Barbados’s long-drawn-out promise of a republic
constitutionnet.org
constitutionnet.org
I personally suspect it's the dichotomy of directly elected president or a chamber elected symbolic president which functionally is what the governor general is. Basically the republican vote was split while the royalist vote was clear behind one outcome.
I voted for a republic. I wouldn't have, if the intent was to make it a direct election. I prefer the bicameral chambers to do it, a symbolic minor depoliticised role is better to me, than a standard strong popular elected president.
Also, referendum being expensive there was another question about a preamble to the constitution recognising aboriginal Australians. Again, this had divided support because of (in my personal opinion) a dishonest claim it discriminated between Australians. Two questions has some evidence causes higher no votes to both questions than one simple question.
What is wrong with the Irish model? A President who is directly elected, but also largely apolitical, a mostly ceremonial role with strictly limited powers. A key element of the Irish model is tough nomination criteria - to run for President, one must be nominated either by 20 members of Parliament (9% of the total), or by 4 county/city councils (almost 13% of Ireland’s total). (A former President can self-nominate, although a President can only serve two seven year terms in their life.) This helps stop Presidential candidates coming from the political fringes.
Although Ireland has less than one fifth of Australia’s population, its Parliament (the Oireachtas) has almost as many members as Australia’s does, so the 20 member nomination threshold would be approximately equivalent in Australia. The 4 councils nomination threshold does not translate so well, since Australia has three levels of government (federal, state or local) while Ireland has only two (national and local). Roughly equivalent would be nomination by one of the state/territory governments, or by 69 LGAs.
Nothing necessarily, as long as people understand it is a symbolic position.
It is interesting to note that of the top ten countries in The Economist's Democracy Index, eight are constitutional monarchies:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country
Ireland and Iceland are the two that are not, and Iceland changed to a republic in "only" 1944. In the top twenty, a lot of the countries also have ceremonial heads of state.
There would be no harm in directly electing such a person, and it would be good to prevent the government of the day using its majority to elect a president who just rubber-stamps whatever they want.
The advantage of having a directly elected president, is that they can act as a check and balance against a government which concentrates executive and legislative power into the hands of one party and effectively one person, the Prime Minister.
By limiting the president's powers to just vetoing legislation and resolving confidence/dismissal issues, these levers of power would be available for use, sparingly, and in a democratically accountable way. In return, parliament would have the ability to impeach the president or call a new presidential election. This would prevent the president from interfering unduly in the day-to-day running of the country.
Plus, I think you misunderstand the role of a symbolic president, they are not meant to be the arbiter of fit laws passed in vote by parliament.
The kind of role I was imagining is one that could have a legal continuity with the GG role (and could keep the same name), but their mandate would come from the people, and not the monarch.
My point was, by limiting their power, they would be very different from a US style executive president, and ideally (if the government of the day was doing its job properly) this president would indeed find themselves only performing symbolic/ceremonial functions.
While royal assent is technically a power held by a GG they don't actually wield it in practice, once that power were given to an elected office then the elections would become about the use of that power and the role would be very different.
Giving this power a democratic mandate and legitimacy may make the role "very different", but that doesn't mean the constitutional dynamic would be worse.
I feel it is self-evident that the new dynamic created by an elected GG would be worse. If you have a person at the head of government whose only job is to say no to things and resolve constitutional disputes they are left with only those tools to differentiate themselves from other candidates.
That creates an incentive system for this person to veto and manufacture constitutional strife in order to create a profile for themselves. It is a role built specifically for political arsonists.
On the other hand, I think such a belief requires one to hold quite a low view of the public and democratic processes generally. You might say that experience supports such a low view, but I would counter that it applies equally, or more so, to the status quo, where all power is held by the prime minister, who has every incentive (and much greater ability) to create these crises (especially just before elections) and tell the country that they have to unite behind the government to survive.
The fact that such a strategy is already possible under the current system just confirms to me that there needs to be different roles, held by different people, with different incentives, to stop these extreme edge cases. I think that what is self-evident is that concentration of power leads to abuse, while diffusion of power leads to moderation and representativeness.
I look at the American political system and imagine a version of it where the president was the president but did not in fact operate the executive, that person's only job was the power of the veto - it seems like a nightmare.
