The Institutional Design of Sustainable Democracy

A fledgling democracy is not inevitably destined to succeed, nor is it immune to setbacks. Democratic collapses have taken place in numerous states around the world, including Greece in 1967 and Peru in 1992. On average, a new, democratic constitution survives for a mere 16 years. Barry Weingast of Stanford University outlines three institutional features essential for a nation’s longstanding stability and growth.

To Weingast, an unimpeded democracy is doomed to fail. He introduces three constitutional conditions that could potentially safeguard democracy and, at the same time, pave the way for the emergence of a healthy market economy. These three conditions are the limit condition, which ensures that no group has an incentive to deviate from the democratic pact; the consensus condition, which acts as a decentralized coordinating mechanism to allow the constituency to respond uniformly to the wrongdoings of elected officials; and adaptive efficiency, which grants the constitution the ability to adjust to shocks and shifting environments. He observes that even the US constitution, which is regarded by many as a flagship for both democracy and capitalism, contains countermajoritarian provisions.

The limit condition reflects the idea that a constitution should limit, or “lower the stakes” of, politics. If elected officials had absolute powers, political and economic actors would be in a constant state of fear, even if the officials did not resort to using those powers. In the absence of that requirement, any group with interests at risk would resort to extraconstitutional measures to protect its welfare, undermining the newly adopted social contract. For example, Weingast argues that the ability of the democratically elected administration of Salvador Allende in Chile to institute unrestrained sweeping land reforms violated the limit condition. The overreaching authority of Allende to impose agrarian reform incited a vital group of stakeholders, landlords, to support the military coup commanded by Augusto Pinochet, which led to an eventual autocratic reversal.

The consensus condition requires that a successful constitution establish clear guidelines of the rights and responsibilities of the government, so that any transgression by officeholders can be easily detected and, consequently, transgressors can be stopped and disciplined. For example, the US Constitution lays out a clear definition of treason and establishes guidelines for how people guilty of this crime are to be prosecuted. In this way, the US Constitution creates an automatic “consensus” about when behavior is treasonous. Energy that would have been spent building consensus among citizens that a person was guilty of treason can now be spent resolving disagreements and keeping the country on a democratic track.

Adaptive efficiency means that a successful constitution should survive the test of time, responding to shocks and adapting to changing circumstances. The US Constitution meets this requirement by possessing a number of adaptability mechanisms, such as the process of introducing and ratifying amendments. For instance, American Federalists had to institutionally protect the rights of slave owners in order for the South to support the proposed Constitution. In doing so, they prioritized the long-term survival of the Union over short-term democratic values. However, two centuries later, slavery was completely abolished. If the US Constitution lacked malleability, the stability of the country could have been seriously endangered.

Tunisia provides an instructive example of a post-revolutionary state that has recently been struggling to find the correct, democratic, constitutional design. The Jasmine Revolution in the North African nation is praised for attaining what other Arab Spring nations are still struggling to achieve. In a little less than one month of protests and civilian pressure, Tunisians managed to overthrow the president at the time, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, back in 2011, ending 24 years of autocratic rule. Three years later, a new constitution was born. The constitution, which took two years to see the light of day, has been considered a triumph for negotiations and diplomacy. Almost no significant stakeholder has an incentive to turn on the constitution because it solidifies Weingast’s limit condition by limiting previously unrestrained executive power. Now, all eyes are on the young democracy in Tunisia to see how long the country can survive shocks, especially in light of recent terror attacks.

 

Article Source: Capitalism, Democracy, and Countermajoritarian Institutions, Barry Weingast, Social Science Research Network, 2015.

Photo: cc/(UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan)