On party discipline (1)

With the rise of tight-knit, centrally controlled political parties, the Westminster model of government has turned into something approaching an "elective dictatorship". There is no longer an effective legislative check on the executive. An independent legislature still exists, on the other hand, under the American constitution, where party discipline is not so overpowering. Is there any way of restoring a strong legislature under the Westminster model, short of abandoning cabinet government in favour of the presidential form, or some even more radical change?

By a more radical change here I am thinking of the possibility of taking steps designed to do away with party discipline entirely. One such measure, for example, would be to replace the elected representative assembly with a randomly selected jury of citizens voting by secret ballot; such jurors would not find themselves unwillingly under party discipline. On the other hand, the inherent lack of continuity of the membership of such an institution, as well as the absence of organization resulting from the weakening of parties, would presumably mean that it would be likely neither to be very competent, nor active in the preservation of its own rights. A citizen jury might be preferable to no independent legislature at all (as would, at an even lower level, legislation by a series of referenda); but this is not saying much.

To approach the question of reform within the terms of the parliamentary system, we might ask which kinds of party discipline are legitimate, and which are not. To answer this question may be more difficult than one would expect. For example, at one extreme one might assert that representatives should be entirely free to vote according to their conscience, without pressure or incentives from their constituents or other political agents. One would then be relying on some inherent coincidence of interests between the representatives and the people they were supposed to be representing (as would be found, notably, under a system of statistically representative political juries). If this seemed too radical or undemocratic, one could offer a modified answer: representatives should be subject to political pressure, or more precisely to offers of career rewards or threats of career penalties, solely from their constituents. Under this principle the representatives could still be permitted to bargain among themselves, offering their voting support on one issue in return for support on another. Thus, more or less fluid coalitions or parties of representatives might still exist; they would merely be unable to threaten the seats of their members, or offer them higher positions, such as cabinet places. They would be political "trading" organizations, rather than instruments of personal intimidation or bribery. The American form of legislature seems to approximate this picture.

Even this requirement is unnecessarily restrictive, however, if our main concern is the effectiveness of the legislature as a check on the government. There is then no objection, in principle, to parties in the legislature which do exercise personal pressure on their members (as shown schematically in the diagram—which also assumes that the executive cabinet is responsible to the legislator MPs, as in the parliamentary system). The independence of the legislature as a whole, vis à vis the executive, is not compromised by such horizontal pressure. Why would one want to permit any pressure of this kind? One reason might be that it could weld a majority of the legislators into a more cohesive unit: a corporate body, rather than merely a convention of ambassadors from the constituencies. Each member of such an institution would be subject to pressures from both his own constituents and the representatives of all other constituencies. This indirect pressure from the other constituencies should make him to some extent representative of the national interest as a whole, not just the parochial interest of his particular constituency. In principle, such a shared interest should tend to elevate the moral level of the legislature. It should ameliorate the conflict that a public-minded representative would otherwise experience between his obligation to serve the general good and the good of his own constituents—a conflict that is in evidence, for example, in Burke's famous Speech to the Electors of Bristol.

Furthermore, under a parliamentary system, someone must choose the cabinet (and shadow cabinet) ministers from among the MPs. If the MPs were to allocate cabinet positions among their peers, this would be a form of "horizontal" incentive, and thus in principle an acceptable one.

Under the contemporary Westminster-type system, with its tight-knit political parties dominated by autocratic leaders, the situation is quite different (as represented in the second diagram). The typical MP is reportedly motivated, once he is able to retain his seat, by the desire to win a seat in cabinet. The allocation of cabinet or shadow cabinet positions is, however, in the hands of the party leader. The career-minded MP is thereby ordinarily required to support the party leader. This is a vertical form of pressure, in contrast to the more legitimate horizontal form. There remains an obligation to the local constituents, as well; but in many cases the constituents will have decided that their MP's role is to support the party leader under the banner of whom he won the constituents' vote. Thus, the threat of rejection by the MP's constituents will tend to reinforce his dependence on his party leader. This process of erosion of the distinction of the MP's political identity from that of his party leader is a vicious circle. As voters look to the party leader as their main representative, independent action by the MPs comes to be seen as illegitimate, which in turn reinforces the MP's political dependence on the party leader. Once the party leaders are the sole acknowledged representatives, there is no check on executive power, other than the prospect of the next popular election of the executive; one has an elective dictatorship.