The idea that a PM has some incentive to manufacture a crisis is true I suppose, but that is a very high-risk strategy. Real-world experience indicates that popular support is a product of good economic conditions and the rare exceptions to these instances (i.e. GWB post-9/11) stand out because they are very extraordinary. (And usually end very badly!) Every political body at every level has the power to manufacture a crisis and benefit from it, but that isn't very effective because the electorate understands that they have the power to address the crisis, or prevent it in the first place so the existence of that dynamic doesn't prove much of anything from my perspective.
Personally I don't see why it would be a nightmare if the US president didn't operate the executive. I think voters would be a lot less worried about the "wrong" person getting elected if the president couldn't declare war or appoint SCOTUS judges, so this change might reduce some of the tribalism.
As you say, every political body has the power to create crises, and the electorate should quickly see through any deliberate attempts to create one, so there seems little risk that the minimal-president role I am suggesting would attract people motivated to cause trouble.
The Irish President cannot veto legislation outright. If they have concerns about the constitutionality of legislation, they can refer it to the Supreme Court for an opinion on its constitutionality; they do not sign the legislation while the Court opinion is pending, but if the Court upholds its constitutionality, they must sign, and then the law enters into force anyway if they refuse.
They also have a never-used power to refer legislation to a national referendum instead of signing it. They cannot exercise this power on their own initiative, only when presented with a petition signed by a significant minority of Parliament. They’ve never been presented with such a petition. If they were, they’d have discretion whether to accept the petition and refer the legislation to a referendum, or ignore it and sign it anyway.
I think, if Australia was to have a directly elected President, we should copy the Irish model and grant the President only this limited veto power. The GG’s current power of veto is rather pointless in that it has never been used and it seems unlikely ever to be used. It is hard to conceive of a scenario in which a GG could use that veto power and survive in their office.
However the president is a nomination confirmed by the parliament, so it’s not exactly the same thing. The Vice-President gets a vote split but that is also rarely used (once a decade maybe).
In my perspective, it adds additional bureaucracy, overhead, and administrative expenses for very little gain.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country
And 8 out of the top 10 are also constitution monarchies. Plenty of symbolic-president republics in the top twenty though.
Whatever replacement system that is proposed needs to have a decent track record.
Forgive me if I don't trust their judgement. I'd take any western European republic's system over ours in a heartbeat.
Also, keep in mind that in Canada, our government is currently formed by the party that got the second most votes and has had so many scandals that half the leadership should be in jail, not in power (not that I'd be particularly thrilled about the Cons in power either, they're at least as inept albeit probably slightly less corrupt). We also have an appointed senate, which is basically just political patronage. Same goes for the GG spot. We have entire provinces run by oligarchs. And so on. If we're considered a 'full democracy' then I don't trust whoever made that proclamation.
A more thoughtful response might have taken the time to contemplate the origins of government and the relationship between “absurdity,” your understanding of government and of virtuous government, and of the post-enlightenment ideologies assumed natural to our societies; in truth the vague syllogism between law and privilege you present is not some physical reality or logical QED but a gestural summation of ideas only very lately arrived to human affairs. Contemplative silence is one among many more interesting responses that were available to you.
In short: it’s obvious that ancient institutions and modern humanism are absurdly dissonant. Cleary OP meant to provoke a reconsideration, not a restatement, of the obvious.
Ironically it is obvious that one should not bother trying to rescue internet comments from their own pig-headedness - but sometimes I do sorely miss past iterations of HN.
OP asked a question. I gave what seems to me to be the obvious answer.
Well all of us have less wealth and privilege than the royalty by virtue of our birth and it's somehow enshrined in law.
No, no, no. Being against racism means you give people a fair chance irrespective of their race. It does not mean you want everyone to be equal due to the conditions of their birth.
In fact, we do not want people to be equal at all, as we need specialization, and people are highly unequal, oftentimes because of the conditions of their birth.
For example, it may well be that the condition of Sam's birth makes him a better diamond cutter than the condition of Joe's birth -- Sam might have been born into a family of diamond cutters who trained him when he was a baby, slicing apples in a certain way and whittling on wood all the time. Or maybe there is a diamond cutter gene that Sam has, which gives him superior diamond cutting skills.
We'd still hire Sam because he was a better diamond cutter. What we wouldn't do, is refuse to hire Sam solely because he was Swedish, and we don't think Swedes can be good diamond cutters, and so we wont even give Sam a chance to prove he really is better Joe.
The first sentence of the first article:
> All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
You're complicating things. I believe in republicanism (ie. not monarchy), freedom, equality, etc... The existence of a monarchy means we aren't born with equal rights and dignity.
