PoP - Counterpowers

Clark, Golder, Golder

• Madison writes extensively about need of protection from majorities in the Federalist Papers

  • Fed 10 - Tyranny of majority

  • Fed 47 - Accumulation of power is tyranny

  • Fed 51 - separation of powers and checks and balances are good 

• Federal states split sovereignty into different levels 

  • De jure requires geopolitical division, independence, and direct governance.

  • De facto depends on degree of decentralisation – taxes are a useful proxy

• Bicameral states have different legislative assemblies 

  • Can be congruent or incongruent and asymmetric or symmetric

• Constitionalism 

  • Higher law constitution has constitutional review – restricts the legislation

Lijphart

• Consensus democracies have more counter-majoritarian institutions 

  • Federal systems, bicameral legislature, judicial review

Tsebelis

• Veto players: actors whose agreement is required for a change in the status quo 

  • More veto players → less potential for policy change

• Political stability depends on the number, congruency, and cohesion of veto players

• Bureaucrats can select any point inside the core → lots of policy discretion

• Courts are important when there are many veto players 

  • They act like a third legislative chamber

• When many veto players exist, power can be delegated to sub-groups, such that only one group has veto power over a particular issue

• If legislative chambers are congruent, then they count as one veto player (absorption rule)

• Empirical studies on oil and health policies support this normative theory, but more is needed

Stone-Sweet

• Definitions and effectiveness of judicial review

• A constitution specifies the meta-norms of how all legal norms are to be produced, applied, enforced, interpreted, and changed

• Constitutions today project rights, reject legislative sovereignty, and make overriding of constitutional rulings difficult 

• Judicial review can be performed by the judiciary or a separate constitutional court

• Effective systems require (1) judges have an actual case load, (2) judges resolve disputes with defensible reasons, and (3) the governed must accept the rulings

• Weak systems can be ignored → ineffective 

• European (centralized) vs American (decentralized) model

Roux

• Judicial intervention in politics is supposed to be limited to rights

• South African Constitutional Court has had judicial review of resource allocation

  • Socioeconomic right cases

• Court acted as a legislative legitimizer

Gibson and Caldeira

• Without legitimacy, the south african constitutional court’s decisions do not materialize → cannot act as a veto player

• Veto players have the power to effectively go against what is popular

• Courts with lots of legitimacy (US, German) can convince people to follow unpopular decisions 

• South Africa’s court has low legitimacy as measured by surveys

Binder

• bicameralism makes policy change harder

• Divided government (institutional intrabranch conflict) is positively correlated with legislative gridlock 

Hassan

• Decentralisation doesn’t always protect minorities 

• Theoretically, decentralisation should help ease ethnic tensions in sub-Saharan Africa

  • Decentralisation stresses local ethnic identities over national identities → heightens ethnic tensions

• Reality shows that executives are unwilling to decentralize de facto because it diminishes their power

• Centralized states result in disproportionate distribution of state resources 

  • Requires horizontal checks or independent bureaucracies

• Decentralisation brings the government closer to the people via more local level decisions

  • BUT can also just reproduce inequalities at lower tiers (ex: US southern state slavery)

Miller

• Federalism harms minorities 

• Civil rights promises inclusion

• American federal system has enabled inequality 

  • Perpetuated slavery, jim crow, prison state, etc

  • Limits authority and incentives of central government to address issues

• Lawmakers in the best position to address issues are insulated from political pressure

• Too many venues for black and latinos to get representation

Johnson

• Federalism has enabled inequality (complements Miller article) 

• Racial federalism: federal state where divisions of power are marked by the ability of each unit to use race as a criteria for determining citizenship rights and public policy

  • Hurricane katrina displays these patterns 

• Federalism has enabled slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, etc. 

Meier

• Bureaucracy is reasonably effective and highly responsive to legitimate political demand 

• Bureaucracy - permanent, goal-oriented open systems

  • Structured around policy-oriented goals 

  • “Storehouses of expertise” due to permanence

  • Perform best when given autonomy 

• Bureaucrats are encouraged to become specialized in their fields

• Continuous and unaffected by election styles (ex: UK)

Bangura

• Technocrats (policy experts) are good because most legislators lack technical experience 

• But decisions still need to be subject to public scrutiny

What is the purpose of democracy?

• To represent the people

• Bare minimum requirement is a majority

• Ideally represent as many as possible through pareto improvements from majoritarian models 

What is the role of counter-majoritarian institutions?

• Protect minority interests/rights - Madison 

• Prevent persistent minorities and tyranny of the majority

How effective are counter-majoritarian institutions/what makes them effective?

• Effectiveness can be measured by Tsebelis’ veto player framework

  • If the institution is an effective veto player then they are able to change policy

• Bicameral legislatures that are incongruent are veto players

  • Can increase legislative gridlock

• Judicial system that is effective is a third legislative veto player

  • Though South Africa has interesting results

• Federal system theoretically increases representation of geographic minorities (French Canadians)

  • BUT has also been used poorly in Sub-Saharan Africa and US to perpetuate inequality 

• Bureaucracy 

  • Can choose points inside the win set

What are the different counter-majoritarian institutions?

• Bicameral legislature

• Judicial system/constitutional court

• Federal system

• Bureaucracy

How reliant are counter-majoritarian institutions on popularity

• Constitutional courts are reliant on popularity - no legitimacy = no effect

• Federal systems are reliant on local popularity