Social Choice Session 11 Carmen Pasca and John

Social Choice Session 11 Carmen Pasca and John Hey

Session 11: How do societies choose? (part 1) • Plan for today: • Here we look at what actually happens. We have different methods at different levels. • This Session is definitional. We define and discuss different decision-making procedures: monarchies, presidents, parliaments, regional assemblies, district councils, committees. • We look first at the French case which is unique in the world. • Then we look at the British case, which is unique in a different way. • Then I will ask you some questions.

How do the French choose? 1 • The French are “unique”. • France have a Semi-Presidential system. • A Semi-Presidential system is characterised by a spread of power in the government. • Is a system of government in which a President and Prime Minister are both active participants in the day to day administration of the state. • The government's power comes from three different sources: A strong President, a Prime Minister, and a Bureaucracy. • France has one of the most effective bureaucracies in all of Europe. � • The French bureaucracy is able to accomplish a lot of items on their agendas.

How do the French choose? 2 • The link between the political class and the bureaucracy in the French case. • The typical example is ENA (National School of Administration). • The ENA is the mandatory route to become a senior official in France or a Minister, Chief Minister's office, Prefect. • It forms the elite of the French senior civil service. • ENA was created in 1945 by Charles de Gaulle. • The énarques (high functionaries of the State) were criticised as early as the 1960 s for their technocratic and arrogant ways. • This school shapes French industry and politics.

Bureaucracy • Bureaucracy is the set of officials or, more broadly, employees assigned to administrative duties. • It is a form of work organisation. • According to Max Weber, bureaucracy applies to all forms of organisation, although it is often associated with government. • The term bureaucracy refers pejoratively to influence or excessive power of government in public affairs or politics. • The bureaucracy is also "a political system in which real power is held and transmitted by the administration” (Weber). • Progression within the organisation is not related to efficiency, but the docility, belonging to a network or a political party, often unique.

More on Bureaucracy • An example: the USSR has a very hierarchical bureaucracy in the service of an authoritarian regime. • The stranglehold of government on the economy. • Also other totalitarian systems… • Inside the totalitarian system, the bureaucracy limited the democracy. • In contemporary democracies, the bureaucracy should be: • Transparent; • Efficent; • Limited.

Bureaucracy in Firms • The French company is characterised by a typical vertical administration, well-defined divisions, an ordered hierarchy and centralised planning. • Michel Crozier describes France as a "land of command", marked by the formalism of organisational and authority structures. • Bureaucracy is not limited to the sphere of the state but also includes the private sector: companies, social security funds, etc.

Levels of Decision Making • The French President has many strong powers and has a very influential office. • United control of the government is when the president and prime minister are both from the same political party. • When this happens, more legislation is able to be passed easier because there is less gridlock in the government. • When the president and prime minister are from different political parties it is called cohabitation. • The terms of the president in past years have been for 7 -year terms but recently (since 2002) the term of the president has been reduced to 5 years. In French history there have been two presidents who have had an enormous amount of power. Those two men were Charles De Gaulle and Francois Mitterand. De Gaulle was president from 1958 to 1969 and Mitterrand was president from 1981 to 1995.

Republics in France • The Fifth Republic came about following a political crisis over France's colonial war in Algeria, when Charles de Gaulle took power under a new constitution which gave the President new executive powers compared to the Fourth Republic, making the post uniquely powerful in European politics. • In the French political system, the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister – the first- and secondhighest authorities respectively - is critical. • It is not always the case that these two individuals come from the same political party or part of the political spectrum and, when they are of different political persuasion (as was the case in 1986, 1993 and 1997), the two figures must practice a process of “cohabitation”.

Cohabitation 1 • In March 1986, for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, the presidential and parliamentary majority no longer coincided. • This led to an unprecedented institutional experience: cohabitation. • This case, which had already been envisaged by General de Gaulle, was renewed twice in 1993 and 1997. • Definition: Coexistence of a head of state elected by popular vote on a political program and a prime minister based on a parliamentary majority voted to support a political opposite" (Jean Massot, "Alternation and coexistence under the Fifth Republic ", French Documentation, 1997).

