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Argentine government is especially bizarre because the party system has historially not made any damn sense at all. People used to give US politics flack for h

by slurry 13y ago

Argentine government is especially bizarre because the party system has historially not made any damn sense at all. People used to give US politics flack for having clear cut left and right parties. But the Argentine party system has typically been liberals (UCR and allies) vs. nationalists (Peronists and allies), with each having left and right factions, but also factions based on personalities, and on support/opposition to whatever the most recent dictatorship happened to be. So, if you met an Argentine and find out only that he is a member of, say, the UCR that gives you as about as useful information as finding out someone was a Democrat in 1955, when that might have meant anything from a John Birch society segregationist to a left social democrat. That's a big opportunity for corruption, in both the Argentine and historic US cases. Things have gotten a little more 'normal' since the Kirchers have been so polarizing and the old parties have broken down some. But it's still in my opinion a source of great inefficiency not to have a well-established left-right party system.

ronaldx 13y ago
I find it bizarre that you think a left-right two-party system is good. People should have the right to vote for whatever they value, and should have the right for that vote to count (via representation of those values). A two-party system suppresses those rights. It's 'efficient' if you happen to agree with one of the two parties - but, it is not fit for purpose if you think the point of democracy is to represent the people in political decision-making. A political system which implies that there are only two valid points of view (or one valid axis) is the poorer for it.
- tptacek 13y ago
  It might not be good in the sense of maximizing the value of the franchise, but it might be better along other axes, such as creating long-term coherent policy objectives. It can take a long time to change things in the US, which is sometimes bad, but also sometimes good.
  - jkn 13y ago
    Interesting. I think that long-term coherent policies are best supported by strongly multi-party systems: when the power is shared by several parties, you don't get the political swing after each election that can happen with two-party systems. To take it to the extreme, consider Switzerland, where the largest party has only 26.6% of the votes. 11 parties are represented in the parliament, and the executive power is shared equally among 7 ministers representing 4 different parties. The system offers an unusual continuity in the executive branch: The Swiss executive is one of the most stable governments worldwide. Since 1848, it has never been renewed entirely at the same time, providing a long-term continuity. From 1959 to 2003 the Federal Council was composed of a coalition of all major parties in the same ratio: 2 each from the Free Democratic Party, Social Democratic Party and Christian Democratic People's Party and 1 from the Swiss People's Party. Changes in the council occur typically only if one of the members resigns (merely four incumbent members were voted out of the office in over 150 years); this member is almost always replaced by someone from the same party (and often also from the same linguistic group). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland#Executive_branch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland#Executi...
  - ronaldx 13y ago
    Appreciate your point, but I don't think it's obvious that two-parties are better at creating long-term policy, just as I don't think it's obvious that a two party system is better on other axes generally. For example, if neither party has a strong interest, certain government departments can act without proper accountability to the public. Clearly the US has been a successful country, but there are several problems with using the US as an ideal model: the benefits of this success are not necessarily distributed in the best way. And, with the US's huge resources, it's not obvious that the choice of political system is the biggest factor in its success.
    - jessedhillon 13y ago
      It's not obvious to me that multi-member district schemes and coalition governments have produced anything significantly different than what we have. I mean, if you think we (the US) have a severely polarized party alignment, I'm just not sure you're paying attention. Within the same party you can have representatives who are both for and against nearly every important issue! In the UK they need to form a coalition (sometimes) to run the government, but when they have that coalition, pretty much the only things which get voted on are those which are guaranteed to pass. Or if you want real crazy, go look at 2003~2007 Israel, where coalitions would need to be formed from several radically different parties. I don't see any evidence that requisite inclusion of diverse stakeholders lead to better outcomes for the public.
- slurry 13y ago
  My point wasn't that Argentina should have fewer parties - historically, there have been two main ones (PJ and UCR). I think more viable parties would have helped. But, if you are going to have a two-ish party system, left-right is IMHO a more efficient way to organize it than personalities, culture clash and historical grievances - especially if you then also have left and right as factions within the historical parties. Which is how the US and Argentina organized their parties until very recently, Ireland still does. I think that's a bad system and creates too many opportunities for arbitrage and corruption. Plus, multiparty systems tend to work on a left-right spectrum anyway.
