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