I am sure, with the death of the Queen, a lot of states might reconsider formally being a monarchy, depending how her succession turns out. Even in the UK itself, monarchy is discussed and there were times in recent history, where the royal family hat little public support.
It's not so much a matter of removing the Queen as head of state as unsealing the document, so someone says while you are there, we need this, and we will fight you if we don't get it. You see how this escalates immediately, and all together within months of the Queen's death.
What are the odds of over 50 countries ever trying to rewrite their constitutions in a lifetime, and then again what are they to do that simultaneously ? Absurd, impossible odds, total black swan. Except if the Queen dies. I can only hope it will be mostly peaceful?
No one is talking about terminating the Commonwealth. Nor does Britain qua Britain have any role in any of this. These are separate constitutional monarchies vested in the same individual but with entirely separate governments. Britain already gave up authority over them when they became independent.
> It's not so much a matter of removing the Queen as head of state as unsealing the document
In many cases, the documents have been revised multiple times in recent decades. They aren't Holy Writ. And while a less popular monarch may accelerate Republicanism, its unlikely to trigger a simultaneous rush for the exits.
> someone says while you are there, we need this, and we will fight you if we don't get it. You see how this escalates immediately, and all together within months of the Queen's death.
I see what you arr imagining, but I don't see it as particularly likely.
> What are the odds of over 50 countries ever trying to rewrite their constitutions in a lifetime,
Pretty high. In fact, pretty much every country on Earth, of which therr are significantly more than 50, has revised their Constituion in living memory, most have done so in the last 20 years. [0]
> and then again what are they to do that simultaneously ?
Again, there are probably more than 50 working on revisions at any given time. Not unusual at all.
> I can only hope it will be mostly peaceful?
Why wouldn't it be? The (much fewer than 50) countries sharing a monarch with the UK are largely ones that have revised their Constitutions peacefully multiple times recently.
Why would 50 countries be rewriting their constitutions ? Only 16 "realms" of the Commonwealth actually have the Queen as head of state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#Decolonisation_...
> Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to 5 million, 3 million of whom were in Hong Kong.
Why not move on? History has.
If we put aside the crimes of empire there is still a lot to forgive. People still remember what the British did in India, Kenya, Malaysia, when the empire was forced to let go.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_war_crimes
This dosent mean you are responsible nor that you should feel guilty for something you had no part in.
Be proud of something else, how about the English language.
>"Prince William Is Transforming Into a Climate Change Influencer"
So when they say "sustainable development" and not just plain development what does that mean in terms of cost of energy for the "developing" nations?
Not only will the climate agenda drive up costs, but it will establish centralized control for the issuance of carbon credits, the permission to consume energy. Get ready for higher costs and reduced access, because your betters know what's best.
So yeah, you're still being taxed from abroad, but at least it isn't the colonialism the pop culture historical revisionists have learned to hate so well. "Sustainable" development is advanced as a necessity not to save the souls of the savages, but to avoid the foretold apocalypse and save us all. Remember that when you're in the "developing" world buying an inverter system. It is for your own good that you don't have better electricity service.
Technology and media move very quickly, and it's easy to think "just git clone the laws and deploy" and you'll have the same results as whatever country you're emulating. But it doesn't happen that way.
I'm not really making an argument here, just wondering out loud. I don't want this to be interpreted as a reason to endure bad government longer than necessary. Maybe just to not be too disappointed when problems don't disappear over night.
This just seems to be an historical artefact. A head of state being, or being analogous to, a king or queen, and a lower and upper house being analogous to representation of the nobility and the commoners.
If someone would care to explain to me, I'd be happy to listen.
This quirk means that even small states like Wyoming have equal Senate representation as the populous states like California, Texas or New York.
This arguably undemocratic over-representation gives the smaller states much more power in certain areas, but this is by design. It provides incentive to keep large rural states part of a single nation. Compromises like that makes a country as a whole stronger.
Another interesting aspect is US Senate terms are long (6 years), with a third of members up for reelection happening every TWO years. Compared to the House of Representatives which has 4 year terms, and half up for reelection every 2 years. The net effect is it requires several election cycles to have a big impact on the passage of laws. This contributes to stability.
