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Showing Original Post only (View all)Political scientist predicted that the American system of government was unstable and would collapse [View all]
The Shutdown ProphetWashington couldnt have gone dark without a radicalized Republican Party. Or maybe it was destined to all along.
By Jonathan Chait
In a merciful twist of fate, Juan Linz did not quite live to see his prophecy of the demise of American democracy borne out. Linz, the Spanish political scientist who died last week, argued that the presidential system, with its separate elections for legislature and chief executive, was inherently unstable. In a famous 1990 essay, Linz observed, All such systems are based on dual democratic legitimacy: No democratic principle exists to resolve disputes between the executive and the legislature about which of the two actually represents the will of the people. Presidential systems veered ultimately toward collapse everywhere they were tried, as legislators and executives vied for supremacy. There was only one notable exception: the United States of America.
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Instead, to the slowly unfolding horror of the Obama administration and even some segments of the Republican Party, the GOP decided that the alternative to finding common ground with the president did not have to be mere gridlock. It could force the president to enact its agenda. In January, Boehner told his colleagues hed abandon all policy negotiations with the White House. Later that spring, House Republicans extended the freeze-out to the Democratic-majority Senate, which has since issued (as of press time) eighteen futile pleas for budget negotiations. Their plan has been to carry out their agenda by using what they call leverage or forcing events to threaten economic and social harm and thereby extract concessions from President Obama without needing to make any policy concessions in return. Paul Ryan offered the most candid admission of his partys determined use of non-electoral power: The reason this debt-limit fight is different is we dont have an election around the corner where we feel we are going to win and fix it ourselves, he said at the end of September. We are stuck with this government another three years.
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How to settle this dispute? Here is where Linzs analysis rings chillingly true: There is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved, and the mechanisms the Constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate. This is a fight with no rules. The power struggle will be resolved as a pure contest of willpower.
http://nymag.com/news/politics/nationalinterest/government-shutdown-2013-10/
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Political scientist predicted that the American system of government was unstable and would collapse [View all]
Cali_Democrat
Oct 2013
OP
Rereading my own post, I think the question of legitimate authority explains a lot
starroute
Oct 2013
#26