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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

federalism's blind spots « Previous | |Next »
March 28, 2006

In advanced democracies citizens, public interest groups, and even political elites show decreasing confidence in the institutions and processes of representative government that is coupled with an erosion of support for core representative institutions.My argument is that the federal system is not working as designed.

This sums up a problem confronting liberal democracries:

Democracy is rule by the people. That's what democrats celebrate and what democracy's critics condemn. The critics, around since Plato, have an important argument. The people, they say, are neither sufficiently informed nor sufficiently reflective to rule. And because the people are not fit to rule, they need to be governed by an elite whose members---like Plato's philosopher-kings---think harder and know better.

The American founders were troubled by this problem and proposed an answer to it. Their solution---defined by James Madison---was to make deliberation a key part of the design of the American democratic republic. The idea was "to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens"--to filter public opinion through representatives who would deliberate about public issues....The rise of political parties---more interested in competing for office than deliberating about policy---interfered with this vision.


They sure have, even though they are one form of representative democracy.

Madison had argued in The Federalist No.10, that the republican or federal remedy embodied in the Constitution allowed the various factions of public opinion sufficient room to express their views and to attempt to influence the government. Instead of the majority putting down minorities, the different interests would negotiate their differences, thus arriving at a solution in which the majority would rule but with due care and regard given to minorities. The very number of factions would preclude any one from exercising tyrannical control over the rest. And the medium in which this give and take would occur would be politics, the art of governing.

One way to achieve this is to divides national powers into three branches, and then allows each branch to check the others while preserving their independence. The purpose is to diffuse power and allow ambition to counter ambition. The assumption is that the different branches will have different interests premised on their institutional loyalties. The Prime Minister/Cabinet will seek to protect and extend executive power, the Congress (Parliament) legislative prerogatives, and the courts judicial authority.

There is no mention of legislature political parties in this. Yet the mediation of factions and public opinion takes place through the political parties. These allowed groups with very different interests to pool resources, make compromises, and push for common agendas; Alas parties now control the way parliament is run. The party system has managed to a consolidate power in the national government through the executive, and threatens the system of checks and balances. Worse one party can controlled all the branches of government.

The party system overwhelm Madison's carefully designed federal system of checks and balances. The executive then forms alliances with big industry and finance and this controls public policy. What we have is what Madison most feared: the concentration of power in the most dangerous branch---the executive branch, which Madison viewed as dangerously prone to war. Do we not have breaches of public trust here through an abuse of power?

The argument is this.

Parliamentary elections generally place a single party decisively in power, sometimes on a minority of the popular vote. The majority government and the permanent bureaucracy fuse into a dominant executive, protected from proper scrutiny by secrecy and operating in a context of informal guidelines and discretionary power. The executive dominates Parliament and through Parliament is superior to the judiciary, and neither they nor any other bodies provide effective checks and balances on its conduct of public affairs.
Madison' s solution is for the press to be free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. The press publicizes misconduct and overreaching so that other government officials and politicians can take action.

So what happens when the press becomes an advocate of the policies of the dominant executive? That means less check on executive power. That means the check's and balances on the government's ambition, hubris and bad judgment, which ensures the government to behave more responsibly, are not working as designed.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:09 PM | | Comments (1)
Comments

Comments

I consider No.10 the most important of all of them. It shows their thinking on how they reconcile liberty and faction in liberal democracy.

They had technology and educational inequity going against them back then. The media is obviously not a sufficient check and balance any longer. The government has moved much of the Res Public into the private space.

Even though some political tasks require specialisation (ie professional politicians), and some members of the public choose rational ignorance (they have other more pressing things to worry about), our political system requires the direct injection of citizens into the process.

The gap in education between the average politician and the average Australian isnt much. So that isnt an issue. And modern communications technology means a citizen can be involved without having to be physically present.

Some of the possibilities; non-elected cabinet, people's chamber, ratifiers between parliament and GG, citizen auditors, GG chosen by sortition.

The permutations are endless.