Arbitrary geographical lines don't define classes. Every state has both rural and urban segments. Is the "rural proletariat" of California better represented than the "urban bourgeoise" of Rhode Island in this system? It's an 18th century compromise where the justifications where invented after the fact. This seems to be true for a lot of things about the founding of the United States. Lots of mythology around the motives of the founding fathers and their supposedly great designs that don't really hold up to any scrutiny.
No, but urbanization does, and some states are more suitable to dense settlement than others.
> Lots of mythology around the motives of the founding fathers and their supposedly great designs that don't really hold up to any scrutiny.
Likewise the jabs aimed at the founding fathers by people who have an obvious axe to grind (namely an imperialist one). You'll forgive me if I prefer not to reject constitutionalism because it conflicts with someone's preferred method of exploitation.
The urban “bourgeoisie” isn’t big enough to dictate anything as a voting bloc, but the “equal representation of classes” angle is a great way to justify suppressing urban political representation.
Really? I don't know many people working in the tech industry or high finance that live in suburbia or out in the country... DO YOU?
This is just an excuse to disenfranchise people who refuse to vote your way, and it's disgusting.
In rural and urban areas, the split between service and manufacturing is pretty similar. Obviously, agriculture makes a bigger contribution but not by much.
What are you talking about suburbia? The suburbs of every major city are full of white collar workers in high finance, or tech. Even in New York, people commute from Westchester or Greenwich to their finance jobs in Manhattan. Most of the tech industry in Silicon Valley is literally in the suburbs. What a weird thing to say.
I don't think there is good evidence that the senate has in fact made the USA stronger as a nation, the only thing I have ever seen on the topic is how it theoretically might be the case, but history has shown it to long be a blocker of reforms that end up happening anyways, with a great deal more political bullshit than necessary.
The key thing is if one party wants to be able to pass the larger number without that pivotal vote, they need to appeal to a greater fraction of society and win more seats so they don't require that particular vote.
Also, as the sums are spent over many years, the numbers appear higher than they might be. Like people calculating how much money it costs to replace every single car in a country with an electric car. That numer is eye-watering too. What often isn't told, is that this amount of money is spent on new cars in the same time frame anyway. Choosing an electric instead of a combustion engine car the next time you buy a new car has actually little extra cost.
And you should sum up just the military budget in the same time frame :)
BTW, terms for Representatives are two years; the entire House stands for election every even-numbered year.
That can be overdone, like in the US, where rural areas can completely overshadow the population centers but the idea isn't terrible.
So maybe you are right, and in the UK we often get rural areas over represented vs metropolitan centres. An obvious explanation for why Brexit occurred.
However, our second house is basically useless. I've had no say in their placement, and I rarely hear about them in the news unless the issue is about murdering foxes.
So ((one person) ≠ (one vote))?
Why should people in rural areas get more representation than non-rural areas?
Sweden is an interesting case, a constitutional monarchy in theory but where the monarch has been explicitly stripped of all powers, whereas many other European monarchies maintain a legal fiction of constitutional relevance for their royal families. Sweden could abolish the monarchy completely today and it would not affect anything about how the country runs. They also have a unicameral parliament.
Switzerland also doesn't have a traditional head of state, that role is held collectively by a seven-member council.
How well this works in practice is a matter of endless debate.
https://theconversation.com/parliamentary-systems-do-better-...
It is worth pointing out though that you can have a parliamentary republic in which the President has very limited powers in practice and most of the real power belongs to the Prime Minister - for example, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malta. Monarchy-vs-republic and presidential-vs-parliamentary are (at least partially) orthogonal
There is also the semi-presidential system used in France, and a number of other countries, in which control of the executive is shared between a directly elected President and a Prime Minister chosen by the legislature. Often, the Prime Minister has more power over domestic affairs while the President has more power over military and international affairs. Sometimes they can be from opposite parties which can cause difficulty. It is half way between the parliamentary and presidential system.
By definition, in a parliamentary system, the executive is de facto subordinated to the legislature, even if they may be theoretically considered equal. If the executive and legislature are equal in your country, not just in theory but also in practice, then you do not live in a true parliamentary system, even if some might call your system “parliamentary”.
You mention France-as I said, France does not have a true parliamentary system, it has a semi-presidential system. In a semi-presidential system, the executive and legislature are more equal than in a true parliamentary system (in both theory and practice), albeit not quite as equal as in a true presidential system such as the United States.
Merkel always governed as leader of a coalition - mostly a “grand coalition” with the traditional main left-wing party (the SPD), although her second cabinet was a coalition with the classically liberal FDP instead. So, forget about answering to her own party - if at any point her coalition partners had felt it was in their political self-interest to do so, they could have collapsed the government.