Cohabitation 2 • In this configuration, the executive power exercised by the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister who heads the Government's action, is provided by two political opponents, chosen democratically, but at different times, by the electorate. • Different cohabitations: • 1986 -1988: After the victory of the right in parliamentary elections on March 16, President Francois Mitterrand appointed Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. France saw the first experience of cohabitation of the Fifth Republic. The new Prime Minister will unveil his cabinet in the evening. Edouard Balladur was appointed Economy and Finance, the Interior Charles Pasqua and Francois Leotard Culture.

Cohabitation 3 • 1993 -1995: The right won the parliamentary elections and forced Mitterrand to call Edouard Balladuras the head of a government. He succeeded Pierre Beregovoy and they began working together superficially well (hence the term “velvet cohabitation“) but in fact not too well. • 1997 -2002: After the left won the parliamentary elections in 1997, Chirac was forced to dissolve the Assembly and to call Jospin (who stood against Chirac for president in 1995) as Prime Minister. This was the third cohabitation. Jospin’s government was termed the "plural left", and brought together for the first time Socialists, Greens and Communists.

Republics • The different Republics are different political regimes associated with changes to the French Constitution. • The third, fourth and five Republics in France: • These are different political regimes: • Troisième Republique: 1870 -1940 (Pétain) • Quatrième Republique: 1946 -1958 (Charles de Gaulle) • Cinquième Republique : 1958 (again Charles de Gaulle): the present Constitution.

Electing the French President 1 • Candidates for the Presidency must obtain 500 sponsoring signatures of elected officials from at least 30 departments or overseas territories. The post is directly elected in a two-stage voting system. A candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round is elected. However, if no candidate receives 50%, there is a second round which is a run-off between the two candidates who secured the most votes in the first round. • The term is five years, a reduction from the previous seven years. A President can seek a second term and normally secures it. Indeed only one President of the Fifth Republic has failed a re-election bid: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. • Nicolas Sarkozy, from the ruling, conservative UMP, won a decisive victory in the second round of the Presidential election in May 2007. He gained 53% of the vote, finishing six points ahead of his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal.

Electing the French President 2 • The conduct of the presidential election is set by Articles 6, 7 and 58 of the French constitution. • Since the referendum of 1962, the presidential election takes place in single-member direct universal suffrage. • If a candidate obtains an absolute majority of votes (half the votes plus one vote) in the first round, he is elected. • Otherwise, a runoff is held between the two candidates who obtained the highest number of votes in the first round. • Here the candidate who gets the simple majority is elected. • In practice, a second round of voting has always been necessary, no candidate has never exceeded 50% of the votes cast in the first round (Charles de Gaulle won 44. 6% in the election of 1965, the maximum met until today).

Electing the French National Assembly 1 • In the first round of voting, voters vote for one candidate in their constituency. • If a candidate obtains an absolute majority of votes cast (at least half the votes plus one vote) and at least 25% of the votes of registered voters (the number of votes cast plus the number of abstainers), he is elected. • Otherwise there is a second round in which all the candidates who got votes greater than 12. 5% of the registered voters can participate. If there is only one such he is elected; if there is more than one, then the candidate with the most votes in this second round is elected.

The Upper House in France • The Upper House in the French political system is the Senate. This has a total of 321 seats: 296 representing mainland France; 13 representing French overseas territories; and 12 representing French nationals abroad. Many French Senators are also high-level local officials. • Members of the Senate are indirectly elected by an electoral college. Members serve a six-year term – a reduction from the previous nine years – and one-half of seats (previously one-third) come up for election every three years. • The Senate tends to specialise in constitutional matters and foreign affairs including European integration (it has a 'listening post' in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union).

Political Parties in France • French politics are characterised by two politically opposed groupings: one Left-wing centred around the French Socialist Party and the other Right-wing centred previously around the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) and now its successor the neo-Gaullist Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). • In France, unlike most other democracies, the majority of national politicians are former civil servants (often high-ranking). Most Presidents, many Cabinet members and a very large number of parliament members graduated from the same prestigious school, the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. • The French take their politics seriously and voter participation is very high (it was almost 86% in the 2007 Presidential election).

