Updated: 11 June 2000
Functionists. Although the British model of a mandarin class, the "Administrative Service," provided a frame of reference for the Congressional debates leading to the Pendleton Act, some fundamental features of the novel American system make its dynamics quite different from those of any mandarin bureaucracy. Instead of generalists, the new American civil servants were to be specialists in particular functional areas creating what I call functionists, a term that resembles the French "fonctionaire," but with different connotations. Fonctionaires are generalist mandarins par excellence, but "functionists" are specialists whose "practical" skills, as called for by the American legislation, would be in such applied fields as agriculture, education, engineering and medicine. The tests used to recruit them would be quite different from those offered to the liberally educated administrative class in Great Britain. An important political consideration involved the desire of members of a congress to assure the availability of career offices to constituents from their own states: the British system was at that time open mainly (only?) to graduates of the most prestigious universities, Oxford and Cambridge. High scores on similar examinations in the U.S. would, assuredly, have been achieved mainly by graduates of the Ivy League colleges, like Harvard, Yale and Princeton. A new type of public "Agricultural and Mechanical" school, financed by land grants from the federal government, had previously been created under the Morrill act - - they provided the training grounds for the new class of functionaries recruited into the American bureaucracy (Riggs, 1994b).
As specialists, these functionaries tended to remain within the agencies that first hired them, moving up the ranks and forming close identifications with them. This meant that, unlike the British mandarins, American functionists did not establish pan-bureaucratic loyalties -- instead, they become primarily oriented to their agencies and their fields of expertise that subsequently became organized as professional societies. The top posts held by mandarins in parliamentary regimes would, for the most part, be staffed by transients (in-and-outers), rather than by functionists. The administrative consequence involved strengthening the particularism of government agencies noted above in the discussion of "sub-governments." The political consequence was equally important: American careerists did not share the incentives retainers have to join forces in support of political coups when their interests are seriously jeopardized.
Devolving Responsibility. Another strategy that has also limited the potential power of American bureaucrats involves the use of non-governmental organizations to carry out governmental functions. Many functions of government can be performed by non-officials under contract to provide specific services. In America, the belief that market- oriented corporations can work more efficiently than government agencies has informed a tendency to transfer responsibility for many activities to the private sector. This process can be found in many countries but it may be used more extensively in the U.S. than elsewhere -- for some fascinating details see Sharkanski, (1979).
With proper safeguards for the public interest, this practice can enhance the development of private enterprise and promote industrial growth. A conspicuous example in the U.S. involves heavy reliance on private companies to produce airplanes, tanks, ships, clothing, and a wide range of goods used by the armed forces. However, the practice also has serious political risks and consequences. Although it may reduce the costs of governance it can also contribute to corruption and inefficiency. It may diminish the risk that public officials can seize power and, properly used, it may enhance industrialization by subsidizing innovations.
The privatization of public services may also lead to serious abuses, especially in presidentialist regimes. The separation of powers principle gives members of a Congress so much influence in the shaping of public policy that they can easily be tempted to support special interest legislation that favors particular corporations or families in their districts as a reward for those who helped them pay for expensive political campaigns. Moreover, a president and top political appointees who need to win legislative support for policies they favor can easily be tempted to offer government contracts to private firms patronized by particular legislators in exchange for their cooperation. Subgovernments in the U.S. typically foster cozy relationships between bureaucrats, legislative committees and private interests. No doubt many abuses found in the United States can be explained by these practices, but their negative consequences may be reduced by some cultural norms and legal restraints that tend to promote honesty and efficient performance by contractors.
