I believe that the fixed term Parliaments proposal, 55%, the favouring of TV debates amongst major party leaders, the abolition of the 1922 committee of backbenchers, the proposal that there should be no change of Prime Minister without a new General Election, and others all reflect a common (albeit perhaps un-selfconscious) belief in Presidential politics.
There are indeed some strong arguments to be made in favour of Presidency. But let's have a debate on it instead of ambling into a Presidential arrangement without really thinking too hard about it.
As I've blogged before, modern Conservatives (or "progressive Conservatives" OR "liberal Conservatives" or whatever you want to call them) don't have the sorts of bias I personally favour towards incremental and evolutionary constitutional change. Instead, they are revolutionaries, hoping to over-turn the whole system and replace it with something new, modern, and progressive. Fine. Let's run the debate on those terms: Year Zero; Start again. So, the question before us, on our otherwise-blank sheet of paper, is: "How should we construct a constitution from scratch?"
There are many aspects to such a grand question. But let us focus on the question of the font of law under the system and the role of voting. We shall consider four broad kinds of option here:
- Dictatorship. By this I mean to include absolute monarchy, high priest-ship, lord protectorates, rule by a general, and other systems in which overall executive authority is concentrated in one individual, and that individual emerges in some way other than via an election.
- Presidency. This is similar to dictatorship, except that the executive individual concerned is chosen (and re-chosen) by election of some sort.
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Parliament. In this system, the power of the Executive individual (however chosen - I intend in this category to include constitutional doges, constitutional hereditary monachs, Presidents under Parliamentary systems (e.g. in Germany) and so on) is heavily circumscribed by the need to refer to a Parliament of democratically-elected representatives.
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Direct democracy ("pure" or "continuous" democracy). In a direct democracy, there is no particular Executive authority. Instead, the voters make all key decisions themselves collectively, "ruling themselves" continuously.
There are other possibilities that probably constitute their own options, rather than subdivisions of the four I've mentioned. But let's not get distracted by them for now. Let's just assume that these are the four between which we can choose. Also, as should be clear from the way I have listed them, there are many variants of each of these four options. Once one has a broad idea of which category one likes, the question of which variant is best will arise. But let's ignore that, as well, for the moment, and just focus on these four options. Lastly, there is some overlap of concept between the categories - e.g. typically in a Presidential system there will be some representatives that have some legislative (albeit not executive) significance. We'll mainly skate over that sort of point, instead focusing on the broad thrust of the different concepts.
Now, from a Year Zero perspective, which category is best? I think we can pretty swiftly dismiss the pure democracy option. It is, of course, much more feasible now than in the past. We could all vote on-line, or via the red button on on televisions, or by text, for every legislative or Executive measure coming up for consideration. But in fact people don't want to spend their time doing that, and if they did so spend their time, the choices they made would be ignorant, volatile, and unpleasant in all kinds of ways. Most people have much better things to do with their lives than squander them on policy questions. They want some kind of specialists to act as their rulers.
So that leaves us with Dictatorship, Presidency, and Parliament. Well, most traditional analysis suggests that benign dictatorship is the ideal system if you can get it. In such a system you have a specialist expert ruler, who takes advice and makes decisions on the basis of what is best for the country as a whole and what is most just, noble, and honourable. There are just two small problems: (1) it's hard to find benign dictators (either because there aren't many, or it is hard to identify them amonst the many malign or incompetent candidates); and (2) even if you can find a benign dictator, it's hard to keep her benign once she has power - for power corrupts.
So, direct democracy is undesirable, whilst benign dictatorship is difficult to deliver reliably. That leaves us with either Presidency or Parliament. Most developed countries have gone for one or the other of these. Both can be made to work.
Presidency can be conceived of as a fairly direct response to the challenge of identifying the benign dictator and keeping her benign. Under a Presidential system we elect someone as dictator for a period of time, then, when that period expires, if we think someone else might do better or if she turns too malign or incompetent we vote her out and install someone else. (A President typically engages with democratic representatives, also, but these have only legislative, not Executive, significance.)
