Suharto Dies

The 86-year-old former president of Indonesia died from multiple organ failure. His regime, which was marked by economic growth and large-scale political repression, ended in 1998 in the wake of the Asian economic crisis. To characterize his regime at its worst:

“Within the space of a few months at least half a million people were slaughtered in anti-communist pogroms that, at the very least, Suharto and the military tacitly encouraged says our correspondent”- BBC Online

He never stood trial for crimes committed during his rule.

Challenging the Chinese “model.”

Yesterday’s Washington Post article on Shanghai’s middle class revolt raises some interesting questions about how we are to treat autocracies that endeavor to ‘progress’ in ways that contradict our Westocentric norms.  I indulged in debates on this matter with several of my Georgetown colleagues last semester in Barak Hoffman’s class, The Politics of Economic Reform.  These were sparked by the venerable Dani Rodrik and his 2006 article “Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform.”[1]  The following is an excerpt from an essay I wrote for that course.

 

“In his article, Rodrik pursues a “practical agenda for formulating growth strategies” (982) based on the three steps of: 1) diagnosing the causes of weak growth, 2) designing policies focused on alleviating the worst problems (so as to maximize marginal gains), and 3) to institutionalize reforms with the goals of “[maintaining] productive dynamism” over time and “strengthening… institutions of conflict management” (985).  This paradigm is adopted with the increasing economic growth of China in mind.  Rather than reconstructing China into a private ownership economy, officials circumvented this formerly “necessary” step by concentrating ownership rights in local governments through township and village enterprises (TVEs).  Rodrik explains:

… the first-best logical is not helpful here because a private property system relies on an effective judiciary for the enforcement of property rights and contracts.  In the absence of such a legal system, formal property rights are not worth much… Until an effective judiciary is created, it may make more sense to make virtue out of necessity and force entrepreneurs into partnership with their most likely expropriators…  In the environment characteristic of China, property rights were effectively more secure under direct local government ownership than they would likely have been under a private property-rights legal regime…  Such examples can be easily multiplied. (984-5)

 

“While there may be some merit to this argument, this particular situation is likely to end in dangerous failure.  For his part, Rodrik later admits that China risks “total economic and political collapse” if it does not “strengthen the rule of law and enhance democratic participation” (985). 

 

“Some warning.  The Chinese model of ownership erects barriers to democratic norms by institutionalizing economic and political inequality.  China’s “unconventional” alternative to privatization acts as a modified clientelism in which officials in the single-party government solidify political support by keeping local political leaders economically content.  The end result is the emergence of small fiefdoms that are little better than a unified central one.  Indeed, Chinese villagers face significant impediments to economic advancement and repression when they attempt to harness the power of collective action.  Institutionalizing such sub-optimal structures, particularly in countries that do not possess strong democratic institutions that can reform them peacefully, forebodes hazardous collapse.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Working the D.C. Elections

The Board of Elections and Ethics for Washington, D.C. is still looking for workers to help administer the February 12 presidential primary.  They also need help with the congressional and council primary in September and the presidential election in November.  If you are interested, call (202) 727-2525; that’s probably the best way to go about it since the primary is so near.  I had my training session yesterday and it was an interesting experience.  Unfortunately, I think you need to be a District resident in order to apply.

For every lie, a touch of hope

The Center for Public Integrity, in what appears to be a liberal conspiracy to stop our politicians from lying, has created a new website for tracking Bush administration officials’ pre-Iraq war statements and their intra-Iraq war veracity.  It appears that the cite is being bombarded by “folks… who are interested… in this.. kinda… thing [read with best Bush accent],” so I have not yet been able to test it out.  According to the New York Times’ John H. Cushman, Jr., who now deserves to be listed as one of the top enemies of freedom,

Warnings about the need to confront Iraq, by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and two White House press secretaries, among others, can be combed line by line, and reviewed alongside detailed critiques published after the fact by official panels, historians, journalists and independent experts.

There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is remarkable for its scope, and its replay of the crescendo of statements that led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M. Nixon used to dismissively call “wallowing in Watergate.”

Of course, such tools cannot help us determine the intentional lies from their unintentional counterparts.  While I do believe that we went into Iraq for the sake of convenience (Iran was too big and too difficult, even though the Iranians have clear links to terrorism, unlike Saddam, who was more likely to be assassinated himself by terrorists than to work with them.), I also believe that our officials really thought that Saddam had WMD, just as Saddam thought he was on route to obtaining them.