The French Electoral System • How is the French Electoral System Unique? • The powers of the President are the ability to name the Prime Minister and approve of the Prime Minister's choice for cabinet positions. • Other powers of the President include the ability to preside over the council of ministers, conduct foreign affairs, and direct the armed forces.

Presidential Powers • Another important power is the power to dissolve the National Assembly. • However the president can only do this one time every 12 months. He also appoints 3 members of the Constitutional Court including the presiding judge on the court. • Article 16 states the emergency powers clause which allows the president to declare a state of emergency and assume full control of the government in a time of a crises. • Article 11 allows the president to sponsor a referendum. Finally, Article 89 allows the president to propose amendments to the Constitution provided that the prime minister supports the amendment. �

The French Prime Minister • The Prime Minister is the head of the government but the constitution is ambiguous about the true nature of the Prime Minister's powers. • When the Prime Minister and President are from different political parties and have different viewpoints, the power of the Prime Minister increases because he can check the authority of the President. • When the Prime Minister and President are from the same party the power of the Prime Minister decreases but more legislation and goals of the party are able to be accomplished. The Prime Minister also nominates the cabinet members but the president must approve of each person. Finally, the Prime Minister is often used as a scapegoat by the President. • The President can not attend the Assembly without its approval. • The Prime Minister takes the blame for unpopular decisions made but the President takes the credit for popular decisions. This creates a no-win type of situation for the Prime Minister

The British Political System • A key date in this evolution was 1215 when King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta which involved him sharing power with the barons. The so-called Model Parliament was summoned by King Edward I in 1295 and is regarded as the first representative assembly. The bi-cameral nature of the British Parliament - Commons and Lords - emerged in 1341 and the two-chamber model of the legislature has served as a model in very many other parliamentary systems. • Bill of Rights – Britain does not have a written constitution, it does have a Bill of Rights because it is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights which was drawn up by a body called the Council of Europe. The European Convention is part of our domestic law so that it can be enforced in our domestic courts as well as in the European Court of Human Rights.

The United Kingdom • Another important feature of the political history of the UK is that three parts of the United Kingdom – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have a special status and have local administrations with a wide range of responsibilities. However, England - which represents about 84% of the total UK population of around 60 million – does not have a clear and strong sense of regionalism. So the British political system does not have anything equivalent to federal system of the 50 states in the USA. • There is a UK parliament; and separate parliaments for Wales, Scotland Northern Ireland but not for England.

The Monarchy • The British political system is headed by a monarchy but essentially the powers of the monarch as head of state - currently Queen Elizabeth II- are ceremonial. The most important practical power is the choice of the Member of Parliament to form a government, but invariably the monarch follows the convention that this opportunity is granted to the leader of the political party with the most seats in the House of Commons. • A written constitution - For historical reasons, the UK is one of only three countries in the world not to have a written constitution (the others are New Zealand Israel). The most radical proposal for constitutional change - supported especially by the Liberal Democrat Party - is that the country should now have a formal written constitution, presumably following some sort of constitutional convention and possibly a referendum.

The ‘arms’ of the State • In classical political theory, there are three arms of the state: • The executive – the Ministers who run the country and propose new laws. • The legislature – the elected body that passes new laws. • The judiciary – the judges and the courts who ensure that everyone obeys the laws. • In the political system of the United States, the constitution provides that there must be a strict separate of powers of these three arms of the state, so that no individual can be a member of more than one. So, for example, the President is not and cannot be a member of the Congress. This concept is called 'separation of powers', a term coined by the French political, enlightenment thinker Montesquieu.

The UK case • This is not the case in the UK: • All Ministers in the government are members of the legislature. • Some very senior judges sit in the upper house of the parliament. • The formal head of the judiciary is a senior minister. • This is an illustration of how pragmatic and flexible the British political system is. • But are these good qualities?

The British Parliament • The British Parliament is often called Westminster because it is housed in a distinguished building in central London called the Palace of Westminster. • The British Parliament – like most in the world – is bicameral, that is, there are two houses or chambers. The only exceptions to this practice around the world are some small countries such as Israel and New Zealand. • The House of Commons is the lower chamber but the one with the most authority.