Although contracts with non-governmental organizations are also made in parliamentary regimes, several factors generated by their fusion of powers tend to limit potential abuses. Perhaps most importantly, the ability of members of parliament to use their powers to support patronage for private interests is limited by 1) their lack of direct influence in specific policy domains, 2) the need for party discipline to keep a cabinet in power that controls the votes of members and reduces any government's need to bargain with individuals for their legislative support, and 3) the practice of using plenary sessions for "question periods" in which ministers can be publicly challenged about abuses of power all tend, I think, to make the abuse of contracts for particular services less problematic in parliamentary regimes. To the degree that parliamentarist bureaucrats are mandarins rather than retainers or functionists, subject to rotation between different agencies and levels of government, I suspect that they are also less vulnerable to pressures for insider contracts with private organizations than are their counterparts in presidentialist regimes.
Insofar as industrialization requires open-market competition as a motivator for efficient performance and innovation, my guess is that parliamentarism can normally be more successful than presidentialism in controlling the pressures for "sweetheart" deals that, all too often, siphon public funds into private pockets without contributing to the public welfare or economic productivity. If this guess is correct, then a question that needs further study involves the reasons why extensive reliance on contracts with non- governmental suppliers for a wide range of public services has made a positive contribution to the management and growth of industrial processes in the United States.
Perhaps enough has been said to provide arguments that support my contention that parliamentary regimes are more likely than presidentialist ones to be able to manage bureaucratic systems that support both the development and maintenance of industrialism. Let us turn, next, to a consideration of ethnic nationalism and its relation to state nationalism and constitutionalism.
This early draft has been substantially revised for use as a UNESCO/MOST working paper: ETHNIC DIVERSITY, NATIONALISM AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY
The goal of a national state haunts democratic theory as an ideal type -- if all citizens shared the same language, religion, and cultural norms, it should be easy enough to persuade them to accept the principle of majority rule. Although they might differ from each other on secondary issues, consensus on the fundamental questions would permit acceptance of choices made by numerical majorities. The same premise underlies the judicial principle of trial by jury, the notion that a group of "peers" should be able to agree on a verdict that everyone would accept.
In the real world, unfortunately, and especially in the newer states created by collapsed modern empires, cultural heterogeneity puts the ideal of a national state into limbo as an impossible dream. Marginalized minorities who are usually overruled by every majority, see the state as an enemy, mobilizing to resist its laws and oppose its rulers. The challenge for viable democracy, therefore, is how to harmonize the interests of diverse minorities by procedures that take them into account and respect their needs in the implementation of public policies.
Like democracy and industrialism, nationalism is an historically distinct process with its own ideology and sources of support. However, as the industrial revolution gathered momentum, and as pressures to replace monarchy with representative government grew, the need for national unification also increased: the three streams became interdependent and mutually reinforcing. One cannot say that any one of them "caused" the others, but each strengthened the other and each, without the others, is imperiled. A discussion of these relationships and the institutions which reinforce the positive or negative circles of interdependence associated with them is offered in Riggs (1994c) and will not be reviewed here. #12
Global Context. For present purposes, we need to see how two complementary dimensions of nationalism are associated with the rise of modern ethnic controversies. These typically modern problems pose major challenges for every modern state and, I believe, democratic states can more easily solve them than authoritarian states -- although strong (single-party) authoritarianism can mask them temporarily by repressive measures. Weak authoritarianism, by contrast, is sure to aggravate these controversies. Among democratic states, those with parliamentary regimes will also find it easier to manage these problems than those with presidentialist separation-of-powers constitutions.
Unfortunately, a widely accepted idea blinds us to the true nature of contemporary ethnic controversies as a para- modern problem -- instead, we tend to be puzzled by the apparent revival of an ancient non-modern phenomenon that ought, we think, to have been disposed of by the processes of modernity. In my opinion, the reverse scenario is more valid: non-modern societies, although demographically quite multi-cultural, did not face serious ethnic controversies. Instead, salient problems of ethnic diversity and ethnic nationalism are quite modern -- actually, they are para- modern.
