What Next for Britain’s Pro-Europeans?

One of the problems with political science is that publishing books and articles takes time, but events move quickly.  In 2005, Stefano Bartolini wrote an influential monograph, Restructuring Europe, which  argued that the ‘Europe issue’ had complicated the internal politics of Member States, but had not yet fundamentally changed party competition.

Cameron’s ‘Europe speech‘, finally delivered on 23rd January 2013, and the anaemic response of Britain’s other major parties, whose leaders ostensibly support the EU but are not willing to expend any political capital making a positive case, have finally forced the issue.  Polls show that, while 40% of the British population would vote to leave the EU, 37% would vote to stay.

Britain already has an influential anti-European party, UKIP.  Having, until now, benefited from the tacit (if unenthusiastic) support of the existing political elite, the pro-European lobby has had less incentive to create a formal political movement.

The first-past-the-post inevitable acts as a straitjacket during Westminster elections.  However, if the anti-European jungle drums continue to beat louder, it seems only a matter of time before the pro-Europeans organise, perhaps in advance of the June 2014 European elections.

Alison Smith is a lecturer in Comparative Government and tutor in European Politics at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.  You can follow her on twitter @AliFionaSmith.

Countdown to First Czech Presidential Elections

Lithuania’s Semi-Presidential Stand Off Reaches its Endgame

Almost exactly a month after the second round of the October 2012 parliamentary elections, Lithuania is in the final stages of appointing a new government. As predicted prior to the election, the two centre-left parties, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats (LSDP), gained enough votes to form a coalition with a third party, the populist Order and Justice.  The Conservative Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats, who led the country through the financial crisis, performed better than expected, but were left in second place with no obvious coalition partners.

Given the pre-election maneuvering that had already taken place, the formation of a centre-left coalition should have been straightforward. But it was not to be. The second round of the constituency campaigns was marred by allegations of vote-buying, particularly in prisons, aimed primarily at the Labour Party, which already had a reputation for corruption.  The complaints were referred to the Constitutional Court for adjudication, and Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaite, refused to approve any government that contained the Labour Party.

The result was a classic semi-presidential stand-off, with President Grybauskaite and the would-be Prime Minister, the LSDP’s Algirdas Butkevicius, locked in a battle of wills.  Meanwhile, the Conservative leader, Andrius Kubilius, continued to run the country.  The deadlock was finally broken when Butkevicius recruited an additional coalition partner, Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, a small party representing the country’s Polish minority.  This gave the coalition a three-fifths majority in Parliament, sufficient to over-ride any presidential veto.

President Grybaukaite backed down, but not before making two demands.  Firstly, she has asked that the immunity of the MPs implicated in criminal dealings be revoked (Lithuanian MPs have immunity from prosecution).  Secondly, and somewhat bizarrely, the President requested a personal meeting with each proposed minister to confirm their fluency in at least one of the EU’s languages, English, French or German.  President Grybauskaite is a former EU commissioner, and Lithuania will hold the EU Presidency from July to December 2013.  However, the President’s gesture was only partially inspired by respect for Lithuania’s international partners.  Its primary purpose was to exclude certain individuals, viewed by the President as corrupt, from ministerial office.

This month’s stand-off may be healthy for Lithuania’s democracy in the long term. Most significantly, the prosecution of electoral violations is an important step in tackling corruption.  Even better if immunity from criminal prosecution is lifted, since the guarantee of such immunity tends to attract the wrong sorts of candidates to politics.

Although an extra coalition partner can make disagreements more likely, the inclusion of Lithuania’s long-marginalised Polish minority in the governmental process is arguably long overdue.  Lithuania’s relations with Poland have been poor in recent years, largely as a result of disputes over the treatment of this minority.

Therefore, despite the unexpected drama, Lithuania’s 2012 elections have provided an opportunity to tackle problems that have persisted since its transition to democracy twenty years ago.

Mitt Romney and the 47%: No Way Back?

American presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s comments that 47% of the American population will ‘never take responsibility and care for their lives’ have added yet more controversy to a campaign dominated by gaffes in recent weeks. Every politician mis-steps on occasion, but Mr Romney’s comments will be especially difficult to overcome because:

1. They reveal the fundamentally cynical and elitist worldview, dashing any hopes that Romney is a secret moderate.

2. They will fire up Obama’s base, demotivate Romney’s base (many Romney supporters are in the 47% that pay no income tax) and scare off independents.

