics lurking behind the façade of Continental European governments, and others like them around the world. We use the term ‘centripetalism’ to capture the intellectual lineage of centralism, which directly contributed to the model, as well as criticisms leveled by advocates of PR, as adumbrated above. Centripetalism is rightly regarded as a modification of the British Westminster model along Continental lines. The theory builds on the fundamental premise that good government results when political energies are focused towards the center. Two elements must be reconciled in order for this process of gathering-together to occur. Institutions must be inclusive — they must reach out to all interests, ideas, and identities (at least insofar as they are relevant to the issue at hand). And they must be authoritative — they must provide an effective mechanism for reaching agreement and implementing that agreement.43 Centripetalism thus implies both a) broad-based inclusion and b) centralized authority. 41 Mill (1865/1958: ch 7). John Commons was one of the first advocates of PR to recognize the positive role of political parties in the governance process. Proportional representation, he writes, “is based upon a frank recognition of parties as indispensable in free government. This very recognition, instead of making partisan government allpowerful, is the necessary condition for subordinating parties to the public good. To control social forces, as well as physical forces, we must acknowledge their existence and strength, must understand them, and then must shape our machinery in accordance with their laws. We conquer nature by obeying her” (Commons 1907: 134). 42 Baron and Diermeier (2001), Cox and Shugart (1996), Finer (1975a), Hart (1992). 43 We should note that the principle of authority does not in any way preclude the delegation of power so long as such powers remain accountable to the center and can be withdrawn or rearranged at any time. This is a problematic claim on the face of it. These two principles seem so radically opposed to one another that it is difficult to envision how a single institution, or set of institutions, could satisfy one criterion without sacrificing the other. They evoke dichotomies — masses versus elites, the people versus the state, small government versus big government, democracy versus autocracy, Rousseau versus Hobbes. Granted, if governance is conceptualized in the usual way, as an arena in which interests are fixed and politics a zero-sum competition, then the notion of reconciling inclusion and authority is polyannish. It seems fanciful to suggest that an institution could empower leaders without disempowering citizens. Our theory, however, supposes that interests are not primordial. Rather, we suppose that they are to a significant degree endogenous when observed over time and in the context of basic-level political institutions. In other words, the causal relationship between interests and institutions runs in both directions. Similarly, centripetalism supposes a positive-sum view of political power. Given the right mix of institutions, governance can be a win-win game. The movement ‘towards the center’ that we have described is plausible if we assume the plasticity of interests and the positive-sum nature of politics. Centripetal institutions foster consensus primarily by shaping the construction of interests. They are strong by virtue of the power they create, not by virtue of the power that they possess.44 In its assumptions about interests and power, therefore, the centripetal model is quite different from both the centralist and decentralist models that have dominated work on this question since Hobbes and Rousseau. The authority of the centripetal state derives from its ability to bring together diverse groups and diverse perspectives under conditions of voluntary choice to a common meeting-ground, thus institutionalizing political conflict. The ‘strength’ of the centripetal state is gained through the strength of its popular appeal, its persuasive powers. Rather than a compromise position between inclusion and authority, we suggest that centripetal institutions actually reconcile these two principles, drawing the diverse strands of society together towards a single locus of sovereignty. The people rule but they do so indirectly, through chosen representatives, and in a fashion that enhances rather than detracts from the authority of the state. Let us explore this notion further. Centripetal institutions gather broadly; their roots are deep, i.e., embedded.45 Through these institutions diverse interests, ideas, and identities (“interests” for short) are aggregated. Particularistic interests are converted into ideologies; ideologies are converted into general-interest appeals; parochial perspectives are nationalized. Centripetal institutions thus encourage a search for common ground. Centripetal institutions culminate in an authoritative decisionmaking process, one not easily 44 This creative, positive-sum view of power takes inspiration from the work of Hannah Arendt (1958). Our concern, in contrast to Arendt’s, is with politics as it occurs in the nation-state, rather than the polis, and in representative institutions, rather than face-to-face communities. For further discussion of the concept of power see Bell et al. (1969), Wrong (1979). waylaid by minority objections.46 Institutions pull towards the center, offering incentives to participate and disincentives to defect. Voice, not vetoes is the motto of centripetalism. Visually, we may imagine the centripetal polity in a pyramidal shape — broad at the bottom and narrow at the top, with myriad connecting routes leading up, down, and across. Communication occurs at multiple levels; lines are open. But