In order to understand what I mean, consider first that primordial societies were mono-cultural, as hypothesized in many case studies by social anthropologists who work in surviving isolated communities. However, population movements, and especially trade and urbanization, brought peoples with different cultural practices into contact with each other long ago, generating multi-cultural relationships that have flourished for thousands of years. Although clashes between such communities must have occurred quite often, they cannot be described correctly in terms of modern concepts of ethnicity and ethnic nationalism.
Instead, as kingdoms and empires arose in traditional civilizations, ethnic differences were exploited by rulers but rarely became a focus for organized competition and conflicts. When a conquering people overran another, they sometimes established systems of superstratification which led to dominant elites and their subordinates, with ensuing conflicts between masters and slaves (subjects). Caste relationships became ritualized as each caste enforced/accepted traditionally legitimized rule of conduct. Those living on the margins of an expanding civilization fled to new lands, retreated to inaccessible enclaves, or accepted assimilation. They did not conceptualize their intercultural relationships in terms of ethnicity.
Rather, in the mode of hierarchic ascriptive social relations and beliefs in supernatural forces, marginalized communities typically had to accept their fate ("karma") and make the best of whatever opportunities came their way -- they rarely used cultural differences as a basis for organizing political movements and rebellions. Slave revolts were not common, but when they did occur, they revolted as slaves, not as a racial or cultural community. Rival kings or chiefs mobilized followers who, often enough, had different life-styles, but they conceptualized their conflicts in terms of their different gods or values, not their cultural identity (ethnicity).
Multi-culturalism in non-modern environments could be considered a form of ethnic differentiation --different cultural communities, socio-political strata and economic classes co-existed and fought each other, but not in order to assimilate minorities or to win their independence as nation states. No doubt there were exceptions -- perhaps the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt might be such an exception, but even in this case, theocratic rather than ethnic criteria were more salient. In general, the wars, revolts and conflicts found in non-modern environments reflected non-ethnic problems and were not conceptualized as ethnic struggles.
Modernity, by contrast, has elevated ethnic identity and nationalism into a salient focus of socio-political protest and action. All three of the main pillars of modernity are involved.
Industrialization. British factories which required large quantities of cotton to manufacture cloth generated the pressure to find plantation workers which drove the slave trade -- neither Europeans nor indigenous peoples were willing to accept this arduous work and the poverty it entailed. When the Civil
War and emancipation produced a large number of "freed" slaves, they became a marginalized racial (ethnic) minority, creating the most acute of the many modern ethnic controversies faced by Americans. Chinese workers were brought to California to do the manual labor involved in building railways, and plantation workers came from Japan, Korea and the Philippines to grow sugar in Hawaii, thereby generating major contemporary controversies involving Asian ethnicity in the United States. Throughout the domains of the modern empires, miners, petty traders, plantation and construction workers were imported to supply the materials needed by expanding factories. Perhaps most importantly, the imperial conquests spawned by industrialism generated the provinces that have now become new states with their multi-cultural populations and divided nations. Following independence, some of these alien minorities have become scapegoats and even faced eviction -- as did the Indians in Uganda.
Democracy. Another dimension to the emergence of modern ethnicity involves democratic values. Whereas traditional hierarchic notions seemed to legitimize gross inequities among different cultural communities and castes or classes, the shift from monarchism to democracy required acceptance of new equalitarian norms given their classic expression in the American Declaration of Independence -- "We hold these truths to be self- evident: That all men are created equal..." This revolutionary doctrine has always clashed with actual practice, but it became an inspiration to marginalized peoples -- if equality was "true," then why were they, quite "self-evidently," so unequal? As universal suffrage and social mobility progressed, so did the mobilization of oppressed minorities and, as they mobilized, their leaders exploited all possible political symbols to rationalize their protests and movements. In America the Civil Rights movement -- whose most dramatic moment is epitomized by Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, August 28, 1963 -- brought a long delayed, though still incomplete, fruition to this aspiration. Democracy, therefore, is as much a motivator for ethnic conflicts as it is a mechanism for resolving them.