- specialist 13y ago
  The election system determines the party system. In winner takes all elections, a two party system will form. Because aspirants want to form the smallest winning coalition (ideally 50% + 1 vote). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law Just peeked at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Argentina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Argentina The executive is elected thru runoffs, requiring +45% of the vote to win. That's better than "winner takes all", but still a pretty high bar for new parties. The legislative is elected thru a (mostly) proportional representation, by their provinces of origin. That's pretty good. The barriers to entry for new parties are comparatively lower (e.g. vs the USA). I'm not a polysci prof, so I can't say if a separate executive & legislative or a parliamentary system is better. I've seen it argued between stability and adaptability. And I know nothing about Argentina's campaign and election laws, so can't comment on its fairness, or barriers to entry for new parties.
ZeppelinDePlomo 13y ago
"Argentine government is especially bizarre because the party system has historially not made any damn sense at all." Argentine here. That's just not true, at all. First, "Peronism" is not a party. "Peronism" is the product of the deep personalism of argentine politics. It's movement very much like a political Christianity: "he tougth us The Way and we must interpret his words". It's like if people in the US that love Ronald Regan started calling his thinking something like "Reganism". As you pointed out, Republican and Democrats changed their general views over time. The same happens here. The difference is that the Justicialist party (the main "Peronist" party) almost always wins. Traditionally, the analog to the current Democrat/Republican dynamic was the Justicialist/Radical Civic Union (or "UCR"). The first one was more for economic regulation and general welfare, while the second was less about welfare and more about economic freedom. But the UCR hadn't been relevant for almost 20 years now. In the '90s the Justicialist party took a "economic liberal" turn, a strange one in retrospect, but one that most Justicialists supported because "privatization of public services and more economic freedom, for some specific people, CAN be better for the welfare of the people". How can a left-wing party get away with that? they had power. They already had the left-wing peronists masses, and they could get the votes of the middle-class, who mainly voted for the UCR, with some economically liberal policies. The left/right dynamic was destroyed because one party got to powerful. That ended badly, with horrible preformance by a heavly subsidized private sector, the inability to compete with foreign products destroyed hole industries, the massive firings created more and more poverty and slums, and a monetary policy that tried to maintain the Argentine peso equivalent to the US dollar without actually creating enough growth to sustain it. Things were starting to smell around '99, so the Justicialist party lost the presidential election against an alliance spear-headed by the UCR. But then everything went south in 2001. We had one of the worst economic crisis in our history, the goverment authorized the banks to not give any money back to the people, which created a massive outcry from the middle-class. After that any reasonable person would ask "And why the fuck would anybody vote for the Justicialist Party ever again?", and that's when Faith comes in. Faith, and the lack of options (after all, the crisis exploded during the UCR-and-friends's watch). People still believed that "Peronism" was the true path, so the Justicialist Party reinvent themselves. A small faction within the party rose to power with a "go back to the roots" narrative. And they did, they won the 2003 presidential election under the name "Front for Victory", registered as a "new party". The failure of the "Neoliberal model", the model their own party had apply, gave them the perfect traumatized population to apply a left-wing, demagoge, and nationalist narrative. And because we like our personalization in our politics, we call it "Kirchnerism", for the faction's leader Nestor Kirchner (president of the country for two terms). He died in 2010. The current president, Cristina Kirchner, was his wife... And that's it. We had classical rigth/wing dynamic until the left-wing party got so powerful that could do whatever they wanted, and failing miserably trying to keep everybody happy. They gave sinking ship to the traditionally right-wing party, and when shit hit the fan they lose their last chance to prove the people they were capable, dooming them for ever. Then, the left-wing party went trougth a rebranding process and started ruling again, without any real oponents, with all the political power. Just now we have some contenders for The New Rigth Wing Party (UCR is pretty much dead now), but only time will tell. Oh, and of course now we have a new generation of kid rised in the '00s inside the goverment-funded propaganda machine, kids that wear T-Shirts that say "With Cristina, Without Doubts"... yeah.