I think this argument is really drawing on the fact that Merkel was genuinely popular with the German electorate, which protected her against any desire by her party or coalition partners to push her out - they knew the electorate would punish them if they tried.
But, true power does not depend on popularity, it continues even when people don’t like you any more. A US President may become despised by both Congress and the voters, yet to remove them before their term is up, Congress needs to allege actual wrongdoing (as opposed to just “we don’t like you any more”) and needs a super-majority. By contrast, an unpopular German Chancellor can be removed by their party and/or coalition partners, before the end of the electoral term, without needing any parliamentary super-majority or specific allegations of wrongdoing. In that sense the German Chancellor is subject to the Bundestag, to a much greater extent than any US President is subject to Congress.
To be honest the US hardly acts this way anymore. Presidents are treated more like monarchs than the CEOs they should be.
Even as vassal states it is such a loose assurance of defense from the UK.
Are people really so enamored by the crown? Do they really feel comfort in the possibility that their laws can be overriden at any time but simply never occurs?
Island nations are one thing, but Canada? Australia?
Dont get it
Are you confusing leaving the Commonwealth with transitioning to a Republic? They are largely unrelated: many members of the Commonwealth have dropped the monarchy.
> Even as vassal states it is such a loose assurance of defense from the UK.
The Commonwealth is neither a set of vassal states nor a defensive pact (and many of the Commonwealth nations have strong defense commitments from, and to, the UK.
> Are people really so enamored by the crown?
I think they are often happy with the relative lack of drama of a locally appointed non-executive “President” exercise ministerial functions without the even the symbolic prestige of being even a figurehead head of state, with a formal head of state with no interest in intervening in government.
> Do they really feel comfort in the possibility that their laws can be overriden at any time but simply never occurs?
No, they probably realize that the actual power of a government actor isn't what's on a piece of paper but what people will back, and that intervention that is formally forbidden but political practical is a risk, while that which is formally permitted but politically impossible is none.
Countries within the Commonwealth have gone to war against each other.
Then there is the effort required to establish an alternative system, both on the design and implementation side. Such a change is a huge step legally. So people might not be in a huge hurry unless driven by need.
And then there is of course the sentimental side. There is always a group of people who think the Queen should be the head of state and things shouldn't change. Even in many modern democracies, there are still a few supporters of monarchies. This all isn't of course driven by rational reasons. Just look at some of the sentiments driving the UK out of the EU despite pretty obvious risks for the trade which more and more manifest themselves by now.
Take, for example, Barbados, which is dependent on foreign tourism and foreign investment. If you are going to invest in Barbados, you'd like to know that your property rights will be respected, that contracts will be honored, and that there will be due process in case there is a dispute.
Being a commonwealth nation is one of the things that helps sway that in your favor, particularly for small island nations, primarily due to the British history of respect for property, English common law (which is less amenable to be changed by fiat), and an impartial judiciary.
Obviously that's not the only thing you'd look at, but it's one of the things you'd take into account.
On the other hand if you are a major nation like Australia it doesn't matter. But if you are an island like Barbados, you need all the help you can get to demonstrate to investors that their investment will not be confiscated the next time some populist comes to power.
>their laws can be overriden at any time
only in theory. I think the key to such a successful survival of the English monarchy is their understanding of the limits of their power - granted that understanding came as a result of almost losing it all back then. Yet they were the only one who survived the WWI - and i think it is no coincidence that their power was the most limited compare to the failed monarchies of Russia, Austria, Prussia.
I'm kind of fascinated by the steel will and nerves of the Queen who is maintaining that image of "granny" and is making sure to not show any teeth - and thus she is accomplishing the grand task of the survival of the monarchy on her watch. It it like the only thing that keeps her going is the high chance of failure of the monarchy if Charles gets the crown and she just can't let that happen.
No, the UK wasn't the only monarchy of a WWI belligerent to survive the war: On the allied side, Luxembourg, Siam/Thailand, and Japan survive to this day; Belgium, Serbia, Italy, Romania, Greece, survived WWI, and Hejaz and Nejd (the latter of which became the monarchy of Saudi Arabia) got monarchies created in WWI. On the central powers side, Bulgaria’s monarchy survived the war.
AFAICT, they go from paying for the Queen's ceremonial representative, the Governor-General, to paying for a elected ceremonial president.