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More on Crises
This subject is admittedly a little arcane, but here's Matt Yglesias arguing, contra Ezra Klein and me, that the United States is indeed unsuited to dealing with short-term crises:
The U.S. political system, with its high number of veto points, is arguably unsuited to taking decisive action in response to a crisis compared to alternative models, such as the Westminster system in play in the United Kingdom and Canada or to the multiparty coalition systems of northern Europe. It’s hard to know how to evaluate that claim. There is, however, a political science literature indicating that American-style systems are more prone to total constitutional breakdown in a crisis.
I can't comment on the political science literature, but it seems to me that the U.S. doesn't do any worse than other developed countries on this score. You can argue about whether our historical responses to immediate crises have been correct, but they certainly seem to have been as decisive as anyone else. To pick the example of our current economic meltdown, which countries have done better? Japan? Germany? China? Iceland?
There's a pretty good case to be made that these countries have all acted both more slowly and with less sense of genuine urgency than the U.S. At the very least, it's safe to say that almost no one has done demonstrably better. We do indeed have a large number of veto points in our political system, but in practice it's not clear that this has prevented decisive action during a genuine emergency.
The Fed
Somebody should tell Yglesias about the Federal Reserve System, which can get a lot done quickly without checks or balances.
Variables
In comparisons such as this, how can you control for a multitude of interfering variables?
1. Exact governmental structure
2. Institutional maturity
3. Temperament of the citizenry
4. Abilities and of temperament of elites
5. Weight of history
Unless or until you can control for such as the above, this is little more than a fun game played by political science grad students at a near-campus watering hole. Been there.
What social science can ever
What social science can ever meet that level of exactness?
Even still, Political science has done some pretty good work over the last 20 years at developing models that predict outcomes well.
Of course our current
Of course our current political situation is pretty atypical. The response would have been quite different, I think, if this had happened throughout most of the Bush administration. So you'll need more examples.
What makes you think China
What makes you think China wants to end our suffering quickly? There are many indications that they see this as a pivot point and are willing to feel some short term pain if it results in a reorganization of the global power structure.
The U.S. government does
The U.S. government does seem to do fairly well when it comes to acting decisively. However, we tend often decisively with a watered-down bill to make it past all the veto points - the current stimulus bill.
We also act decisively in a way that is extra-constitutional - TARP, Patriot Act. I would argue that a lot of the New Deal stuff, TARP and The Patriot Act are unconstitutional, especially unconstitutional from a "written, original constitution" standpoint. This indicates a constitutional breakdown to me. The American people accept these breakdowns because they make sense from a pragmatic standpoint, but that doesn't make them constitutional.
We got lucky on this one
Yglesias does have a point, that our system has great potential to deadlock itself. In this current crisis, I think we've done great, especially with Democratic majorities in both houses and the Presidency.
My worst case scenario would only require an ideologue Republican in the White House; If he didn't want to increase deficit spending, and had the obstructionist approach to enforcing that demonstrated by certain congressmen, not a single bill would pass that would not be vetoed. The senate wouldn't be able to override based on its current make-up, and it'd be very difficult to argue with Yglesias.
That being said, I have great confidence in our current leaders and how they've been handling it. When our system works, it WORKS.
Does the flameout in Iraq in
Does the flameout in Iraq in 2005-6 count as "a crisis"? In a parliamentary system, George Bush wd've been out of power well before November 2006. (Repeat: that's two-ought ought-SIX, not eight.) Instead we had him around our necks for another two-plus years.
China: danger==opportunity
At least we see them taking advantage of some of the opportunities available because of the financial/economic collapse. The prices of many commodities have collapsed, the Chinese are buying up all that they can store -the rest of us are cutting back. I've heard unsubstantiated reports they are buying up our financial assets as well. So I think they are able to capitalize on opportunities at a time like this, that the more representative forms of governance have to pass up.
I think at least this go
I think at least this go around we had the great fortune of having a Presidential election cycle run right through the middle of the crisis, both from a primary and general election perspective. This forced a lot of public debate and public referendum on the urgency of taking action at (in hindsight) what might have been the optimal time (ie.. markets fell off a cliff in October). To the extent we have momentum in our decision making now, it seems to have stemmed from that process.
By contrast - none of our developed country buddies seem to have had the same forcing function, and therefore are proceeding more cautiously and any perceived mandate for action is boiling more slowly.
Just to speculate, perhaps the frequency (2 years and 4 years) and length (almost all of 2008 for the Presidential cycle) of our national elections, which are generally problematic from a day to day governance perspective when things are stable, make our institutions considerably more responsive in times of crisis?
I'll take multi-party parliamentary ...
If the economic crisis is the example then it's not right to compare the US against Germany, you have to compare the US against the EU. Very different. But, a consitutional crisis, such as every single year of the Bush II administrations, we couldn't shake that no matter what. Another good example is the Ken Starr debacle. European parliamentary systems would've dispensed with that asshole and his abettors much more quickly. Vietnam is probably the next best example in my lifetime of the US unable to get out of the way of itself, though global climate change and our dependence on an unstable energy supplies are close seconds (thirds? anybody counting?)
Of course our current
tagged as:- solution
- result
Of course our current political situation is pretty atypical. The response would have been quite different, I think, if this had happened ttiffany jewelry
tiffany and co
hroughout most of the Bush administration. So you'll need more examples.