3. According to the kindest interpretation, Mr Romney’s comments are part of an important wider debate about tax and entitlement. True, the US faces important choices about how to reinvigorate its economy and balance the books. But any such debate requires the Republicans to show their hand. Do they have plans to lower the income tax threshold? What entitlements do they plan to cut? The GOP been coy about these issues for good reasons: there is no consensus within their own party. Any plans to raise taxes for the poor will inevitably alienate some Republican voters, not to mention the attention that will be drawn back to Mr Romney’s own tax returns.

4.  Even those who sympathise with Mr Romney’s comments will despair of his apparent inability to run a winning election campaign.  There have been too many unforced errors.  This undermines his credibility as a man who ‘gets things done’.

5.  Mr Romney has, so far, failed to define himself in the public’s minds.  In politics, if you don’t define yourself, others will define you.  Because this gaffe plays up to the Democrats’ caricature of a heartless vulture capitalist, the image is likely to stick.

The odds of a Romney victory are getting longer by the day.  GOP congressional candidates will hope that he stops digging, now, before their own campaigns are contaminated.

Closing the UK’s Democratic Deficit: Is a New Party of Local Notables The Answer?

In these days of financial crisis, austerity and expenses scandals, one doesn’t have to go far to find citizens complaining that our democracy is in decline.  Most people do this from the comfort of their armchairs, shouting at Question Time or changing the TV channel when a particularly annoying politician crosses their screen.  However, the founder of the Independent newspaper, Andreas Whittam Smith, is prepared to go one step further.

Yesterday, Whittam Smith announced a plan for a new British movement to ‘restore democracy’.  He argued that the UK’s current MPs are drawn from a narrow set of backgrounds – law, medicine, journalism and, of course, political hackery.  In this view, we are left with a cohort of politicians more suited to marketing themselves than running the country.

Whittam Smith has a big idea to solve this problem.  He hopes to recruit a set of local notables – people who have have ‘done something with their lives, and have established themselves in their communities’.  This group of candidates would announce ’easy-to-understand policies for the problems people worry most about, such as unemployment, crime, immigration, care of old people, NHS, welfare reform, Europe.’  These policies would be made by ‘participative policy making, lasting a year, and using the digital media to ensure openness and legitimacy.’  Candidates would stand for one parliamentary term, a limit that would encourage the participation of talented people with experience outside politics, and also shut the door on ‘career politicians’.

Few would disagree with Wittam Smith’s concern about ‘career politicians’ being drawn from a narrow range of backgrounds.  Since Greek and Roman times, people wished to be represented by the brightest, best and most honest.  Unfortunately, the reality has been consistently less appealing.  Any initiative that encourages good people to enter politics, and provides them with the necessary organisational support, has to be applauded.

That said, Whittam Smith’s proposal is startlingly naive in places.  He argues that policy-making will be easy because ‘ideological differences are small these days, even between the established parties, which often magnify what are in effect small distinctions to make themselves stand out.’  Of course, Whittam Smith’s local notables would agree a set of policies on areas as uncontroversial as immigration, Europe, and how to balance the UK’s wayward budget.  No problem there, then.

Whittam Smith underestimates how hard most politicians and parliamentary candidates actually work.   In his view, local notables can participate in policy-making on-line, give a small donation (maximum £50), put their name on a ballot paper, then serve in Parliament for a maximum period of five years.  Not for them, years of organising volunteers, tramping the pavements of their constituency and spending every last penny of their spare cash on petrol, refreshments for volunteers and raffle tickets at the local fete.  Perhaps Whittam Smith believes that the public will be so grateful to see a good honest local notable entering the fray that these demands will be waived.  This is unlikely.

Although the idea for new apolitical movement is novel in the UK, it is not uncommon on the continent, particularly in the new democracies of central and east Europe, where ‘traditional parties’ constantly compete against ephemeral movements of local notables.  Such movements were initially greeted with enthusiasm by voters, but in every single case they collapse within two terms or develop traditional party structures.  Rather than being immune from ego conflicts, parties of local notables are particularly prone to such problems because they have no dispute resolution or policy making structures. And voters make no allowances for local notables’ lack of political experience, passing harsh judgement on those who stumble over their words in the media, fall out with their colleagues in public or have to pick their drunken teenage son out of a gutter on a Sunday morning.