Yet, it will be interesting to see what type of impact efforts of this nature will have on our political system, and in particular, such events as the presidential primaries.  I’m a ‘newby’ to the web in regards to the primaries, mostly because I don’t need to listen to people like Hillary and Barak toss recriminations back and forth in order to determine who I will vote for.  But even in the few minutes that I do sit down and watch them bitch, it’s quite difficult to determine who is bitching with more accuracy.   One site that I have found useful is the Washington Posts’ Fact Checker.  Perhaps we at the Democratic Piece can create a list of some of our top fact checking websites… (your welcome, Jack).

Glub, glub

I suspect this development portends interesting exogenous challenges for those committed to spreading interstate peace and democratic politics. I’m thinking of mass population displacements and natural disasters in centers of political and financial gravity.

Jan. 18, 2008 — A new study using satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice have revealed that thinner ice that’s only two or three years old now accounts for 58 percent of the ice cover — up from 35 percent in the mid-1980s.

Meanwhile, ice older than nine years had all but disappeared by 2007.

The extinction of the older, thicker ice is effectively melting away the Arctic Ocean’s hedge against complete summer meltdowns, say researchers.

I don’t have the expertise to say whether warming is anthropogenic. But it does seem, for political reasons, that we should do what we can to prevent the same at the south pole. There is more land under that ice, and since land is denser than water, there should be more time to act.

A mixed system for Lebanon?

Just a quick post to note that Lebanon’s electoral law is under revision. From the Daily Star:

A draft election law submitted by a national commission headed by former Foreign Minister Fouad Boutros proposed adopting a compound system that combines both a proportional system at the level of governorate voting district and a majority system for the smaller qada voting district, with 51 parliamentary seats for the former and 77 seats for the later.

Ali Fayyad, Hizbullah’s representative on the Boutros commission, said the draft has been taken out of circulation, as politicians in both the ruling coalition and opposition are leaning toward a majority-based system and toward adopting the smaller qada voting district.

“The main opposition to the compound system proposed by Boutros came from the Christians, the Maronite patriarchate and the Free Popular Movement (FPM) who insisted on the adoption of the qada voting district,” Fayyad said.

Lebanon currently uses singlemulti-member plurality districts, each reserved to a religious sect but within which the member is elected.

Maskin on single-winner systems and the US electoral college

Prof. Eric Maskin came to Georgetown today to advocate for Condorcet systems, which he branded “true majority rule.” In the process, he gave nicely intuitive explanations of that system and the Borda count using the Florida 2000 and France 2002 examples.

Maskin’s main concern was how to solve the “spoiler problem” in plurality elections whereby a majority-opposed candidate wins because the majority splits its support. I’d take issue with two parts of the presentation: his treatments of instant runoff voting and the prospects for reforming the American electoral college.

He was not openly hostile to IRV, which I appreciate. He readily noted that system would, like Condorcet, be preferable to plurality because it lets voters register more than one preference using rankings. One might say Maskin’s preferences are: his favorite system > any reform > status quo. The same cannot be said of other Condorcet (and approval, and range) advocates whose preferences appear to be: favorite system > status quo > any reform.

But he was somewhat dismissive, lumping instant runoff with two-round runoff systems (TRS). In the 2002 French presidential election, Jean-Marie Le Pen entered the runoff because of first-round spoiler problems on the left, and Lionel Jospin, who may have been the majority-preferred candidate, ultimately lost to Chirac. This example supposedly highlights the deficiency of “runoff” systems, including instant runoff.

This is something of a straw man. Maskin’s main concern – he returned to the point when pressed by an audience member – is that runoff systems are eliminative, and the order of candidates’ elimination can produce ‘wrong winner’ outcomes. While that deficiency is possible under IRV, it is far less likely than under the French TRS. In the former, candidates are eliminated one at a time. In the latter, all but the top two are. In fact, IRV likely would have ‘worked’ in France 2002.

To adjudicate the relative merits of Borda and Condorcet (and, implicitly, IRV), Maskin applied five criteria from voting theory: consensus, anonymity, neutrality, independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) and decisiveness. Here we enter the realm of value judgements. Borda and IRV do not satisfy IIA, but Condorcet may not satisfy decisiveness. That is, it may fail to elect a winner when no one candidate is preferred by a majority over every other candidate in pairwise contests (called a “Condorcet cycle”). For Maskin, this deficiency is less offensive than the failure of IIA.

Moreover, if we assume with Maskin that most voters have ideologically driven preferences, a vote distribution resulting in the above is unlikely. (Say, Bush > Nader > Gore > Buchanan.) And when it occurs, we should not get too upset because such preferences are ideologically inconsistent. The voter has been illogical.

As a thought experiment, I’ll buy the claim that ideology, however understood, governs preferences. Too much criticism of reform efforts has been predicated on hypothetical preference orderings that seem schizophrenic.

Maskin also made some comments about the electoral college. When I asked him for thoughts on the National Popular Vote plan, he said it was a “cute idea” and that my question was “not on point.” But one of his arguments for using state-by-state Condorcet in presidential elections was that moving to direct election is variously “not possible” and “not likely to happen.” As such, the question is “on point” because he raised the issue.

Replacing the electoral college with a popular vote, as Maskin noted, would not address his core concern about plurality rules. His objective must have been rhetorical, therefore – to seize on reform energy to promote a reform unrelated to the desire for a direct election.

In all fairness, Maskin paid heed to the electoral college’s malapportionment and sidelining of voters in non-swing states, noting there may well be reasons to reform the institution.

But I vigorously dispute the claims that reform is “not possible” and “not likely.” One, states have constitutional authority to choose their electors in any way they want. Two, there was no single, sincere justification for the institution when the convention adjourned in 1787. (Hence states reserve the right to do what they want.) Three, National Popular Vote may have been a “cute idea” two years ago, but two states have since signed on, and it’s expected a third soon will. If that happens, we will be “46 electors closer to more democratic presidential elections.”

Freedom in the World 2008

Freedom House has just released its annual report, which determines that freedom experienced a ‘global retreat’ in 2007.  It’s also probably why Melia will be late to class tonight.

Islam and Democracy, Question Mark

The Economist has an interesting, though somewhat superficial, survey of the current relationship between Islam and Democracy in practice and theory.  It is worthy of a read.

Thinking about US reform with Taagepera’s model of district magnitude

Via Josep Colomer comes notice of a new finding by Rein Taagepera, co-author with one of this blog’s patrons of Seats & Votes.

Given “simple” electoral rules, the number of effective parties can be predicted from average district magnitude and the number of seats in an assembly. Likewise, magnitude can be predicted from the number of effective parties (say, in a constituent assembly) and number of seats. “Simple” here refers to single-tier systems without thresholds (i.e. all SMD, all PR-STV, et cetera). Moreover:

Since, according to Taagepera, the number of seats of the assembly depends strongly on the country’s population (in a cube root relation), we can deduct from the above formula that, for similar number of parties, P, the larger the country, and hence the larger the assembly, S, the smaller the expected district magnitude, M. Very large countries, precisely because they have large assemblies, should be associated to small (single-member) districts. The institutional designers in India, for example, are likely to choose single-member districts, while the institutional designers in Estonia are likely to choose multimember districts, typically associated to proportional representation rules. Thus we should usually see large assemblies with small districts, and small assemblies with large districts. Which is what we indeed usually see.

And from the above, because assembly size is a function of country population, we should see smaller districts in more populous countries. Colomer goes on:

But now we could have an answer to the very intriguing question of why large countries, including the United States, in spite of the fact that large size is typically associated to high heterogeneity, keep small single-member districts and have not adopted proportional representation. The answer may be that in large countries such as Australia, Canada, France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, a large assembly can be sufficiently inclusive, even if it is elected in small, single-member districts, due to territorial variety of the representatives.

With the caveat that I’m relying only on Prof. Colomer’s helpful summary, I’d make two comments. (One easily could make more; this is a big argument.)

One, the size of the US House has not approximated the cube root of the US population since 1912. Therefore N-seats no longer proxies very well for population in the American case. Of course, electoral rules are sticky, and there was more or less a settlement on single-member districts by 1912, even if a few states still used MMD.

Two, notwithstanding the above, one takeaway message might be: the nexus of a (more than less) large assembly and (effectively) two-party system satisfies elites who otherwise would agitate for reform. That institutional combo offers the likelihood for both factions to hold power at some point in the not too distant future. As such, it dampens the incentive for an out-party to increase district magnitude the next time it wins a seat majority.

This point is different from Colomer’s about territorial variety leading to inclusiveness, even when effective thresholds are high. I don’t believe that, all else equal, an assembly’s inclusiveness of opinion matters much for reform. In any normal year, the battle is in marginal districts for the favor of mercurial swing voters. As long as there is loose ideological correspondence between a party and its base, the state of affairs can roll along undisturbed.

Taagepera’s finding is interesting because it implies, if my understanding is correct, the probability of a future seat majority may override geographic incentives for proportionality in the now. In other words, we’d predict the Democrats to prefer the status quo over reform that maximizes the seat-winning efficiency of their spatially concentrated (i.e. “packed”) voter distribution.

Moreover, if I’ve done the math correctly, the model predicts PR-STV in three-seat districts – a reform I’ve elsewhere called modest – would result in six effective parties. That is counterintuitive given the landscape as we know it: Republican, Democrat, Green and Libertarian. Imagine how the landscape would look if the model does in fact predict the number of parties. Imagine what would happen to the coalitions we now call “major parties.”

And, assuming a constant number of effective parties (two), we would expect a decrease in the size of the House to present incentives for reform.