Fareed Zakaria in the Future of Freedom argues that democracy as a form of political organisation is a luxury of a wealthy post-capitalistic society.
He identifies two trends. One, that the rule of law and the principles of limited government such as universal rights, limited executive powers and constitutionalism are developed through the process of capitalism and market economies.
Second, that it is often per capita wealth which determines if a society will be able to maintain democracy as a form of political organisation. Countries with per capita income of over $6,000 survive as democracies. This suggests that democracy requires a great deal of population buy in, as well as being energy and cost intensive to maintain. (more)
Mead argues that the democratic nature of American foreign policy has been superior to the isolated genius' behind continentalist policy (ie Bismarck or Kissinger). Mead writes:
The [democratic policy making] system is stable because it is homeostatic; although interest groups perceive themselves in a constant struggle, the net effect of all those struggles is to keep society constantly seeking the point at which dissatisfaction is minimised.A very succinct description of the liberal republican process. (reply)
This is why modern conservatism is incompatible with republicanism and liberalism. It is also what I was expressing in the article on the evangelical polity. Sullivan writes:
What matters is cultural and religious identity, rather than policy. Again this is a result of the sectarianization of [American] Republican politics.It removes merit entirely from the equation. Merit works in republicanism because all individuals are equal and free. The differentiation comes from merit, and that includes past performance as well as vision/scope/policy for the future. Huckabee has all sorts of bad governance, corruption and ethical scandals following him from his time as Governor of Arkansas, but that does not matter when you choose on identity and not merit. (more)
Gary Sauer-Thompson has found on interesting article where, "Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelsons argue that the relationship between republicanism and liberalism has emerged as a central issue for students of political thought."
I must admit see republicanism as being the political science of liberalism rather than schism in doctrine that the article records as being a historical tension between republicanism and liberalism. I consider the US republic both the end and high point of the enlightenment, where all the aspects of increasing liberal theory came together in practice. (more)
Federations are defined by having a national character and a federal character. For instance the House of Representatives in Australia's parliament is organised with a national character while the Senate has a federal character. The House has equal sized electorates and single members, while the Senate has the states as its electoral boundaries and each state has an equal number of members. So the Senate represents the states, which are the federal components of the Federation, while the House represents the Australian people, which is the national character of the government.
One of the innovations of American constitutional design was to put the national and federal characters into tension so that the national government would not grow to consume the states, yet have enough national character that the states would not assert themselves over the national government. This vertical balance of powers in the federation was designed to protect liberty and cemented through constitutional limited government.
One of the blind spots in Australian politics is that federalism is ignored as a technology to ensure liberty and natural rights. Too often people assume the role of government is service delivery, not limited government, and seek to order the political structures accordingly. (more)
Phillip Adams writes in The Australian that Australia has a presidential system:
"Australia has had a de facto presidential system since the end of the Menzies era, accelerated and intensified by the influence of television. As in the fight for the White House, our race to the Lodge has voters choosing between two anointed candidates. Holt or Calwell? Whitlam or McMahon? Hawke or Fraser? Keating or Hewson? Howard or Beazley?"(more)
The current conservative philosophy for governance is well described by Paul Kelly in a recent op-ed titled: At war over the law. This is the new brand of conservatism which is now competing with liberalism as the basis for governance. Forget left-right, that is gone as a binary distinction and the only use for it is to construct strawmen. Conservatism is based on executive dominance where the interests of the state trump individual rights. This is the opposite to republicanism and liberal democracy. (more)
Greg Barns' op-ed views government and political boundaries in service delivery terms. He argues for a return to the New Federalism push of the early 90s but where government is organised along maximum service delivery efficiency - which is a social economist's view of the nation-state. But this raises issues of republicanism, democracy and politics which are not catered for. It is a state down approach to federalism rather than a citizen, or individual, up approach. (more)
Mark Richardson is a bit unique in the Australian blogsophere. One, he is a genuine conservative rather than a partisan conservative; two, he recognizes that left-right is meaningless since the collapse of marxism and that the new rival to liberalism is conservatism; and three, he is one of the few writers that is willing to engage the liberal blogs which includes progressives, liberals, republicans and libertarians, and question the basis of their political philosophy. This makes him much more interesting than the 'red meat' chucking that most blogs seem to do these days. (more)
One of the areas where conservatism suffers internal conflict is in collectivism. Because conservatism cannot describe human progress with breaking its own internal logic it turns to economic liberalism while trying to maintain conservative collectivism in culture, society, politics and nationalism. Consequently it breaks the liberty of collectivism in the economy but tries to promote or enforce it everywhere else. (more)