Whittam Smith’s ideas are a helpful addition to the debate on revitalising our democracy.  He is quite right that we need to draw a wider range of people into public life, not just at the parliamentary level but also in local democracy.  But Whittam Smith would also do well to acknowledge that being a politician isn’t as easy as it looks, and divisions over policy are more stark than ever in these times of crisis.

Russia: Gubernatorial Elections to be Re-Introduced, Party Registration Requirements Lowered

Following the safe re-election of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency on March 4th, the Russian government looks set to complete yet another round of institutional tinkering.

Gubernatorial elections, abolished in 2004 following the Beslan Crisis, are set to be re-introduced.   Governors will be elected for five year terms, serving a maximum of two terms.  A second reading of the Bill will take place in the near future, and the final shape of the legislation is still uncertain.  There is disagreement between the political parties in the Duma about how the ‘presidential filter’ (consultations between political parties and the President over who can be a candidate) will work.

Meanwhile, the Federation Council has passed legislation aimed at making it easier for political parties to register.  It will now be possible for parties to register with 500 members, instead of 40,000 as previously required.  Eighty-two parties are awaiting registration.

Although these measures have taken some of the heat out of the anti-Putin opposition, they are unlikely to lead to dramatic changes in the Russian political system.  Parties must still receive 7% of the national vote in order to win representation in the Duma, and small parties will not be permitted to form blocs.  Meanwhile, the ‘presidential filter’ will ensure that only candidates friendly to the Kremlin can secure nominations to stand in gubernatorial elections.

If Cash for Cameron is a problem, is state funding the solution?

Revelations that David Cameron courted donors over dinner at Chequers have given British journalists an alliterative field day, with this week’s headlines including ‘Supper for Supporters’, ‘Dinner for Donors’ and, least plausibly, ‘Dave’s Dodgy Diner’.

Of course, this is not the first time that governing parties in Britain have been accused of trading influence for money; one of the most notorious examples was the Cash for Peerages scandal of 2006/2007.  And every time a case like this arises, somebody (usually the Liberal Democrats) always suggests that it is time to consider introducing state funding of political parties.

Most other European democracies have some level of state funding of political parties.  Decisions to provide such subsidies are usually the ‘carrot’ accompanying the legislative ‘stick’ of lower donation limits and increased reporting requirements.  Unfortunately experience on the continent suggests that state funding is no panacea for cleaning up politics.  Just ask the French.

Parties (and sometimes individual politicians) will always seek to maximise their income in order to out-compete their rivals.  Therefore, alternative fundraising doesn’t cease and funding scandals are still a problem.  Indeed, when funding scandals break, they are met with even more public frustration because taxpayers have made significant contributions without seeing the promised improvements in democratic quality.

Moreover, state funding does not necessarily level the playing field in quite the way that smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats might hope.  Funds are usually allocated in one of three ways: per vote received, according to the percentage of votes won, or according to the number of seats won.  Whichever method is chosen, the most electorally successful parties receive the most money, locking in their advantage.

In the current financial climate, it is unlikely that the idea of introducing state subsidies for political parties will catch on in the UK.  If it does, however, the Liberal Democrats must insist that funding is allocated on a ‘per vote’ basis in order to avoid receiving a double blow at the hands of Britain’s majoritarian electoral system.

LNP landslide in Queensland: what went wrong for Labor?

In these times of economic upheaval, dramatic electoral results have become commonplace in Europe.   Despite avoiding recession, Australia has also seen big political swings in recent years, with Saturday’s Queensland state election a case in point.

On 24^th March, the Liberal National Party (LNP) won a landslide victory over the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the Queensland state election, winning 78 seats in the 89 seat Parliament with 49.73% of the first preference vote.  The Australian Labor Party was reduced to only 7 seats despite winning 27% of the first preference vote.  A new entrant, Katter’s Australian Party, won two seats with 11.5% of the vote.  The full results can be viewed here.

Three factors contributed to Queensland Labor’s historic losses.  Firstly, they had governed uninterrupted for the last twelve years and there was a general mood for change.  Although Anna Bligh’s leadership during the Brisbane floods was highly praised,  Labor lost political capital through problems with Queensland Health’s payroll system and the sale of state assets. Queensland also suffered economic setbacks as a result of natural disasters in 2011 and the global financial crisis. Against this backdrop, the LNP managed to convince many voters that only they could ‘get Queensland back on track‘.

