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WEEKLY
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| Constitutional structures for a strong democracy |
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Part I
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Roger Myerson
To think about democratic political competition, let's begin with ideas that economists have developed for studying competition in markets. Political parties or factions are suppliers of government services to the public in the political market, but profits to political suppliers are generally called corruption. In a nondemocratic one-party state, the ruling faction has a political monopoly and can extract corruption-profits from the general public, like the monopolistic supplier of any essential service. The basic rationale for democracy is that political competition should motivate democratic political parties to offer their constituents better public service at a lower corruption-price.
National democracy can never approximate the economic ideal of perfect competition, however. The difficulties of assigning distinct accountability for many aspects of public policy severely constrain the ways that public power can be divided among different independent suppliers. National government is too complex to be entrusted to any group that has no proven record of administrative competence. Smooth transitions of power require that outgoing parties should have some hope of returning to power, provided that they do not abuse their power at the end. Thus, national democratic competition can never involve more than a relatively small number of serious political parties.
So it may be misleading to describe democracy as "government by the people"; instead we should see democracy as government by political parties which must compete for popular approval.
The effective force of competition in a democracy may depend on structural details of the constitutional system. Barriers to entry are lowered when more political leaders have independent opportunities to demonstrate their governing capacity, and such opportunities are regularly found in independently elected provincial governments of federal democracy, and in ministries of multiparty parliamentary government. Thus, federalism and multiparty parliamentary government can enhance the competitiveness of democracy.
Although the basic purpose of democracy is to compel politicians to compete for the benefit of the public, democratic constitutional structures are principally designed by politicians who are not normally interested in making the system more competitive for themselves. But in this regard, the difficult circumstances in Pakistan today may contain a deep source of hope, as leaders in all major parties understand now that the survival of democracy itself depends on the public seeing some real benefits from democratic government. Today, Pakistan's democratic politicians and voters may all share a stake in reforms that can make democracy more competitive.
The suggestions that are considered here may be grouped into two categories: provisions that can foster a flexible system of strong political parties at the national level, and provisions that can extend the supply of democratic leadership more deeply to provincial and local levels.
Democracy begins with political options being offered to voters, and so my review of constitutional questions begins by considering the nomination of candidates by parties and the formation of parties by coalitions in the National Assembly. Then I review the advantages of parliamentary government for developing strong cohesive national parties.
After noting that a democratic system based exclusively in one assembly could be very susceptible to collusion, I then discuss the importance of a federal division of powers, which creates autonomous units of government where more politicians can prove their qualifications for leadership. I then focus at length on how to design local elections so that parties will build a stronger base of local democratic leadership, which can become the primary point of entry for new political talent. Finally, I discuss the development of broader regional ties based on shared commitment to democracy.
Nomination of candidates and formation of parties:
A system of democratic political competition must be ultimately based on two kinds of fundamental democratic rights: the rights of voters to elect their representatives by freely choosing between candidates nominated by different parties, and the rights of politicians to organize parties that nominate candidates for election.
The basic democratic incentive for leaders to improve government services for the public cannot apply to members of the public who lack the right to choose freely between candidates of different parties. The argument for universal adult suffrage is derived from this basic fact. It is easy to see how established local leaders might induce some of their clients to testify against the extension of full voting rights into their community. But when voting rights are limited or denied for any group, members of this group will be exposed to greater risks of being ignored or ill-served or exploited by their leaders.
This argument strongly suggests that individuals' rights to vote and political parties' rights to compete should be extended fully to the Tribal Areas, as to all other parts of the nation. An individual's right to vote is incomplete without the right to have major political parties competing for this vote. So nothing should prevent any national political party from nominating candidates in all elections throughout the nation, as long as the party has at least some minimal representation in the National Assembly (say, more than 1/6 of the seats). In particular, rules that have prevented political parties from sponsoring candidates in the Tribal Areas and in local elections should be repealed.
The integrity of elections can be more strongly defended when two or more national parties have a recognized stake in their rights to nominate competitive candidates. Democracy has sometimes been undermined by abuses of nomination rules, for example in some Russian provincial elections, by disqualifying opposition candidates, or by adding similarly-named candidates to confuse their supporters. Some observers have argued that such abuses depended on the absence of strong competitive parties in Russian democracy.
A national party should have an interest in maintaining a national reputation for resisting such abuse of democratic rules, which could undermine the party's ability to compete democratically for power. A political party clearly needs a reputation for defending its own candidates' rights to compete freely and fairly in elections, but its national reputation could also be tarnished if it tolerated such abuse by local officials whom it has sponsored.
This essential investment in the democratic process can be strengthened when party leadership is based in an elected assembly. When party leaders owe their positions to success in popular elections, they have a direct personal stake in maintaining the system of electoral competition. Members of a legislative assembly regularly develop working relationships that cross party lines, and such connections can help members of the assembly to identify their shared interest in maintaining a system of elections in which they all can compete fairly.
Thus, as suggested by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif's Charter of Democracy, election commissions should be constituted with transparent and effective input from all major parliamentary parties.
For a flexible system of parties based in the National Assembly, with low entry barriers, members of the National Assembly should be free to form new political parties. Unfortunately, the right of elected representatives to change parties is restricted under Article 63A in Pakistan's constitution. I would suggest that this provision, from the 14th amendment, may be reconsidered. This amendment may have been justified by an intention to prevent members of the National Assembly from being corruptly induced to undermine the governing coalition by changing their votes. But by limiting the freedom for MNAs to make independent political decisions, this Article concentrates more power in the hands of a few party leaders and makes it harder for National Assembly to generate new political coalitions.
Given that corrupt floorcrossing transactions must involve a rival party leader as well as the defecting MNA, one could suggest instead that the prime minister's oath of office might include a pledge that he has never recruited any parliamentary support by bribes or threats. In the long run, however, there is a more reliable deterrent. A politician cannot hope to win elections without a reputation for reliably fulfilling promises to the voters, and the need to maintain this reputation should be the essential deterrent against selling public parliamentary votes for corrupt private benefits.
(To be continued)
The writer is a Nobel laureate and Glen A Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
