Response #1

Arend Lijphart argues that developing countries would fare better under parliamentary and PR systems than in presidential and plurality systems. I do not always agree with this claim, but in the case of the Dominican Republic I must say that I do. Even though the candidature in Dominican elections is individual, most people end up voting for political parties (always keeping the individual candidate in mind, of course). Such an electoral system has always presided in the Dominican Republic and to this day has not failed. What is odd, though, is that, unlike the United States, the Dominican Republic has three major political parties: PRSC, PLD, and PRD. Each has an equal chance of winning every election and though people speculate, there never really is an “under-represented” one amongst them. Sure, there are other small fringe parties, but they do not really count for much.

I believe, however, that a PR system has not done and cannot do much for the Dominican economy. British scholar S.E. Finer concludes that “economic development requires not so much a strong hand as a steady one.” He and other British scholars further argue that what is needed is “‘greater stability and continuity’ and ‘greater moderation in policy’ which could only be provided by a shift to PR … governments.” Unfortunately for the Dominican Republic, such is not the case. I do not think the problem is within the electoral system, but within the electorate itself. One of Andrew Ellis and Richard W. Soudriette’s five key factors in determining how a system can be effectively administered in a country is voter education because “voters may not fully understand that they are electing legislators to represent them and their community.” And that is exactly what is missing in much of the Dominican Republic. Many [especially uneducated and lower-class] citizens keep nominating the dishonest crooks who promise them a bag of rice at their door in exchange for their vote, instead of promising true representation of their important needs and not just their immediate wants. The economy thus goes to the garbage. Not only is the nation’s potential extremely underdeveloped, but the mentality does not advance. If the citizenship were to be better educated, then perhaps the PR system would work to the fullest in aiding the country to advance. With the correct knowledge imparted to its citizens (which does not necessarily have to be too extensive), the Dominican Republic could be one of the most successful countries in Latin America—politically, economically, and socially. But there is a still long way to go to achieve that (and at the risk of sounding totally pessimistic: if it even is achievable!).

Response #2

Representative Government: It's not just vote counting

In the final minutes of class today, Professor King remarked on the differing views of Edmund Burke and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau regarding the nature of representational government. Is it enough, as Burke presented, to elect officials to act as proxies for the views of the nation while using their best judgment and expertise to make decisions in the best interest of their constituency? Or as Mirabeau believed, do elected officials need to mirror their constituency, resembling the body of which they are representative?

This week's study of electoral systems examines how representatives are elected. As Pippa Norris notes, majoritarian systems produce "elected dictatorship[s]." Giving the representatives elected by a majority or pluralistic vote leeway to do whatever they want until the next election cycle when roughly half of the population will choose who next will govern makes it easy for politicians to cater and serve only those constituents who put them in office. Other electoral systems such asSTV and Preferential allow significant minority factions to gain representation in a manner roughly proportionate to their incidence in the population.

It is interesting to see how preferences are reflected in these alternative electoral systems which practice vote transferal or give people the option to record a second choice; rather than the most fervently popular, a candidate with whom most people are happy is elected under these terms. Different countries or regions may go out of their way to give special interests groups representations. In Lebanon, the presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian, while the Prime Minister is required to be a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament aShi'a Muslim. Donald Horowitz (ref in Reilly157) feels that this "defuse[s] the importance of ethnicity" and religion and makes voters think about broader issues.

I think this leads to artificiality in representative government. It may be prudent to see that representatives are actually representative of the views of the constituency as per Mirabeau, but people don't necessarily want to exclude certain qualified candidates from public office simply to meet a quota (ie, male/woman ratio). There should be enough flexibility to reflect true preferences.

Blog #1 - Grayson

After just a cursory glance at this week’s readings regarding electoral systems, it should become strikingly clear that the United States is profoundly less “democratic” than it could be. In this case I don’t mean democratic in the classic political science, sense where political power is in the hands of the people, who exercise that power through election. Rather, I mean democracy as it is used colloquially: a political system where every citizen has a voice and a say in what occurs. The United States is a heavily majoritarian democracy. All national level electoral systems (with the possibly exception of that funky Electoral College) are “first-past-the-post” systems, where the winner is simply the candidate who receives the most votes. At the risk of making an excessively general statement, I would guess the vast majority of American students grow up believing that this electoral system in the most desirable and equitable in the world. Upon ingesting this week’s readings, it’s pretty clear that the latter is false and the former is seriously debatable.