Secondly, the federal Labor party did not help their Queensland colleagues by conducting a leadership contest during the opening week of the state election campaign, when Queenslanders were exposed to open warfare amongst the ALP’s most prominent figures in Canberra.  Current Prime Minister Gillard defeated a challenge by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd convincingly, but it was the worst possible moment to re-open the wounds inflicted by Rudd’s ousting less than two years ago.  As a native Queenslander, Rudd has strong support within the state.

Thirdly, during the campaign itself, a highly personalised negative attack on the LNP’s leader, Campbell Newman, backfired.  Labor accused Mr Newman of corrupt connections with property developers during his tenure as Brisbane Mayor, but failed to land a killer blow.  They retreated from the allegations in the final week of the campaign, allowing Newman to claim that the allegations were unsubstantiated and should never have been made.  Although there was no time during the campaign when Labor looked like winning, their two party preferred support hovered around 40% until the final week when it plummeted.

Compulsory voting can also contribute to big swings in divisive elections.   Australia is one of only two democracies in the world where citizens are legally required to vote.  Those who are completely disengaged from politics would stay away from the polls in most countries, and are more likely than partisan voters to be swayed by media coverage in the final days of the election campaign.  This certainly worked in the LNP’s favour in Queensland 2012.

Although Labor’s electoral losses on 24^th March were unprecedented, it is worth noting that the final results were distorted by a highly majoritarian electoral system.  The LNP won a super-majority with less than half the vote.  A pure proportional representation system would have given Labor 23 seats instead of the 7 currently awarded.     Therefore, the Labor ‘wipe-out’ is less absolute than it initially seems.  The defeated Premier, Anna Bligh, resigned yesterday, clearing the way for rebuilding efforts.

It will be interesting to see how the LNP wields their super-majority in the Queensland Parliament. They have much to live up to, having promised to cut the unemployment rate to 4%, reduce the cost of living and regain Queensland’s AAA credit rating.   During the campaign, they showed little appreciation of the economic headwinds affecting the Australian economy, including the fallout from the eurozone crisis and the high value of the Australian dollar.  They may yet regret setting such specific economic targets at a time when the global economic climate is so uncertain.  There is never a dull moment in Queensland politics, and the coming years will be no exception.

Follow Alison Smith on twitter @AliFionaSmith.

Slovakia’s election: another majority government from a proportional electoral system

On Saturday 10th March 2012, Slovakia joined the small but growing club of European countries that elected a majority government despite using a proportional representation system.  The centre-left Smer party, led by Robert Fico, won 86 out of 150 seats with 44.9% of the vote.  Although it was predicted that Smer would win the election, even Fico himself was surprised by the scale of the result.

Since the euro-zone crisis started to bite, strong anti-incumbency sentiments have regularly produced extreme results. In Hungary, Fidesz won more than a two-thirds majority in parliament in 2010 with 68% of the popular vote.  In Scotland, a proportional electoral system unexpectedly produced a majority government in 2011, when the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) won 69 out of 129 seats with 45% of the vote.

These recent cases show that proportional representation does not necessarily lead to minority or coalition governments.  The strong bias in favour of this outcome can be over-ridden if one single party becomes the repository of protest votes.  In Slovakia and Hungary, the incumbent coalition governments were badly damaged by the eurozone crisis and corruption scandals.  In Scotland, the SNP had led a minority government for the previous four years, but two other major parties (Labour and the Liberal Democrats) were punished electorally for decisions taken in London. In each of these countries, large numbers of voters opted for the one party that was perceived to be ‘untainted’.

Majoritarian governments have also produced unexpected results in recent years; minority or coalition governments were formed in the UK and Australia.  In both cases, a third party (the Liberal Democrats in the UK at the Greens in Australia) picked up significant support.  Although these third party votes did not translate proportionally into parliamentary representation, they were sufficient to deny either of the main parties an outright majority.

In these difficult economic times, voters like to kick incumbents hard, leading to extreme results.  Whether or not electoral systems behave as political scientist think they ‘should’ depends largely on the dynamics of protest voting.