The UK Commons 1 • The Commons is chaired by the Speaker. Unlike the Speaker in the US House of Representatives, the post is non-political and indeed, by convention, the political parties do not contest the Parliamentary constituency held by the Speaker. • The House of Commons currently comprises 650 Members of Parliament or MPs (the number varies slightly from time to reflect population change). This is a large legislature by international standards. For instance, the House of Representatives in the USA has 435 seats but, of course, each of the 50 US states has its own legislature. Before the last General Election, the Conservative Party said that it wished to reduce the number of Commons seats by around 10% (65 seats) and the Liberal Democrats said that the Commons should be reduced by 150 MPs. The new Coalition Government has now announced that it plans legislation to reduce the number from 650 to 600 as part of a wider change to the number and size of constituencies.

The UK Commons 2 • Interestingly, there is insufficient seating capacity in the chamber of the House of Commons for all the MPs. Members do not sit at desks (like most legislatures) but on long, green-covered benches and there is only seating capacity for 437 MPs out of the total of 650. • Each member in the House of Commons represents a geographical constituency. Typically a constituency would have around 60, 00080, 000 voters, depending mainly on whether it is an urban or rural constituency. The largest constituency in the country is the Isle of Wight with 108, 253 electors at the last General Election, while the smallest is Na h-Eileanan an Iar (formerly known as the Western Isles) with an electorate of only 21, 884. The current Coalition Government intends to make the size of constituencies more equal in terms of electors.

UK General Elections • In the UK, unlike many countries, there are not fixed term parliaments. • A General Election – that is, a nationwide election for all 650 seats – is held when the Prime Minister calls it, but the election cannot be more than five years after the last one and it is usually around four years after the last one. • The new Coalition Government plans to introduce legislation providing for fixed five-year parliaments which implies that the next General Election will be on 7 May 2015.

General Elections in the UK and elsewhere • Every citizen aged 18 or over can vote once in the constituency in which they live. Voting is not compulsory (as it is in Australia). In the last General Election of June 2010, 65% of the electorate actually voted. • Most democratic countries use a method of election called proportional representation which means that there is a reasonable correlation between the percentage of votes cast for a particular political party and the number of seats or representatives won by that party. • However, most of the Anglo-Saxon world – the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK but not New Zealand – use a method of election called the simple majority system or 'first past the post'. In this system, the country is divided into a number of constituencies each with a single member and the party that wins the majority of votes in each constituency wins that constituency regardless of the proportion of the vote secured. • The simple majority system of election tends to under-represent less successful political parties and to maximise the chance of the most popular political party winning a majority of seats nationwide even if it does not win a majority of the votes nationwide.

The most recent UK election • The last General Election was held in May 2010 and the result was as follows: Conservative Party: 306 seats (up 97) with a voting share of 36. 1% (up 3. 8%). • Labour Party: 258 seats (down 91) with a voting share of 29. 0% (down 6. 2%). • Liberal Democrat Party: 57 seats (down 5) with a voting share of 23. 0% (up 1. 0%). • Other parties: 28 seats (down 3) with a voting share of 11. 9% (down 1. 4%). • Total turnout nationwide was 65. 1% - up 4. 0% on 2005.

The UK House of Lords 1 • This is the upper chamber but the one with less authority. Its main roles are to revise legislation and keep a check on Government by scrutinising its activities. Since 1911, its power to block "money bills" is limited to one month and its power to block other bills is limited to one session, so ultimately it cannot block the will of the House of Commons. • It is a bizarre institution that has no parallel anywhere in the democratic world. The explanation for its unusual nature goes back to its origins: the British political system has evolved very slowly and peacefully and it is not totally logical or democratic.

The UK House of Lords 2 • There is no fixed number of members in the House of Lords, but currently there about 750 members. • Historically most members of the House of Lords have been what are called hereditary peers. This mean that years ago a king or queen nominated a member of the aristocracy to be a member of the House and, since then, the right to sit in the House has passed through the family from generation to generation. Clearly this is totally undemocratic and the last Labour Government abolished the right of all but 92 of these hereditary peers to sit in the House.