 

            My point, however, has nothing to do with bashing our domestic electoral system. While some form of proportional electoral system, be it Party List, Single Transferable Vote or some other variation on that theme would, as Lijphart put it, “limit, divide, separate, and share power in a variety of ways” (227), our pluralistic/majoritarian system works remarkable well because it doesn’t operate in isolation. The American system, essentially “winner-take-all”, would be dangerously volatile in an extremely divided society that offers little protection for the minority, as that minority’s main method of protection (participating in government) would difficult. Countries in this situation, as Reilly explains, have experimented with proportional systems in order to encourage centrist policies. In contrast, while the US does have a rather politically divided population, there exists a long tradition of legal and executive protection of political minorities. For that reason, and many more, the majoritarian democracy we live in isn’t quite as scary as the authors we read can make it sound.

Respnse #1

Response to: Why doesn't the US have a European-style welfare state?

The authors' go through many possible answers to this question.  However, they spend, in my opinion, far too much time on the economic reasons, producing many charts and statistics.  Yet in the end have seem to be unable to say anything really definitive about the effect of economy on redistribution of wealth.  I think that the authors' could have better analyzed the data and set forth a more concrete conclusion.  In the conclusion, the authors state as one of the reasons that Americans have less redistribution than Europeans, as "Americans believe that they live in an open and fair society and that if someone is poor it is his or her own fault." (p.165)  I think that this is the main reason why the US does not have as extensive of a welfare state as Europe.  Our culture teaches us that we need to work for everything that nothing will be handed to you, and if you do not get what you want then you did not work hard enough.  America is always referred to as the 'land of opportunity' so naturally it is assumed that everyone has the chance to make something of their life.  But is that a good thing?  Should the American government be more involved?  Creating programs that better support the poor and downtrodden?  I think that in some instances like health care the US government could do more by way of creating more institutions like Medicare that take care of the needs of the people.  The current system just does not reach enough people and the poorest of the poor are unable to keep up with growing medical costs.  On the other hand, the American welfare system lends to more philanthropy among citizens.  According the article the 11% of American give to charity in one way or another, as opposed to an average of 4% of Europeans.  In this sense Europeans are less likely to give to charity because they rely heavily on the government and do not feel as great an inclination as someone living in the US.  Which is better?  Well, I am biased, but in most regards I am more inclined to like the US's system.  However, I am not the poorest of the poor or a racial minority, so for me the system has almost always worked to my advantage.  In addition, I think that the more philanthropic a nation is, the better off.

Response #2

Although it was written 40 years ago, Garrett Hardin’s ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ still delivers great ideas of the tragedy of the commons (so great that it's even on Econ textbooks which makes people think that he's actually an economist).

I will, however, have to raise a question, which might be fatal to his argument. When asserting that conscience will fail to control people's breeding, he makes an important assumtion : "Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The differences will be accentuated, generation by generation."

Well, I am not necessarilly agreeing with this. Statistically speaking, the size of family is surely decreasing; what makes the whole population increase is the number of families rather than the size of families. Surely one might say it is due to the development of society system, which makes it more desirable to have small size familes. Yet, even in a developing countries, and, as a matter of fact, even in nations far from to be even called to be developing countries, same phenomenon is being observed.

So, if this statistics prove that Hardin's assumption is empirically incorrect, that can possibly mean that there is some space that conscience can play a huge role.

By no means, I am saying it does. I, too, believe the control of breeding of mankind will become more and more difficult, partially because of the reason that Hardin mentions. However, his assumption does not quite seem correct. Whether or not his parents bred many children, in fact, has little to do with the size of his own family. If a family keeps being large, it is likely due to the culture, rather than family customs, however we name it. And even such cultures have already started recognizing that having as many children as possible might not be the best idea.