by slurry 13y ago

ronaldx 13y ago

I find it bizarre that you think a left-right two-party system is good. People should have the right to vote for whatever they value, and should have the right for that vote to count (via representation of those values). A two-party system suppresses those rights. It's 'efficient' if you happen to agree with one of the two parties - but, it is not fit for purpose if you think the point of democracy is to represent the people in political decision-making. A political system which implies that there are only two valid points of view (or one valid axis) is the poorer for it.

tptacek 13y ago
It might not be good in the sense of maximizing the value of the franchise, but it might be better along other axes, such as creating long-term coherent policy objectives. It can take a long time to change things in the US, which is sometimes bad, but also sometimes good.
- jkn 13y ago
  Interesting. I think that long-term coherent policies are best supported by strongly multi-party systems: when the power is shared by several parties, you don't get the political swing after each election that can happen with two-party systems. To take it to the extreme, consider Switzerland, where the largest party has only 26.6% of the votes. 11 parties are represented in the parliament, and the executive power is shared equally among 7 ministers representing 4 different parties. The system offers an unusual continuity in the executive branch: The Swiss executive is one of the most stable governments worldwide. Since 1848, it has never been renewed entirely at the same time, providing a long-term continuity. From 1959 to 2003 the Federal Council was composed of a coalition of all major parties in the same ratio: 2 each from the Free Democratic Party, Social Democratic Party and Christian Democratic People's Party and 1 from the Swiss People's Party. Changes in the council occur typically only if one of the members resigns (merely four incumbent members were voted out of the office in over 150 years); this member is almost always replaced by someone from the same party (and often also from the same linguistic group). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland#Executive_branch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland#Executi...
- ronaldx 13y ago
  Appreciate your point, but I don't think it's obvious that two-parties are better at creating long-term policy, just as I don't think it's obvious that a two party system is better on other axes generally. For example, if neither party has a strong interest, certain government departments can act without proper accountability to the public. Clearly the US has been a successful country, but there are several problems with using the US as an ideal model: the benefits of this success are not necessarily distributed in the best way. And, with the US's huge resources, it's not obvious that the choice of political system is the biggest factor in its success.
  - jessedhillon 13y ago
    It's not obvious to me that multi-member district schemes and coalition governments have produced anything significantly different than what we have. I mean, if you think we (the US) have a severely polarized party alignment, I'm just not sure you're paying attention. Within the same party you can have representatives who are both for and against nearly every important issue! In the UK they need to form a coalition (sometimes) to run the government, but when they have that coalition, pretty much the only things which get voted on are those which are guaranteed to pass. Or if you want real crazy, go look at 2003~2007 Israel, where coalitions would need to be formed from several radically different parties. I don't see any evidence that requisite inclusion of diverse stakeholders lead to better outcomes for the public.
slurry 13y ago
My point wasn't that Argentina should have fewer parties - historically, there have been two main ones (PJ and UCR). I think more viable parties would have helped. But, if you are going to have a two-ish party system, left-right is IMHO a more efficient way to organize it than personalities, culture clash and historical grievances - especially if you then also have left and right as factions within the historical parties. Which is how the US and Argentina organized their parties until very recently, Ireland still does. I think that's a bad system and creates too many opportunities for arbitrage and corruption. Plus, multiparty systems tend to work on a left-right spectrum anyway.
specialist 13y ago
The election system determines the party system. In winner takes all elections, a two party system will form. Because aspirants want to form the smallest winning coalition (ideally 50% + 1 vote). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law Just peeked at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Argentina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Argentina The executive is elected thru runoffs, requiring +45% of the vote to win. That's better than "winner takes all", but still a pretty high bar for new parties. The legislative is elected thru a (mostly) proportional representation, by their provinces of origin. That's pretty good. The barriers to entry for new parties are comparatively lower (e.g. vs the USA). I'm not a polysci prof, so I can't say if a separate executive & legislative or a parliamentary system is better. I've seen it argued between stability and adaptability. And I know nothing about Argentina's campaign and election laws, so can't comment on its fairness, or barriers to entry for new parties.

