Assessing the effects of institutions

Weaver and Rockman

With democracy spreading across the world, it is important that countries adopt democratic
institutions best suited for them.
With this in mind, an examination of the effectiveness of Presidential and Parliamentary systems
of democratic government must be conducted.
The U.S. follows a Presidential model and has been traditionally criticized for dispersing power,
encouraging dissent, and diffusing accountability.
The Founders designed the U.S. government to be inefficient as a guard against tyranny, whether
coming from an individual or from a group holding the majority power. [A notable artifact of our
history] While America has functioned well within these constraints, the weaknesses of the
system have been magnified in recent years due to increasing partisanship and greater citizen
demands for government change and services.
In our system of government, the President and Congress can blame each other for the same
problem and then walk away without any mandate to solve it, leaving the public confused over
who is to blame and hence disgusted with the entire government.
But there are weaknesses in the Parliamentary governments that dominate Europe, chiefly
concerning the stability of coalition party governments.
Different government institutions affect effectiveness. This paper defines effective government
as being able to:
-Set and maintain priorities among different demands
-Wisely use resources so that they will have greatest effect
-Innovate when old policies start to fail
-Coordinate conflicting objectives into a unified whole
-Impose losses on powerful groups
-Represent both powerful, centralized interests and diffuse, unorganized interests equally
-Effectively enforce policies once the government mandates them
-Ensure policy stability so new policies have time to work
-Make and maintain international commitments, chiefly pertaining to trade and defense
-Manage cleavages in society so that they don’t escalate to violence
Hypothesis of this paper: Political institutions shape the processes through which decisions are
made and implemented and these in turn influence government capabilities. This paper tests the
hypothesis by examining how the U.S. checks-and-balances system and the European
parliamentary system differently influence government performance in various areas.
While Presidential systems closely follow the U.S. model, Parliamentary systems vary
considerably, most importantly when it comes to the issue of elections and representation. In the
Westminster parliamentary system used by the U.K., the country is divided into geographic
districts, each of which has one representative. Whichever candidate wins a plurality of votes in a
particular district becomes that district’s legislator. However, in many European countries,
proportional representation is used, allowing groups that are geographically separate to elect
representatives that serve their cause.
Features of the Parliamentary system that are commonly taken as advantages over the U.S.
model:
-Parliamentary systems have fused the Executive and Legislative branches together, which
centralizes authority. Accountability and party discipline are greater, and ministers are all
experienced legislators.
-This centralization of authority often allows Parliamentary governments to get more done than
Presidential ones.
-Parliamentary governments have more control over the details of their policies.
Differences in institutional constraints:
-In Parliamentary systems, the head of government and his ministers are chosen directly by the
legislature, and only stay in office so long as they hold the confidence of the legislature (hence, a
“vote of no confidence” in the legislature can lead to the dissolving of the Executive
government). In Presidential systems, the President and Legislature are elected separately and
cannot dissolve one another except in cases of criminal wrongdoing.
Differences in decisionmaking processes:
-In parliamentary systems, party discipline must be very strong because infighting will cause the
constant collapses of governments. In the more resilient U.S. system, legislators are freer to vote
according to their personal views or the views of their constituents. Parties in countries with
proportional representation elections and legislative systems will usually keep lists of approved
party candidates who will vote within party lines in a predictable fashion. Members who deviate,
threatening government stability, will be dropped from the party rolls come the next election.
Campaign funding and career advancement depend upon the approval of the central party. In the
U.S., the system is weaker and individual candidates build constituencies to get elected and
frequently vote against their parties and for their constituents’ interests. Incentives to cooperate
are lower.
-In parliamentary systems, ministers are taken directly from the legislature, meaning they have
significant political experience and are policy generalists as opposed to specialists. In the U.S.,
members of Congress are forbidden from serving in the Executive Branch simultaneously. But in
practice, most U.S. bureaucrats have significant experience, often involving elected positions.
-Cabinets in parliamentary systems sometimes become so powerful that the rest of the legislature
serves merely as a rubber stamp. However, in the Presidential system, there are many
opportunities for the Congress to block or modify the Executive actions, and the President’s
cabinet is held accountable to Congress.
-Accountability is clearer to voters in Parliamentary systems since parties vote as blocs and bad
policy choices can thus be easily assigned to one party. Ministers are also held to account to the
rest of the Parliament. In the U.S. government, since power is shared, it is hard to assign
responsibility for anything.
The remainder of this paper will examine how Parliamentary and Presidential systems differently
impact government policymaking capabilities.
Among parliamentary counties, differences exist in the pattern of government formation, here
called the regime type.
-The Anglosphere and many ex-British colonies: The political landscape is dominated by two
major parties, though smaller parties also participate in elections and normally win some seats.
The two big parties will alternate control of government.
-Continental Europe: Multiple parties of approximately equal power compete during elections,
and legislatures are commonly full of many different parties. As such, coalitions between
different parties must be formed to bring order to the government.
-Japan: A single party dominates government for long periods, either with a clear majority of
seats or with a plurality and in a coalition with a weaker partner. But in Japan, the majority party
traditionally respects the weaker parties.