free-flowing access to decisionmaking centers does not impede the deliberative process, which remains focused on the public interest rather than narrow, sectoral interests. How is this centripetal energy generated? We argue that under conditions of democratic rule three primary institutions are fundamental to the reconciliation of inclusion and authority: unitarism (no federalism), parliamentarism (no presidentialism), and list-PR (electoral systems that minimize intraparty choice while maximizing inter-party choice). Other, secondary institutions, follow more or less automatically from these factors and from the logic of the theory: weak constitutions (either un-written or ambiguously written so as to impose few limits on sovereignty), strong cabinets (though slightly less durable than in centralist polities), medium-strength committees within the legislature, strong party cohesion, the right of governments to dissolve the assembly, no term limits, few elective offices, congruent electoral cycles, closed processes of intra-party candidate selection, party-dominated elections, multi-party systems (more than two parties gaining significant representation in parliament), strong party organization (centralized, bounded), relatively centralized interest groups that are aligned (implicitly or explicitly) with the major political parties, no referenda (except at the instigation of the government), a restrained judiciary (nonetheless largely independent of partisan influence), and a strong, neutral, and relatively centralized bureaucracy. COMPARISONS By way of summary it may be helpful to offer a brief recapitulation and comparison of the three contending normative models of good government that we have considered. All agree on the value of democracy. Differences between these models concern the ways in which democracy is to be organized in order to maximize governmental performance. Decentralists envision political institutions that are separate and independent of one another, resulting in a decisionmaking process that is highly localized and requires universal consent. Centralists envision political institutions that are highly focused and coordinated from the top. Centripetalism sees the source of good government in institutions that reconcile inclusion and authority, bringing interests, ideas, and identities toward the center into an authoritative decisionmaking process. Moving from the abstract to the concrete, we may now review the specific political institutions associated with these models, as alluded to above. There are at least twenty-one dimensions that one 45 Evans (1995). might consider: territorial sovereignty, the construction of the legislative branch, the executive, the electoral system, the constitution, the cabinet, committees, party cohesion, dissolution, term limits, elective offices, election cycles, procedures for candidate selection, voting cues, campaigns, party organizations, interest groups, referenda, judiciary, and the bureaucracy. These stylized contrasts are presented in Table 1.47 46 ‘Minority’ is understood here in a numerical sense: something less than a majority. In perusing this table it is important to keep in mind a distinction between those definitional elements which are fundamental and those which are peripheral. Fundamental attributes are those generally agreed upon, central to the core principle of the theory, and causally prior (exogenous). Peripheral attributes are those about which partisans of each model might disagree, which are not theoretically central to the theory, or which are less exogenous. We regard the first four elements of the table as fundamental: territorial sovereignty (federal or unitary), the legislature (bicameral or unicameral), the executive (presidential or parliamentary), and the electoral system (single-member district or PR-list). The horizontal dotted line on the table demarcates these attributes. Other features are regarded as peripheral, though nonetheless worthy of notice. For other attempts to schematize centralist/decentralist models of governance see Lijphart (1999), MacIntyre (2003), Przeworski (2003). 47 Table 1: Paradigms of Governance, Elaborated and Contrasted DECENTRALISM CENTRALISM CENTRIPETALISM Federal Unitary Unitary Bicameral, symmetrical, and incongruent Unicameral, asymmetrical, or congruent Unicameral, asymmetrical, or congruent Presidential Parliamentary Parliamentary Electoral system: Single-member district or preferential vote Winner-take-all Party-list PR Constitution: Written, with explicit limits on sovereignty Weak, durable Unwritten or ambiguous; no explicit limits on sov. Strong, durable Unwritten or ambiguous; no explicit limits on sov. Strong, slightly less durable Committees: Strong Weak Medium-strength Party cohesion: Weak Strong Strong Dissolution: No (fixed terms) Yes Yes Term limits: Perhaps No No Elective offices: Many Few Few Election cycles: Incongruent Congruent Congruent Candidate selection: Open, diffuse Closed Closed Voting cues: Personal vote Party vote Party vote Campaigns: Media, interest groups, candidate organiz’s Parties and party leaders Parties and party leaders Party system: Two-party dominant Two-party dominant Multi-party Weak, decentralized, porous Strong, centralized, bounded Strong, centralized, bounded Fragmented, nonpartisan Centralized, party-aligned Centralized, party-aligned Referenda: Possibly No (or only at instigation of leg.) No (or only at instigation of leg.) Judiciary: Activist, independent Restrained, independent Restrained, independent Multiple independent agencies Strong, neutral, relatively centralized Strong, neutral, relatively centralized Territorial sovereignty: Legislative branch: Executive: Cabinet: Party organization: Interest groups: Bureaucracy: