Avoiding civil wars - new constitutions for emerging democracies
David Chapman
The following innovatory suggestions come from 'Can Civil Wars be Avoided - Electoral and Constitutional Models for Ethnically Divided Counties' by Dr David Chapman (published by the Institute for Social Inventions, 1991, ISBN 0 948826 26 6, L7-95, or L12-95 libraries and institutions). Its ideas are applicable not only to the emerging democracies around the world, such as the old Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but also to established democracies such as the UK. The Institute has initiated two international conferences for East European constitution designers and politicians to forward the kind of ideas in this book; and has helped establish the East Europe Constitution Design Forum to provide continuing assistance to the new democracies.
Parties needing to gain votes in all areas
The key proposal in the book -- and one that if widely adopted could do more to prevent ethnic turmoil and civil wars than any other measure available - is that of Local Balance Representation. This is a system for use in countries where the different ethnic groups are to some extent geographically segregated. Local Balance Representation penalises a party by loss of seats, if in some areas of the country it gets few or no votes. Thus each party is given the incentive to get votes from the areas occupied by each ethnic group, and so to become an inter-ethnic party, appealing to each group. A government formed by such a party would be responsive to each of the ethnic groups in the country, whether it were a majority or a minority. The system is applicable for a newly democratic South Africa, Israel-Palestine, Northern Ireland, the Baltic republics, Georgia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, tribally divided countries in Africa and others besides.
'Local Balance Representation penalises a party by loss of seats, if in some areas of the country it gets few or no votes'
In more detail, how this new system would operate is that a party's seats would depend on its degree of support in its 'lowest tenth'. This 'lowest tenth' is worked out as follow: the whole country is divided into small areas or neighbourhoods, with the exact boundaries not being crucial, so normally any naturally homogeneous areas with about 1,000 or so inhabitants could be used; and the percentage of votes that a party gets is calculated for each area. The lowest tenth is that ten per cent of these areas in which the party has its lowest percentage; the party then loses seats if it has a percentage of votes in the lowest tenth which is less than three quarters of its percentage over the whole country.
'If widely adopted could do more to prevent ethnic turmoil and civil wars than any other measure available'
No weak coalition governments
Direct Election of Government would give single-party government, where no party has a majority of seats. One party is elected, directly by the people, to be the sole government party. The method of election, a development of that of Condorcet, tends to elect a moderate government, one whose policy is near to the centre of the country's political spectrum, and widely responsive to the different sections of the electorate. The party elected as government is awarded a block of extra votes in the parliament, so as to give it a majority of votes if not of seats, so enabling it to govern. This avoids the problems linked to weak coalition government, while giving single-party government by a party acceptable to the electorate as a whole.
Single-member constituencies even with Proportional Representation
Uninomal Proportional Representation UPR) is a proposal that would give each MP his or her own single-member constituency. To achieve this, the country is divided into small electoral areas of perhaps a few thousand electors. A party assigns to each of its candidates a constituency composed of a number of these areas, seeking to make the constituency of such size that the candidate gets a quota of votes, ie just enough to be elected. UPR thus combines at least some of the advantages of the present UK system, with those of the usual forms of PR.
Building in a bias towards decentralization
Progressive Federalism is a proposal for allocating powers and functions between central, regional and local levels of government in such a way as to give a bias towards decentralisation. Instead of being fixed by a more or less rigid constitution (as under the usual type of federalism), the powers of any set of lower-level governments can be changed at any time by negotiation between them and the higher-level government involved. In case of disagreement between them, the powers of the lower level are decided by a national commission elected by all the elected representatives at that level, over the whole country. There is a commission for each level of government below the centre, and in case of disagreement between them, the lower-level one has primacy.
Thus the scheme can be expected over time gradually to transfer powers to the lower levels as they become ready to exercise them. It could be used either by countries which were already federal, to allow the powers of the centre to be gradually adjusted, or by a unitary state such as the UK, to bring about a gradual federalisation of the country.
Local elections first for new parties emerging out of communism
This proposal is to hold a series of elections in sequence, starting with the most local level and ending with the national assembly level, and throughout to give parties state aid in proportion to previous votes, to help them to fight the next stage and to increase their support. This is designed for a newly democratising country, to enable weak and poorly organised emerging parties to develop rapidly, so as to form an effective opposition to any dominant and well organised party, if one exists.
Fixed terms plus emergency elections
Fixed term elections on mandatory dates are proposed, but also allowing the government to call an extra early emergency election. Thus, since the next fixed election would still be held, the government would have no incentive to call an early election purely for its own electoral advantage.
Dr David Chapman, Democracy Design Forum, Coles Centre, Buxhall, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 3EB (tel 0449 736 223).
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