Protests are supposed to be disruptive

Chanting protestors woke me early this morning (well, perhaps not that early). As I was planning to sleep in, my first thought was “go away – I am trying to sleep.” After a moment’s reflection, I laughed at myself. After all, democratic constitutions view protest as a legitimate form of political speech because they are meant to disrupt. Objecting to protests because they impose difficulties on non-protestors is inherently undemocratic.

King of Polarization

A lot of people didn’t like Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s because he said mean things about rich people and racists. Yet, I heard a lot of people saying nice things about him on the teevee the other day. People don’t tend to call MLK a class warrior and a race-baiter anymore. This could mean that race and class were a big deal in the 1960s, but no longer are. It could also mean that a lot of people in politics today are hypocrites.

The Challenge of Free Expression

Recently I read an article over at the Jerusalem Post which struck a chord in me, particularly in light of the patriotic sympathies stirred by the 4^th of July.  In broad strokes the article discussed one of the grandest challenges rights organizations have historically had to tangle with, the issue of protecting the rights of those we disagree with.  Freedom of expression is perhaps one of the most difficult freedoms to ensure around the world, antithetical to repressive regimes and often morally repugnant even to the most open-minded of liberals, freedom of expression is nevertheless an essential component of a functional democracy.
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The state of American democracy

Andrew Sullivan mulls over the collapse of American democracy:

EJ Dionne takes the Weiner “scandal” as the moment he realized we were late imperial Rome. PM Carpenter takes the Bush vs Gore Supreme Court ruling. Personally, I think it was some moment between the Congress’s assent to torture in 2006 and when Sarah Palin was selected as a serious vice-presidential nominee in 2008.

Any thoughts?

I know this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it still strikes me as misplaced.  There is an understandable tendency to overestimate the importance of modern day events, and while I don’t disagree that these are important, I think we need to look at the big picture. One theme I would like to address more is looking at American history, not as a country that was born as an shining city on a hill, but as a flawed, somewhat autocratic country that underwent a remarkable democratic transition.  I personally think a time to really worry about the state of our democracy would have been when the country split in two and fought a bloody civil war.  Maybe the armed, terrorist insurgency that existed in the South for decades after would also be a cause for concern.   The successful coup d’etat, certainly didn’t bold well for our democracy, yet we are still here, a stronger democracy than ever before.

The bottom line is this is the first period in American history where the entire population is enfranchised and where political parties aren’t merely patronage machines that avoid adopting ideological policy positions. Congress authorizing torture and a flawed presidential election may seem like the beginning of the end, until you stop to think about what the beginning was actually like.

Canada’s new party system?

Canada held snap elections yesterday in which Steven Harper’s Conservative Party managed to secure a parliamentary majority. The New Democratic Party (NDP) essentially supplanted the Liberals as the left opposition in the country, while the center-left Liberals, who had dominated Canadian life for decades, saw their seat total plummet.  Likewise, the separatist Bloq Quebecois were reduced to a small four seats.

Canada isn’t normally thought to be an interesting country (Something which they should take as a complement; interesting countries tend to have more problems!) but buried in the lackluster coverage are a few gems worth election wonks pondering over.  The first is the fact that the final results were far different than initial polling would suggest.  When snap elections were called in March, the Liberals were still the leading opposition party with the NDP solidly behind.  This is pretty strong evidence that the campaign mattered. Not shocking to many, but certainly to those who are aware of the significant  literature that suggests campaigns are really only important at the margins. Recall the recent British elections where the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg’s leadership surged in the polls, only to wind up right where they started when the results were tallied.   The LibDem’s performance, of course, may be partially attributable to tactical voting, which brings me to my next point: this election creates a party system in Canada more in line with Duverger’s Law.

In Les Partis Politique, Marice Duverger explained how plurality votes in single-member districts would bring the effective number of competitive candidates to two. ‘Duverger’s Law’ as it was dubbed by William Riker  was taken by some to mean that (1) SMD systems would always produce only two viable parties, and (2) that there would only be two effective parties at the national level.  These two misconceptions have led many to incorrectly state that Canada and India are proof that Duverger’s law has been broken.   The problem, I think, is that what Duverger was explaining wasn’t really a law so much as a force, and is in this respect completely true.   Gary Cox in Making Votes Count does a good job of rescuing Duverger while expanding on his theory with his ever helpful equation, N+1, to predict an electoral system’s impact on the number of candidates.  (N being the number of available seats in the district, the number of candidates would be one more).   A quick glance at the results seem to indicate that Duverger’s Force was certainly in effect.  I’m guessing once the NDP took the mantle of the leading non-conservative party, voters evaluated it as their best option in a single member district.  It’s hard to say if Canada’s party system will stay like this after the next election, but I think there is a decent amount here for us to digest for now.

Cross posted at Ahwa Talk.