What type of regime arises depends heavily on the election system.
-In Continental Europe, proportional representation schemes are used, allowing demographic or
idealistic groups spread out geographically to wield political power. There is also a low hurdle
for participation, meaning candidates need receive only small percentages of the vote to win an
election. No representational bonuses are given to winning parties (as it is in the winner-take-all
system), which leads to further political diversity.
-In the Anglosphere, countries are divided into geographical districts which each elect one
representative. This system has the effect of severely punishing weak parties and encouraging a
two-party system (though third parties may also have a significant presence). Hurdles for
participation are also higher.
In two-party governments, the main parties can afford to be more extreme and to avoid
compromise on everything since both know the majority-minority balance will inevitably flip.
In multiparty governments, the parties have to work together in coalitions and must anticipate
how their current actions will affect their attractiveness for inclusion in future coalitions, so
compromise is very common.
In effect, multiparty governments have legislatures with members that better reflect the nation’s
diversity, but in practice, their policies are very mainstream and do not satisfy the extremes
demanded by particular constituencies.
Among the parliamentary governments, power arrangements might change over the years. As
just one example, a government might, at one point be dominated by one majority party, then by
a minimum majority coalition at another. Rule changes can explain the switch.
A “minimum wining coalition” has the minimum number of legislators necessary for a legal
majority. An “oversized coalition” is larger than the minimum size.
Different rules in different countries affect the nature of parliamentary governments.
-In Denmark, ruling coalitions can be formed without a vote of confidence from the entire
parliament, encouraging minority governments.
-In Britain and Canada, norms have developed against the use of coalitions when no party has a
clear majority, so in situations where the two major parties hold less than 50% of the seats and a
third party holds a significant number, the party with the plurality will simply rule in a minority
government.
-In Germany, no party can legally rule unless it holds a majority of the seats or belongs to a
coalition that holds more than 50%, producing the opposite effect as Britain and Canada.
But U.S. government can also be divided and still function, as evidenced by situations in which
Congress is controlled by a different party than the Executive.
In Parliamentary systems, the legal or practical need to build a ruling coalition can result in
strange bedfellows as it does in the U.S. Parties within a coalition will have to agree to mute
disagreements for the sake of unity, and party discipline will have to be very strong thereafter to
maintain that unity, meaning individual legislators must be prevented from voting outside
coalition lines. But this unity is always tenuous since coalitions are always temporary things that
rearrange themselves after each election, so cooperation within coalitions typically declines as
elections approach and each party tries to build a distinctive profile.
In Japan, multimember district elections and diffused sources of campaign funding mean that,
while one party (the Liberal Democratic Party) may have majority control over the government,
infighting will be high and there will be internal divisions.
The number of “veto points” also affects government effectiveness:
-In the U.S. checks-and-balances system, each branch of government may negate the proposals
of the other.
-Bicameral legislatures provide an additional veto point between the two divisions.
-In Parliamentary systems, power tends to be concentrated in the Executive among the ministers.
Individual ministers have varying levels of authority to veto legislation. Sometimes, the
noncabinet legislature has more or less power to veto the actions of the ministers.
Stability of government elites:
-In Parliamentary systems, the same core elites usually stay in power, though changes occur at
the margins as weaker coalition members come and go. The core elites may exchange positions
within the cabinet, but still stay in power.
-In Presidential systems, there is almost complete turnover of cabinet members when one party
defeats the other.
Short-term autonomy of elites refers to their ability to resist acute demands from the people and
even from their own constituencies:
-Parliamentary majority governments are best able to resist this since they control the legislature
and executive and typically control the date of elections as well.
-Minimum majority governments and minority governments are the least stable and hence the
worst able to resist outside pressures.
-Elites in the two-party U.S. system are in between. They don’t have to worry about a no-
confidence vote or losing their posts in snap elections, but they usually have to build informal
coalitions to get bills passed. Since party unity is lower, they are also more individually
accountable to voters.
-Low levels of short-term autonomy amount to reduced abilities of forcing losses on powerful
groups.
Interest group access and influence
-The U.S. system is highly accessible and open to influence
-Parliamentary systems are more closed since party discipline makes it hard for any one
politician under special influences to vote differently. Furthermore, special interest campaigns
against one party are less effective, since while they might succeed in getting the party out of
power, most of the party members will remain in government for long periods.
-However, since parliamentary systems are comprised of highly unique parties, large interest
groups specific to each party may maintain strong ties to it, in some cases leading to corporatism
(a system in which different entities always consult with one another before making decisions).
-Interest group access is more structural and specific in parliamentary systems than it is in the
U.S.
Policymaking capabilities
-Are affected by future political expectations. In parliamentary systems, parties and their
members stay for long periods. In presidential systems, parties alternate control.
-Oversized coalitions are best at resisting outside pressures and maintaining policies for the long-
haul.
-Minority governments might alternatively be better and worse able to impose losses on
powerful groups since the groups are more likely to fall outside the government’s constituency,
but since minority governments are also more vulnerable to no-confidence votes.