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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

The situation in Canada is the same, but there is one situation where the GG's power is significant, and does not trigger a constitutional crisis.

Determining whether or not a minority government is dissolved, and an election is held, or if a ruling coalition can be allowed to form.

In 2008, right after the election the GG did the ruling minority of Tories a pretty big favor by refusing to accept a non-confidence vote by a majority coalition, and instead, proroguing parliament for the benefit of the ruling minority party...

Absolutely insane. (That this question is left to the whim of one unelected person.)

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Because the Prime Minister asked her to. So was it really the whim of one unelected person or the whim of the democratically elected leader in an undemocratic spirit? Her refusing would have caused it's own issues because precedent said to follow the PM advice.

The PM that no longer had the confidence of parliament a month after the election of his minority party.

It's reasonable for the PM to ask for such a self-serving thing, it's not for that ask to have been acquiesced to.

There were three options (that I can think of) for dealing with that situation:

1. Allow the coalition to form government.

2. Hold another election, a month after the previous one.

3. ...Suspend parliament for a few months, so that the coalition can't hold a vote to push the minority government out!

#2 is pretty nuts, but kind of justifiable, but #3 was absolutely nuts. (And had the bonus points of threatening that a non-confidence election half-a-year after the previous one is 'okay', despite Parliament being entirely non-functional for most of that intervening time.)

That there aren't clear rules about this, or that a minority PM can prevent a majority coalition from ousting him is the maddening part.

It's actually really sane. Elected individuals are almost always corrupt... you really can't be elected anymore without owing lots of people favours.

An unelected, non-political individual who is above it all results in a more stable democracy.

Populist take aside, this is somewhat true. In Italy there has been talk of electing the president directly, but I think that would be a terrible choice. Currently, he is elected by parliament, and this (surprisingly) has worked mostly well. The president ends up being an older well respected politician who takes a neutral role. If they were elected by a public election, there's no way you could have a neutral figure.

> If they were elected by a public election, there's no way you could have a neutral figure.

Ireland proves that isn’t true.

The Irish system works by allowing the public to choose the President, but having tough nominating criteria. Anyone overly political or controversial is not going to get through the nominating process, and so won’t be able to run. The nominating process produces a shortlist of 2-6 respected figures, and the public gets to choose which one they respect the most. If Italy adopted the same system as Ireland, including the same tough nomination requirements, there is no reason why Italy couldn’t get the same outcome.

I don't necessarily agree with your conclusion. My conclusion is that culture is more important in democracy than written laws.

I think this does need to be considered more in nation building though. The focus in Afghanistan and Iraq was more on writing a constitution.

Unfortunately the British system is seen more of a rickety accretion rather than something to aim for.

> Unfortunately the British system is seen more of a rickety accretion rather than something to aim for.

If you are looking for a constitutional system to emulate, I think Germany would be a good choice - a federal parliamentary republic with a written constitution. I don’t think anyone should slavishly copy every minor detail of the German system, but at a big picture level I can’t think of anyone who does it better

The UK is not a good model - no written constitution; a unitary state (even if devolved) rather than federalism (national government has unlimited powers to interfere in regional governments, which takes away an important check on that national government’s powers). Constitutional monarchy may still work for some countries, but trying to introduce a monarchy into a country which doesn’t already have one is a non-starter in today’s world.

The US is a federal republic with a written constitution, so in those respects is a better model for emulation than the UK. But the presidential model is inferior to the parliamentary model-many political scientists believe it has been the cause of much of Latin America’s political instability. Centralising so much executive power in a single person encourages the development of strongmen with personality cults (caudillos), such as Peron or Trump. And while the US managed in the 20th century to avoid the instability which plagued Latin America, maybe that was just good luck, and maybe the events of the last few years (with caudillo Trump) are a sign that its luck is finally running out

> And while the US managed in the 20th century to avoid the instability which plagued Latin America, maybe that was just good luck

Ok, my degree is in political science and I, too, can go on and on about the significant impacts of political structure but I simply can’t imagine blaming Latin America’s 20th Century instability on local presidential systems and then topping it off by suggesting that maybe the US was just lucky it, with a presidential system, avoided the same fate.

At some point, you have to consider the international/geopolitical context and not assume everything is explained by domestic constitutional structure.

I never claimed it was a 100% explanation. Italy and Germany had a parliamentary system, and ended up with Mussolini and Hitler - so a parliamentary system is no foolproof guarantee of avoiding bad outcomes.

But the finding that parliamentary systems produce superior outcomes has good empirical support in the literature. See for example https://www.bu.edu/sthacker/files/2012/01/Are-Parliamentary-... https://theconversation.com/parliamentary-systems-do-better-...

I would never claim that 100% of the problems faced by either the US or Latin America are due to a presidential system. My claim is merely that it hasn’t helped them, and that while a parliamentary system is no panacea, it likely would have avoided or lessened some of them

The point of my post was suggesting that culture is more important than the official system of government.

>My conclusion is that culture is more important in democracy than written laws

Britain and it's ex dependencies may not have model constitutions or any constitutions but it still somehow works.

This is exactly why so many bots online are absolutely hammering the British monarchy. If we were to remove the King, it would totally destabilise the country. It would make Brexit look like a garden party.

Anti monarchist sentiment is strong in UK surveys so the idea that it's fake/astroturfed online content seems ridiculous to me. Any evidence?

Top Google result: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2019/03/08/megbot-a...

It's useful for the russians to amplify any divide in a country, especially if they can poison the conversation about it. They will likely also amplify more rabidly pro-monarchy positions as well.

It is also useful for the establishment to be able to discredit anti-establishment viewpoints as Russian propaganda. The enemy who is trying to hurt you but doesn’t realise they are actually helping you instead

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