Nationalism. The most powerful symbols for all ethnonational movements were generated by modern nationalism. It was, of course, state elites who initially promoted nationalism as a motor for assimilation and nation-building, a goal that appeared to be essential for the success of both industrialization and democratization. The evolution of modernity was made possible by state nations able to promote the dream of a national state. When this dream, driven by the need for raw materials and markets of the newly empowered capitalists and their expanding industrial properties, led to the creation of modern empires, it was not long before the reactive dream of national self- determination became the engine for liberation movements and the emergence of today's throng of new states.
Ironically, the leaders of national liberation movements were soon transformed, in many countries, into dominant minorities viewed by their subjects as oppressors. They themselves became the target of second-generation self- determination movements designed to reunify divided nations and partition multi-national states -- for details see Gurr (1993). Such protest movements reflect a condition of ethnic cleavage which is quite different in all important respects from the controversies generated by ethnic diversity, the parallel but quite different problem of enabling diverse ethnic communities whose members accept their citizenship in a given state to live together in harmony. Because of some similarities, it is also useful to have a more generic concept: I use ethnic controversies, therefore, to speak about both diversity and cleavages.
The two sets of controversies are, of course, interactive. The violence generated by ethnic cleavages now generate torrents of refugees fleeing genocide ("ethnic-cleansing"). Some of them settle as marginalized immigrants in a hostland where they become part of the problem of ethnic diversity. Looking back to their homelands, they may become activists in externally driven movements to politicize and reinforce ethnic revolts in the countries they fled.
Differences in the level of economic development (industrialization) between rich and poor countries accentuate these population movements. Newly marginalized or persecuted minorities (including workers and entrepreneurs whose parents had moved from their homelands to various imperial possessions) flee to their former "mother countries" rather than back to their original homelands. Persons with different cultural backgrounds who have peacefully coexisted for many generations suddenly find themselves mobilized and polarized by rival ethnic camps, sometimes engaging in a frenzy of genocidal attacks -- as we have seen most recently in Bosnia and Rwanda. Thus civic ethnicity can be transformed into ethnic nationalism -- the reverse process may require more time and international intervention is required, as also in Bosnia and, possibly, in Palestine.
There is no need to offer further elaboration on these processes which are now the familiar stuff of innumerable press reports and television stories. They have led to the creation of innumerable self-determination movements among conquered or displaced peoples seeking justice and economic opportunity as defined by the modern norms of democracy, industrial growth and, above all, nationalism. No doubt the leaders of revolts and protest movements continuously speak to those they hope to recruit as followers of past injustices and future dreams, inspiring them to join in revolts and struggles for equality and opportunity. That they should use historic myths based on past glories and injustices (whether real or manufactured) to support their political aims is predictable. That leaders of ethnic minorities should use incidents of persecution and injustice to mobilize political movements demanding justice and equal opportunity is also predictable.
However, I believe, it is erroneous to consider modern ethnic protests and ethnonational movements to be a "revival" or "resurgence" of ancient struggles. Ethnic conflict is a modern phenomenon, fueled by all the forces of modernity. We cannot, I think, learn how to manage or deal with these controversies so long as we think of them as mere throw-backs to earlier historical dynamisms.
Moreover, we need to make a clear distinction between two kinds of modern ethnicity -- while recognizing that they overlap and can be transformed in either direction. Each requires a different political strategy by states seeking to manage or accommodate rising ethnic pressures. The easiest way to make this distinction involves the attitudes people have toward the country in which they are living -- their hostlands. Those who reject citizenship and refuse to integrate in these hostlands strive to create ethnic nations, i.e., ethnic communities dedicated to sovereignty and the "restoration," "reunification," or "self determination" of a new state for themselves and their followers. We may correctly characterize such movements as ethnonationalist -- they produce ethnic cleavages. Their goal is to create a national state, by secession or new boundaries, starting with the ethnic nation as focus of loyalty and action. This contrasts with the older tradition of major Western states which were able to assimilate diverse minorities into a single nation.
