Checks and Balances
The present debate about the merits of political systems had resurged in international comparative politics literature throughout the 1990s, leaving behind a 40 year lull, and remains equally contentious to this date. Its context then was timely as scores of countries in East Europe hoped to institute post-communist democracy, in the same way Nepal is now trying to embrace democracy and the changes which emerged from the Maoist armed insurgency.
Several scholars, building around the works of Juan Linz, forcefully argued in 1990 that parliamentary systems were less prone to breakdown and more accommodating in multicultural societies. Donald L. Horowitz established exactly the opposite in his thought-provoking rejoinder, claiming presidential systems as better, coherent and more efficient. Scholars, polarised on the two sides, presented their cases, one after the other. The debate looked seemingly endless, precisely like it is at the moment in Nepal. The study of governments, disaggregating them from their inherent institutional structure, would not necessarily attest one system superior to the other.
When we are picking up ripostes from Linz or Horowitz to make our case today, larger comparative politics scholarship has grown by far since the beginning of that debate. Their research, as articulated by Robert Elgie who knitted the wave theory in the discussion of government choice, marked only the “first wave” of deliberation, and also a phase of sharp variance.
Beginning the “second wave”, Shugart and Carey’s seminal work in 1992 exposed how insufficient the existing studies of presidential systems had been and how they overlooked its institutional design and electoral rules. As being argued in Nepal today by the proponents of the traditional Westminster arrangement, the problems of sequential rigidity, tilt towards majoritarianism and dual legitimacy (president vs legislature) were pointed out as the innate quandaries of the presidential system. Upon more ruthless comparisons, these arguments were not only proven as overstatements to deride presidential systems, but also were found equally ubiquitous within the Westminster governments.
Lidija Fleiner in 2005 convincingly laid bare the evidence that no existing presidential form had ever changed to the Westminster system, while many had taken contrary steps. This stage of discussion broadened Linz-Horowitz limitation of explanatory elements by probing into multiple variables of regime types including electoral models, party systems and separation of powers.
In the more enriched “third wave” trumpeted by George Tsebelis, through his authoritative study of ‘veto players and regime types,’ written in 1995, scholars sought to apply a further holistic approach in their analysis of the form of governments. Now regime types were not necessarily the units of analysis but stressed on the cross-cutting political behaviours from both regimes for stability, finding ways to ameliorate their drawbacks.
Heeled on the findings of the latest research, one would comfortably affirm that through all epoch making political revolutions, people look for transformational leadership to address change aspirations and Nepal is no exception. In contrast, the transactional leadership brings in veto players that tend to ignore informed debates over the quest of power in resolving government efficacy and policy issues. According to Tsebelis, veto players are political actors whose give-and-take in close-door meetings are always required to shape existing political course, a self-fulfilling prophecy in the present political framework of Nepal.
The conundrum of government choice in the Nepali context cannot be resolved if arguments focus only on the “which question” because certain qualities of the presidential system, broader legitimacy and efficiency for example, are less available in the Westminster government, which is a lengthy sequential delegation of authorities as argued by Norwegian scholar Kaare Strom.
To put it more precisely, the people first elect their lawmakers in traditional parliaments who then select the chief executive of the nation and who appoints, again from the loyalists in the legislature, various ministers. In this process, the legislature in Nepal, despite all its accommodating institutional arrangements, has worked more as an interceptor of the communication between the executive and the people, making the entire system less responsive, upward-looking, ritualistic, slow and corrupt.
Looking for answers for the “why question” of government choice brings with it the “how” question. This means choosing what institutional arrangements we seek to address basic difficulties of stability, performance efficacy, broader representation and inclusion. The case of socio-economic transformation, national experience and governability attend the debate as important variables in this process as not all government types provide stability. Neither do all stable governments necessarily deliver public goods with efficiency. This was partly the reason why most of the new democracies after 1990 adopted a premier-presidential model as in France.
Nepal’s efforts of enhancing governance efficiency must begin with a reduced number of ministries, keeping 21 at the most and no ministers from the legislature. Strengthened parliament will have a committee for every ministry whose chairs are from opposition parties. They produce relevant bills and enjoy constitutional rights to discuss ministry’s annual program, financial plan, and transfer of personnel among others before implementation. This process not only checks government’s possible arbitrary moves by stipulating the ministers to partner with committees, but also balances opposition’s share in policy making. Thus, a directly elected executive gets a free hand in government formation but is accountable to the parliament, with every moves being discussed and better scrutinized. The government gets full term to work; no parties make or break as there is no question of simple majority confidence vote. Instead of two-thirds for impeachment, a 60 percent to two-thirds majority system could be considered.
A closer look at the recent history about how latest democracies have chosen their forms of governance reveals their systems rising more from circumstance-driven evolutions. Except the recent uprising in Arab World, 30 countries have changed their political systems after 1989. Twenty three of them adopted directly elected presidential system, though not all in American model; and the rest leaned closer to the German parliamentary structure. While seeking inspiration from around the world is important, proposals to put our national experience under the carpet by deliberately misconstruing the competing sides of academic debate deserve to be discouraged. It is time we learned from history, from our own in the first place, and thought more seriously about institutional arrangements in favour of directly elected executive; either a president or a prime minister.
Tika_dhakal@att.net
Posted on: 2012-02-03 08:42
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