The UK House of Lords 3 • Almost all the other members of today's House of Lords are what are called life peers. This means that they have been chosen by the Queen, on the advice of the Government, to sit in the House for as long as they live, but afterwards no member of their family has the right to sit in the House. There is no fixed number of life peers, but the current number is 629. Many are former senior politicians. Others are very distinguished figures in fields such as education, health and social policy. • A small number of other members - 26 - are Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England. • House of Lords’ reform is unfinished business. There is a cross-party consensus that it should become a mainly elected body although there is as yet no agreement on the details of the next stage of reform.

Constitutional and Political Reform in the UK 1 • Compared to many other democracies, institutional and procedural reform in the British political system has been very slow, gradual and piecemeal. • However, there has been a growing movement for more fundamental reform. The appetite for constitutional change became much stronger in the aftermath of the May 2009 scandal over the expenses of Members of Parliament. Then the formation in May 2010 of a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition Government opened up new possibilities for change with a number of specific measures set out in the agreement between the parties establishing the new government.

C 2 nstitutional and Political Reform in the UK 4 • • • A new electoral system for the House of Commons - Britain is unusual in Europe in having an electoral system which is 'first-past-the-post' and there advocates for a system of proportional representation (PR), a version of which is already used for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly and for British elections to the European Parliament. The parties will bring forward a Referendum Bill on electoral reform, which includes provision for the introduction of the Alternative Vote (AV), in the event of a positive result in the referendum. Both parties will whip their Parliamentary Parties in both Houses to support a simple majority referendum on AV, without prejudice to the positions parties will take during such a referendum. It is proposed that the referendum be held on 5 May 2011 to coincide with local elections in Northern Ireland parts of England the elections of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

Constitutional and Political Reform in the UK 3 • • Fewer and more equal sized constituencies - Currently the House of Commons has 650 seats; the Coalition Government intends to cut this to 600. Currently the number of electors in each Parliamentary constituency varies quite considerably; the Coalition Government plans to legislate that no constituency should be more than 5% either larger or smaller than a national average of around 76, 000 electors (which could eliminate some 40 Labour-held seats). The Government proposes that these measures be included in the Referendum Bill on electoral reform. Election of the House of Lords - At present, no member of the upper house is actually elected; most are appointed on the nomination of party leaders with a small number remaining from the originally much larger group of heritor peers. The parties have agreed to establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. The committee will come forward with a draft motions by December 2010. It is likely that this Bill will advocate single long terms of office. It is also likely there will be a 'grandfathering' system for current Peers. In the interim, Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last General Election.

Constitutional and Political Reform in the UK 4 • • At present, every citizen over 18 can vote but it gas been suggested that the voting age should be lowered to 16. A wider process for selecting Parliamentary candidates - Today candidates are selected by meetings of members of the political party that the candidate will represent in a future election, but it has been proposed that the process could be opened up to anyone in the relevant constituency who has declared themselves a supporter of that party, a process something like the primaries in the United States. A more modern culture for the Commons - Many of the traditions and much of the language of the Commons date back centuries and reformers argue that it is time for change to make the proceedings more accessible and acceptable to the public and electorate. The sort of changes mooted are no ceremonial dress for Commons staff, reform of terms such as "My right honourable friend" and a less gladitorial version of Prime Minister's Questions. Limits on the Royal Prerogative - At the moment, the Prime Minister alone can exercise powers which once used to belong to the monarch, such as the right to apppoint certain judges and bishops, the signing of international treaties, and the declaring of war, but this could be changed so that Parliamaent has to decide such matters.

Conclusions • This lecture has concentrated on the structure of political institutions in France and the UK. • There are clear differences in both the institutions and the way people are elected to them. • France is Semi-Presidential while the UK is a monarchy. • The State in France has a very strong role; much less so in the UK. • The French bureaucracy is unique. • Voting is in two rounds in France and just one in the UK. • “Life in the UK is much better than in France” (John Hey). • “Life in France is much better than in the UK” (Carmen Pasca). • “But life in Italy is better than both!” (B*rl*sc*n*)