State nationalism may now have reached its limits in the great industrialized countries where ethnic diversity is increasing as international migration, especially by refugees, is accelerating. Many of the peoples viewed as ethnic minorities are immigrants or the descendents of refugees who wish to be granted equal status and to achieve success in their hostlands. To the degree that they have been marginalized, however, they have real grievances and often mobilize to protest, to demand reforms based on equality, and to overcome prejudice. Nowadays, efforts to assimilate such migrants increasingly fail and generate, under the banner of ethnic diversity, projects to safeguard the cultural identity of newcomers while integrating them into the mainstream of a country's economy and politics. If not well handled, unfortunately, such efforts may be counter-productive, provoking disappointed groups to protest and organized new movements demanding more rapid and radical transformations.
The word, diversity, is often used to characterize societies in which many such ethnic minorities coexist and intermingle. I refer to the members of such communities as civic ethnics. Their problems and goals differ significantly from those of ethnic nationalists. States seeking to deal with both sets of controversies need to recognize them as different and devise different strategies and policies for managing them. In general, democracies have a much better chance of solving these controversies than do authoritarian regimes. Among democracies, moreover, it is easier for parliamentarist regimes to succeed than for presidentialist ones, for reasons I shall explain below. In order to think clearly about these matters, I think we should distinguish clearly between the traditional (non-modern) forms of cultural differentiation (which, actually, can still be found in isolated pockets) and the modern ethnic controversies which are most visible and threatening. Among them, let me repeat, we should make a sharp distinction between the controversies growing out of ethnic diversity, and those attributable to the cleavages produced by ethnic nationalism -- an excellent discussion of problems of diversity and appropriate policies for managing them can be found in Inglis (1996).
Strategies. I shall turn now to a discussion of the strategies available to different kinds of regimes as they respond to these modern ethnic controversies. Strong single-party regimes, as noted above, are typically able to use draconian measures to repress and marginalize ethnonational movements and to may compel minorities to assimilate. Weak authoritarians, by contrast, are more likely to provoke their minorities to mobilize aggressively to promote their goals. Only democracies are able, I think, to cope effectively with these movements by satisfying their demands in a more or less satisfactory way.
In doing so, they need to recognize that the tools of modernity are available not only to states but to non- governmental organizations of all kinds, including ethnic movements. These include improved organizational and leadership skills, access to powerful weapons, greatly enhanced information and communication technologies, including the INTERNET, and widespread acceptance of modern norms of equality and materialism which generate dissatisfaction with the status quo and activate efforts to promote radical changes.
To cope successfully with these ethnic challenges, democratic states need to adopt the governmental structures that are most likely to facilitate their efforts. Since I am persuaded, contrary to much conventional thinking, that parliamentarism is more likely to facilitate successful accommodation of ethnic demands than presidentialism, let me now turn to a discussion of the reasons for my opinion.
Presidentialism vs. Parliamentarism. As indicated in the previous section, I think parliamentarism is more likely to manage the problems of industrialization successfully than presidentialism because of its capacity to control a bureaucracy that is powerful and efficient enough to solve this set of problems. For a different set of reasons, I think parliamentarism is also more likely than presidentialism to enable states to cope with the controversies caused by ethnic cleavages and diversity. The difference this time, however, hinges on the representative (constitutive) system, i.e., on relations between the electoral, party, legislative and chief executive systems.
Treating regime type as a dependent variable, I also believe presidentialist regimes require considerable ethnic homogeneity in order to thrive whereas parliamentary regimes can more easily accommodate themselves to ethnic heterogeneity. If this is true, presidentialist regimes are more vulnerable to the controversies due to diversity and ethnic cleavages than parliamentarist regimes, and also less able to manage them effectively.
Admittedly, these propositions lack face validity and
they require explanations. If they are true, however, then
new states with multi-ethnic populations that want to
establish viable democratic governance are more likely to
succeed if they can adopt parliamentary institutions.
