Designing Democratic Institutions: Nomos XLII

10. Designing Democratic Institutions: Political or Economic?

10 DESIGNING DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS: POLITICAL OR ECONOMIC? BROOKE A. ACKERLY Although Donald Horowitz argues that ethnic cleavages create political obstacles to coherent constitutional reform, the importance that ethnic cleavages take on may itself be a function of the socioeconomic opportunities associated with political power. Horowitz argues that coherent constitutional design is unlikely under conditions of ethnic cleavages due to the centripetal forces of political processes. He sets out to prove his hypothesis by examining the political processes of failed constitutional design in four ethnically divided societies where constitutional reform and democratization fail or stall. The evidence that Horowitz presents from Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Fiji suggests that in these ethnically divided societies political forces prevented constitutional reformers from designing the coherent package of institutions that is necessary for inclusive democratization. However, evidence from these same societies suggests that explaining the political processes of constitutional design requires analysis of other factors—particularly socioeconomic conditions. The literature on democratic transitions and constitutional design has paid attention to ethnic cleavages as a potentially significant factor in the failure of constitutional reforms. Other factors 285 include poor economic performance; inefficacious, weak, militant, and uncompromising political leadership; a political culture without tolerance, freedom, and competition; socioeconomic inequality ; lack of associational life; a powerful centralized state; state control over the economy; party systems that do not cut across cleavages ; constitutional structures that do not cut across cleavages; an autonomous military; and international factors including colonial and postcolonial factors.1 One way to test Horowitz’s hypothesis against the alternative hypotheses that any other of these factors could be decisive in the political failure to design a coherent constitution and supporting legal institutions would be to broaden the data set beyond his subset of countries with ethnic cleavages and political failure such that it include countries that were able to design appropriate constitutions despite ethnic cleavages and countries whose constitutional designs failed despite their not having ethnic cleavages.2 With enough variability in each variable, the model could control for factors other than ethic cleavages and thus measure the latter’s impact on the failure to design coherent constitutional reforms. Examining the political processes associated with the other obstacles to coherent constitutional design would improve the descriptive accuracy and predictive implications of Horowitz’s project. Such a model could test competing hypotheses. Drawing on one of Horowitz’s examples, the case of Nigeria, I propose an alternative hypothesis about the failure of democratic institutions. I propose that where there are socioeconomic inequalities (particularly if they are worsening) and where high economic rewards accrue to those in political power, in competition for power political elites may resort to exploiting ethnic differences . Thus, socioeconomic cleavages and not ethnic cleavages underlie the centripetal political processes that prevent coherent constitutional design. If my alternative hypothesis is correct, we can be more optimistic about the possibility for coherent constitutional design in ethnically divided societies than Horowitz’s “Constitutional Design” would indicate. Horowitz’s Methodology Horowitz’s interest in studying the political processes affecting constitutional design is consistent with the broader democratizabrooke a. ackerly 286 tion literature that has turned away from the question of preconditions of democracy to look more closely at processes.3 The problem with Horowitz’s method, however, is that by selecting only cases with the explanatory variable that his hypothesis predicts is most powerful—ethnic cleavages—and the outcome that he wishes to explain—incoherent and thus failed constitutional design—he risks overestimating the effect of ethnic cleavages on failure of democratization due to incoherent constitutional design .4 Further, his discussion of the cases is limited to analysis of the ethnic cleavages and their impact on the political processes. However, other factors—the economic premium of centralized political power and socioeconomic conditions—may also have important influences on political processes. The case of Nigeria suggests that even in an ethnically divided society, ethnic divisions may not be or need not be decisive in political processes, even the most important political processes of constitutional design and political institutional change.5 Horowitz’s argument about the failure of constitutional design in Nigeria is based on the 1978 electoral system, which required that the president be elected by majority but that the winning candidate must also get at least 25 percent of the vote in at least two-thirds of the nineteen states. In response to regional and ethnic cleavages and party politics that emerged as...