ZeppelinDePlomo 13y ago

"Argentine government is especially bizarre because the party system has historially not made any damn sense at all." Argentine here. That's just not true, at all. First, "Peronism" is not a party. "Peronism" is the product of the deep personalism of argentine politics. It's movement very much like a political Christianity: "he tougth us The Way and we must interpret his words". It's like if people in the US that love Ronald Regan started calling his thinking something like "Reganism". As you pointed out, Republican and Democrats changed their general views over time. The same happens here. The difference is that the Justicialist party (the main "Peronist" party) almost always wins. Traditionally, the analog to the current Democrat/Republican dynamic was the Justicialist/Radical Civic Union (or "UCR"). The first one was more for economic regulation and general welfare, while the second was less about welfare and more about economic freedom. But the UCR hadn't been relevant for almost 20 years now. In the '90s the Justicialist party took a "economic liberal" turn, a strange one in retrospect, but one that most Justicialists supported because "privatization of public services and more economic freedom, for some specific people, CAN be better for the welfare of the people". How can a left-wing party get away with that? they had power. They already had the left-wing peronists masses, and they could get the votes of the middle-class, who mainly voted for the UCR, with some economically liberal policies. The left/right dynamic was destroyed because one party got to powerful. That ended badly, with horrible preformance by a heavly subsidized private sector, the inability to compete with foreign products destroyed hole industries, the massive firings created more and more poverty and slums, and a monetary policy that tried to maintain the Argentine peso equivalent to the US dollar without actually creating enough growth to sustain it. Things were starting to smell around '99, so the Justicialist party lost the presidential election against an alliance spear-headed by the UCR. But then everything went south in 2001. We had one of the worst economic crisis in our history, the goverment authorized the banks to not give any money back to the people, which created a massive outcry from the middle-class. After that any reasonable person would ask "And why the fuck would anybody vote for the Justicialist Party ever again?", and that's when Faith comes in. Faith, and the lack of options (after all, the crisis exploded during the UCR-and-friends's watch). People still believed that "Peronism" was the true path, so the Justicialist Party reinvent themselves. A small faction within the party rose to power with a "go back to the roots" narrative. And they did, they won the 2003 presidential election under the name "Front for Victory", registered as a "new party". The failure of the "Neoliberal model", the model their own party had apply, gave them the perfect traumatized population to apply a left-wing, demagoge, and nationalist narrative. And because we like our personalization in our politics, we call it "Kirchnerism", for the faction's leader Nestor Kirchner (president of the country for two terms). He died in 2010. The current president, Cristina Kirchner, was his wife... And that's it. We had classical rigth/wing dynamic until the left-wing party got so powerful that could do whatever they wanted, and failing miserably trying to keep everybody happy. They gave sinking ship to the traditionally right-wing party, and when shit hit the fan they lose their last chance to prove the people they were capable, dooming them for ever. Then, the left-wing party went trougth a rebranding process and started ruling again, without any real oponents, with all the political power. Just now we have some contenders for The New Rigth Wing Party (UCR is pretty much dead now), but only time will tell. Oh, and of course now we have a new generation of kid rised in the '00s inside the goverment-funded propaganda machine, kids that wear T-Shirts that say "With Cristina, Without Doubts"... yeah.