The approach in a Parliamentary system is a bit different. This can be conceived of as an attempt to hold in tension some of the advantages of dictatorship with some measure of continuous democracy. From the bottom up, as it were, we elect representatives who seek to act as proxies for the interests of the voters and these continously sustain (not via one-off Elections) some individuals with key Executive power (e.g. a Prime Minister). From the top down, we might conceive of a Parliament as a different technique for tempering the potential weaknesses of dictatorship. Under a Parliamentary system, the dictator must take close account of the advice provided by her ministers who are themselves in turn continuously accountable to representatives of the wider public.
So, setting aside many other important questions, the heart of the difference between Presidency and Parliament is this: should Executive authority be continuously accountable to representatives of the democratic will, though not directly elected by the voters at all, or should the chief Executive authority be directly elected on a one-off basis but then not be subject to continuous accountability thereafter until the next Election.
I personally favour a Parliamentary system for Britain, though Presidential systems might work reasonably well in other settings. A Parliamentary system allows of more flexibility to events - if the political context alters (e.g. there is some major new event like a depression or a war or a financing crisis that means that our previous Executive is no longer the people most appropriate to be in charge) we can change over rulers swiftly without having to wait for another Presidential term to expire. The process of continuous accountability also diminishes (though it does not eliminate) the "lame duck" problem that bedevils Presidential systems - a sufficiently unpopular President can so lose the confidence of the legislature late in her term that she is unable to deliver any changes requiring legislative support.
Parliamentary systems also lend themselves more naturally to mixed constitutions. It is easier to have some powers for an unelected benign dictator (such as a constitutional monarch). One gets more fruitful interactions between the elected parts of the constitution and the underlying continuously-empowered oligarchy which exists in some form in all well-functioning constitutions. Presidential systems sometimes lack the ability to sustain an underlying oligarchy, because of the disjointed nature of shifts in executive power. Systems lacking an oligarchy tend to be unstable or anarchic, or to involve huge and disruptive changes in the bureaucracy every time there is a new party elected to power, sometimes associated with unpleasant purges.
Put in traditional British terms, it is a great strength of our system that we have a civil service, an Upper Chamber, a free press, an academic and advisory network through which most of the same individuals and institutions are involved regardless of which party is in power. And this happens despite occasional quite large differences in the views of the parties. Presidential systems tend to work best in respect of their underlying oligarchies when the differences between the parties are smaller, because that allows changeovers in the oligarchy that are less disruptive to policymaking.
Because of this ability to interact continuously with the elected representatives and seamlessly with the oligarchy, Parliamentary systems can evolve to be very flexible (and hence very strong). In contrast, Presidential systems tend to be much more dependent upon the efficacy of their founding constitutional documents. If the nature of society changes materially, or the political preferences of voters change, or if large regional differences emerge, Presidential constitutions can be overwhelmed. Thus, as well as limited diversity of political choice, Presidential systems tend to work better if there is limited change in social power structures and political preferences over time.
The combination of continuous accountabilty and the more seamless interaction with the ruling oligarchy, allowing of greater diversity in democratic political options and greater flexibility over time seems to me to be attractive for the UK. For our society is not homogenous or stable in political view, power structures are not at all stable (and we do not want them to be), and circumstances and preferences evolve quite rapidly over time (and we want them to be able to do so).
I thus favour a Parliamentary system over a Presidential one, here at least. We can debate options within a Parliamentary system another time - do we want a constitutional monarchy, for example, or some German-style presidency, or something else? Do we want a Second Chamber of the legislature? If so, do we want it unelected or elected? There are many such debates to be had. But the first major call, and in many ways the most important, is made.
My sense is that Cameron and Clegg do not agree with me on this first point. Fine. So let's hear it: why do you think that a Presidential system would be better for Britain than a Parliamentary one? If you want us to change, argue for it.