Blog Response 9/24/2008

Response to: Why Doesn’t the U.S. Have a European-Style Welfare State?

This essay has many intriguing implications and conclusions, but there are a few glaring problems in it that hinder these developments. Chiefly, the authors’ various explanations for why the United States is not a welfare state are merely stated but not fleshed out or supported. Currently, the article appears to mainly point out the fact that the United States is not a welfare state while not exploring the why of the situation. The conclusions seem reasonable enough and are easily testable, but either the editors have clipped out a critical chunk of the text or the authors simply did not include support for their conclusions. Another element that I feel could have been more fully explored is the relative success of government-backed redistribution versus charity-based assistance, as discovering the strengths and weaknesses of either method would be a valuable finding. Clearly the two differing programs have an inverse relationship (increasing government relief for the poor while raising taxes reduces charitable donations), but this correlation is not taken further. Finally, there are various differences between European countries and the United States that affect analysis of the welfare state. For instance, in countries with relatively stable populations, such as Sweden, welfare states should be easier to achieve, whereas in countries like America with large influxes of immigrants who may not pay as many taxes, welfare states are significantly harder to fund.
Still, the authors certainly demonstrate that a large contrast exists between the welfare states in Europe and the lack of a comparable structure in America. The finding that the American poor tend to be less well-off than their European peers is a particularly startling finding, which implies that the welfare state does maintain an advantage over the American model, albeit at the cost of a small hit to the income per capita average. The authors’ general investigation of how far-reaching the welfare state goes into the minds and institutions of a society is one of their other key contributions. With the threat of collapse of many large institutions like social security growing larger in the U.S., the findings of studies like this become more important and critical to policy makers and analysts.

Response # 1

Garrett Hardin’s 1968 article ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ generates a dilemma that I have a problem with. The article is essentially an argument for population control through breeding limit laws, such as China’s one child limit law, justified through the explanation of the phenomenon of its title- the ‘tragedy of the commons.’ Although potentially disturbing when considering an individual’s rights, it is not the proposal of such a law that I have a problem with. His rationale, choosing to protect the rights of the world’s populations as a whole rather than the individual’s (what he calls making the world as a whole ‘more free’), and enacting laws to do so, follows well. He applies this logic when addressing solutions to other problems relating to what King has referred to as ‘public goods,’ (such as the ocean or clean air) or what are here seen as the ‘commons.’ When it comes to population control, Hardin seeks the best interest for the world as a whole, seeking to limit population to a number ‘optimal’ for living based on the finitude of the world’s resources, which makes sense.
My problem with Hardin’s argument though, is his implicit use of what Professor King outlined as the ‘rationality assumption,’ that all individuals would behave in such a manner to basically maximize their own personal good and will not act otherwise unless influenced to do so by some form of coercion. In particular, Hardin addresses the issue of pollution, and people’s lack of willingness to avoid polluting without incentive. Hardin necessitates coercion through laws, sanctions, and taxes to influence people’s behaviors. He warns against appeals to people’s sense of guilt or conscience, alluding to the consequence of anxiety and other potential mental illnesses, and differentiates between propaganda and a more comprehensive education which teaches people the meaning of the laws and necessity for them.
All of this coercion, though, requires some sort of government, institution, or external force’s intervention, and limits the people’s sense of vision. How then, I want to know, does Hardin account for those members of societies that I suppose we might call idealists. The society that Hardin conjures in which the rationality assumption is assumed and applied to each individual in society does not take in to account those in society who are willing to look at the ‘big picture,’ take responsibility for public resources, and act on this. In particular, where do the likes of environmentalists and conservationists fit in?
Is coercion really required in all circumstances to protect the common good? If not, then the situation at hand might not be quite as ‘tragic’ in regards to the finitude of our resources and people’s ‘limitless’ ambition to use them, as Hardin makes it out to be. I’d like to believe that at least some people have a little bit more common sense than to go about behaving in a manner that assumes a false sense of ‘limitless’ resource at all time, but then, according to Hardin’s argument, I suppose that would make me irrational. And that would probably mean that all environmentalists and conservationists are also irrational as well.