However, if this choice is foreclosed because a state is
already committed to presidentialism, then it needs to pay
special attention to the rules and institutions that can
handle ethnic controversies under more unfavorable
conditions. To understand this relationship we need to look
at some of the most important variables.
The Electoral System. Consider first that proportional
representation provides the most obvious mechanism for
representing diverse ethnic communities in a constitutive
system. Under PR, everyone is free to organize and support a
political party that, potentially, can win representation in
the elected assembly. Members of marginalized communities
need not remain permanent minorities -- or, at least, they
have a better chance to gain political representation. In
order for minorities to be represented, however, the
electoral system needs to have multi-member electoral
districts. Any community whose members are a marginalized
minority in all districts is unlikely to gain representation
in the legislatures of any state that has only single-member
electoral districts.
However, in order for legislative representation to be
meaningful for marginalized minorities, all incumbents
should be able to participate in shaping public policy. If
they find that they remain permanently marginalized because
their legislative seats offer no real access to power, a
backlash may occur in which frustrated representatives will
resistance movements and spark violent protests. Even those
who recognize the emptiness of electoral success may
nevertheless stand for election in order to gain a platform
that will enhance their credibility and power as leaders of
ethnic revolts.
When we compare the ground rules of presidentialism and
parliamentarism, we can see that it is possible for
parliamentarians to join a governing coalition and, thereby,
to exercise real influence in at least some component of the
state's power structure. Even in multi-party states where
frequent cabinet changes occur, representation of some
minorities is quite stable when their members are repeatedly
re- appointed to posts where they can build continuing
influence in governmental programs of special importance to
their constituents -- a good discussion of relevant policies
with some case studies in parliamentarist regimes can be
found in Inglis (1996, pp.35-46).
By contrast, under presidentialist rules, the president
chooses a cabinet composed of non-members of the assembly,
and minority members in a congress are rarely included in
any government. Presidents must enhance their prospects for
success by nominating cabinet members most likely to win
support from the dominant majorities in congress.
Consequently, representatives of permanent minorities in a
congress may find that all they can do is to protest and
vote "no". By doing so, however, they weaken the
ability of a congress to reach agreements -- by increasing
the size of the mainstream majority required to enact laws -
- and thereby they undermine the legislative power in its
relations with the president. The representatives of a
permanent legislative minority also increase the risks of
permanent executive/legislative gridlocks which, I think,
should be called deadlocks since, by definition, we may view
gridlocks as dangerous but temporary obstacles to effective
governmental decision-making. Deadlocks, however, undermine
any government's ability to govern and often provoke
violence and coups.
Quite a few presidential regimes in Latin America have,
actually, established electoral systems based on a rule of
proportional representation -- however, that is
impressionistic because I have been unable to find
systematic data on the subject. Unavoidably, I think, these
regimes create deep cleavages at the heart of their systems
of governance that have led to deadlocks and unstable rule
during normal times and catastrophic breakdowns during times
of crisis. It should be easy enough to make a comparative
analysis of how PR has actually worked in these regimes but
I have not found any research on this question.
#13
The U.S. Exception. The electoral system that prevails
in the United States is non-proportional. It has been able
to survive despite electoral rules that exclude many
permanent minorities from real power. This may be because
Americanization has worked well enough so that a substantial
majority of citizens feel comfortable with the plurality
single-member district system. Under this system, only one
candidate, with the support of a plurality of voters, is
seated in Congress (and in state legislatures and city
councils also) virtually guaranteeing that a majority of the
electorate will not be represented in the legislature.