Follow Alison Smith on twitter @alifionasmith

Kevenge! How Not To Choose a Political Party Leader

The revolving door at the top of the Australian Labor Party continues to spin, with ex-Foreign (and Prime) Minister, Kevin Rudd, challenging the current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, for her job on Monday morning. Three things are notable about this challenge: its speed (Rudd formally announced his intention to stand on 24th February and the ballot will be held on the 27th); its ferocity (military metaphors like ‘mutually assured destruction’ scarcely seem overblown); and the fact that Rudd was ousted from the PM job only twenty months ago.

Ms Gillard should win convincingly.  Although 58% of Australians think that Rudd would make a better leader, Gillard’s parliamentary colleagues support her by a ratio of two to one.   Mr Rudd’s deep unpopularity amongst his closest colleagues speaks to the reason he was ousted in the first place: he is is, apparently, almost impossible to work with. This raises some interesting questions about how parties choose their leaders.

Under the caucus system, used by both the Labour and Liberal parties in Australia, launching a leadership challenge is straightforward.  MPs put their names forward, and their Senate and House colleagues hold a vote.  Under this method, the Australian Labor Party has had five leaders in the last ten years, despite having governed the country for half of this time.  The opposition Liberal Party has burned through four different leaders during the same short period.

Since the ALP caucus chooses its leader behind closed doors, there should be no need to wash the party’s dirty linen in public. However, as any Australian who has dared to switch on their television over the last few days will tell you, it doesn’t quite work that way.  The twenty-four hour news media has been been dominated by deeply personal attacks from both sides, roughly summarised as:

Rudd camp about Gillard – “She’s a loser.”

Gillard camp about Rudd – “He’s a disorganised megalomaniac.”

Meanwhile, the Queensland Labor Party looks on, astonished that Rudd, a ‘native son’, could not postpone his long-planned revenge against Gillard until after their state election campaign.  Despite Australia’s high level of political decentralisation, no-one outside the caucus in Canberra has any say in the Federal leadership contest.  Many wonder if there is not a better way of selecting, and then sticking with, a leader.

In other advanced democracies, parties typically adopt more inclusive ways of choosing their leaders.  For example, major parties in the United Kingdom involve their members in leadership votes.  To avoid choosing a leader that is unacceptable to the parliamentary party, members are presented with a ‘shortlist’ of candidates nominated by MPs.  The process of choosing a new leader usually takes a couple of months, and may involve public unpleasantness.  However, the end result is almost always regarded as legitimate, and the cumbersome nature of the process discourages frequent leadership challenges.  It is not uncommon for UK party leaders to remain in their posts for ten years.

The United States’ presidential system has a very different dynamic.  Through a gruelling set of public primaries and caucuses, presidential candidates are chosen according to a set timetable.  This ensures that candidates are tested to destruction before they take the top job and, having won that position, they are almost never deposed until they have either served two presidential terms or lost a presidential election.  However, the selection process is expensive and time consuming, involving a prolonged period of ‘friendly fire’ before attention is finally turned to the opposition.

There is no foolproof way to choose a party leader, and what really matters is that vanquished candidates accept their defeat under the current rules.   This seems unlikely in Kevin Rudd’s case.  He claims legitimacy as the man who led Labor to a convincing victory in 2007 under the highly personalised slogan ‘Kevin 07′.  Lacking the self-awareness to acknowledge that he was a better campaigner (and, indeed Foreign Minister) than Prime Minister, he even refers to his 2010 overthrow as ‘the coup’.  The ALP caucus was probably too quick to remove Rudd back in 2010 – deposing him so ruthlessly was bound to cause bitterness, and this has dogged the Gillard administration from the start – but the clock cannot be turned back.

Rudd has sought to turn Monday’s leadership contest into an American style primary by asking the general public to contact their elected representatives in support of his comeback. In doing so, he highlights the paradox of the current system, which is that popularity amongst his close colleagues matters more than public opinion.  Ironically, anecdotal evidence suggests that, bemused by Rudd’s lack of team spirit, many Labor supporters have contacted their MPs in support of Gillard.

Regardless of who wins on Monday, leadership instability is a problem that both of Australia’s main parties must resolve.  It is, perhaps, time to re-write the rules of leadership contests, widening participation to make them more cumbersome and, as a result, more decisive.