The ‘difficult combination’ in Brazil and the USA – 10/01/2023 – Marcus Melo

Renowned political scientist Scott Mainwaring has just released, in co-authorship with an important public intellectual, Lee Drutman, a proposal to adopt proportional representation (PR) in the USA, aiming at the institution of multipartyism in that country. The justification is that the American political system has become dysfunctional due to recent toxic polarization.

The authors argue that the USA is the only democracy that combines presidentialism and the majority (district) electoral system. This institutional design is only found in non-democratic countries: Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In other presidential systems, proportional representation is adopted. It worked in the USA because the parties were not politicized: the ideological distance between them was minimal. Conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans had a similar agenda.

In the 1990s, there was intense debate when Mainwaring argued something different: that the “difficult combination” involved presidentialism and PR, generating decision paralysis, polarization that threatened democracy and difficulties in assembling coalitions. In Brazil, the problem would be exacerbated, he added, by PR with an open list and robust federalism. The first would create incentives for party indiscipline; the second, a centripetal, localist dynamic, which prevented parties from acquiring a national character.

In his view, the result would be a dysfunctional dynamic in Executive-Legislative relations. Crucial reforms would only be approved with concessions that would distort them and corrupt bargains, generating instability.

In the USA, polarization in the last decade would have led to a breakdown in the balance that guaranteed stability to the system. The combination of presidentialism and multipartyism is now seen not only as “easy” but also necessary to restore it. PR would allow centrist parties to have viability. The successful experience of Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay would be the model to be emulated.

The proposed therapy can be discussed in relation to Brazil where we also have the difficult combination: has the strong polarization been mitigated? (as I discussed here) Yes, the answer is positive. She was also crucial in containing Bolsonaro. However, there are unanticipated costs and effects. In the current government, the characters who were the object of the most virulent criticism, from enemies of the country, under Bolsonaro, occupy ministries and give them parliamentary support. The gathering of enemies reinforces the idea of ​​collusion, which reinforces polarization itself and legitimizes outsiders, as discussed here.

Lula’s “embarrassed ministry” — marked by ministers’ inaugurations behind closed doors — is a symbol that society rejects him.

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