This unjust principle makes an unwieldy regime workable
precisely because it enhances the likelihood that those who
are elected will represent main-line centrist points of
view. The secret of its success lies in the sad fact that so
many alienated citizens refrain from voting, thereby
enabling the two main stream parties to concentrate on
winning the votes of "independents," i.e. the
centrist moderates who lack a strong partisan
identification. American Political Scientists are prone to
ask whether non-voters are apathetic or alienated as though,
if they knew, they could increase the electoral turnout. If
they succeeded, I'm afraid, they would undermine the
viability of the regime and increase the prospects for
authoritarianism to triumph. A false sense of ethnic
homomgeneity is created in America by the tendency of those
who meet the cultural norms of the main stream to vote and
those who fall outside to be absentees.
All American politicians call for a greater turnout by
voters -- it seems like a patriotic duty. However, they may
well sense, without articulating it, that a truly massive
response would be catastrophic for the system. To reverse
the argument, if the American electoral system would, in
fact, offer viable options to permanent minorities by
instituting PR and multi-member districts, it would bring a
wide spectrum of incompatible demands to the legislatures
and make the separation-of-powers system truly
unworkable.
In the American context, no party can win that seeks only
the support of a minority, and no permanent minority --
including the poor and socially alienated as well as many
ethnic communities -- can expect to be well represented in
American politics. No doubt, minorities willing to join a
mainstream party can, in exchange, gain some concessions,
even though they are often more symbolic than real in their
effective impact.#14
So long as Americanization succeeded in bringing large
numbers of immigrants into the main stream of life in a
free-enterprise market economy and led them to accept
English as a working language, it was possible for this
oligarchic system to sustain itself. Increasingly, however,
acceptance of the need for cultural diversity and growing
demands for more real minority power challenge the viability
of "majority rule" in America. The growing
mobilization of demands for sovereignty by indigenous
peoples and by members of the largest ethnic minorities --
notably "Hispanics" and "African-
Americans" -- will, I believe, increasingly strain the
capacity of the presidentialist regime in America to
maintain its effective authority. Meanwhile, the reactive
rise of neo-traditionalism among religious communities and
racist bigots may edge public policy in America even further
away from traditional liberalism, thereby increasing the
alienation of marginalized ethnic communities. If this
happens, the widespread consensus which has enabled the
precarious American constitutional scheme to survive may
well be seriously jeopardized.
Autonomy and Ethnonationalism. When a democracy
adequately represents its minorities (including civic
ethnics) and respects their special needs or interests, it
may well count on most of them to accept their status as
citizens of a state -- even to see themselves as hyphenated
nationals, harmonizing their dual identities as citizens and
as members of an ethnic community. This seems to be the
ideal way to deal politically with multiculturalism (ethnic
diversity). In the American case, despite its inherently
centrist and oligocratic political system, ethnic minorities
have been able to use its relatively open civic culture to
create innumerable opportunities to establish churches,
clubs, sodalities, small businesses, farms, communication
channels, sports, and even gangs to support their livelihood
and culture outside the mainstream of American life. To some
degree, at least, this has generated consent for a political
system that is unresponsive to the special needs of its
marginalized citizens.
However, some ethnic communities in almost every country
are, increasingly, demanding the right to secede from the
main stream of its life and politics, generating
controversies based on ethnic cleavages which differ greatly
from those of ethnic diversity. Ethnonationalist movements
are led by activists who visualize elite roles for
themselves as leaders of a break-away or re-united state. In
response to such demands, especially when they gain growing
support among potential followers, democracies sometimes
agree to some degree of autonomy for their ethnic nations.
In both the United States and Canada, many of these
"first nations" have, indeed, received recognition
and they administer self-governing jurisdictions within the
boundaries of these states.
This subject is complicated enough to deserve a full-
length separate treatment and I shall not even try to
summarize the options or offer examples. However, I will
speculate about the differences between presidentialism and
parliamentarism as they might affect the willingness of a
democracy to grant autonomy to national minorities. On its
face, there are no striking differences between
presidentialist and parliamentary regimes in their
willingness or capacity to grant autonomy to minorities --
one can find good examples in both types of regime. However,
some marginal differences may be worthy of
consideration.
One difference arises from the fact that Congress, in
presidentialist regimes, must play an important role in
making decisions about possible grants of autonomy to any
community whereas, under parliamentary rules, the cabinet
and bureaucracy play a larger role. One might suppose that
members of Congress, as elected politicians, would be more
sympathetic than bureaucrats to the special needs of
cultural minorities. However, I suspect the reverse is true.
After all, members of congress feel obliged primarily to
serve the pluralities who elect them to office rather than
the minorities who opposed their election or refused to
vote.
When subjects are not citizens and live in the colonial
possessions of a state, the process of selecting a
"governor" and recruiting staff members offers
opportunities for patronage that can scarcely be resisted:
members of congress are more likely to use their powers to
reward supporters with patronage appointments rather than
concern themselves with the needs of those who had nothing
to do with their election. Similar dynamics affect domestic
minorities, like the conquered indigenous peoples whose
interests are often subordinated to those of outsider
constituents who wish to exploit their ancestral lands.
Even when countervailing pressures compel a regime to
grant some degree of local autonomy to "native"
communities, a legislature in which they have no voice will,
predictably, strive to safeguard the interests of their
outsider constituents who encroach on reserved lands in
order to promote their own mining, grazing, lumbering or
other special interests. Most committee members will oppose
self- government for indigenous peoples simply because they
abridge the opportunities for patronage that would otherwise
be available to them.
Under parliamentary rule, for reasons discussed above,
there is more chance that long-term career mandarins will
exercise effective control over dependent territories
through special ministries and departments. Career officers
who govern a dependency -- because such external matters
have low priority on the agenda of most parliamentarians --
often have a free hand to conduct local administration in
dependent territories as they think best. This general
posture enhances opportunities to adapt the administration
of dependencies to local conditions and to rely heavily on
advisory groups composed of local notables. In fact, I
think, it is really in the interest of ruling outsiders, as
careerists, to minimize their own responsibilities by
devolving responsibility to local leaders and administrators
as much as possible. Ultimately, no doubt, when they see
that the costs of direct rule exceed the benefits, they may
agree to turn most responsibilities for self-government over
to locally elected politicians. These dynamics can operate
internally (for conquered indigenous peoples) as well as
externally for imperial possessions. In short, there are
strong incentives for colonial administrators to act like
"benevolent despots." Admittedly, this is only a
speculation that requires more research to validate or
invalidate, but it seems quite plausible.
Let me also speculate about another distinction that can
be made between the dynamics of monarchic and republican
rule. This sounds pretty old-fashioned, but consider that,
so long as monarchic power prevailed, the source of
legitimacy did not lie in a sovereign people but, rather, in
the crown, literally the sovereign. As autocrats, kings were
able, for expedient reasons, to make distinctions between
different subjects, as British imperial policy exemplified.
A host of special arrangements were made to accommodate
local sentiments and rulers through indirect rule and other
unique settlements. Perhaps such particularistic agreements
are more difficult to manage through a legislature.
My theme, of course, focuses on democracy rather than
monarchy, but in some parliamentary countries,
constitutional monarchies remain and provide a context
within which particularistic arrangements can be made to
enable communities to remain part of the kingdom with full
local autonomy while remaining outside the jurisdiction of
Parliament. An example might be the Isle of Man and the
Channel Islands, each of which is self governing and not a
part of Great Britain or even the
United Kingdom. The crown provides a unifying symbol, but Parliament has no authority in these islands. By contrast, despite
strong movements for autonomy in Scotland and Wales, these areas remain under Parliamentary control, as does Northern Ireland
where internal conflicts seem to make self-government almost impossible.
Continue this text at NEXT
See linked pages: [] COVICO || Presidentialism vs.
Parliamentarism || Industrialism and
Constitutionalism || Original draft: [] COPING,I
||
and the segment in this paper on Nationalism and
Constitutionalism []
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