Institutions as trade-offs between competing values

Proportional voting fairly faithfully restores the diversity of preferences, at the price of fragmented assemblies where forming a majority requires long compromises. Majority voting produces clear majorities, at the price of a distortion between votes obtained and seats allocated.

Neither is a technical error to be corrected. They decide differently a real conflict between two legitimate requirements, the faithfulness of representation and the capacity to decide. The choice of a voting system is therefore a choice of values disguised as a question of procedure.

One detail changes a great deal: in a proportional system, compromise is negotiated after the vote, between parties; in a majority system, it is made before, within the large parties. Compromise never disappears, it merely changes place and visibility.

A second chamber, constitutional review, examination periods, qualified majorities: each of these mechanisms slows the decision and makes it harder to undo what has been done. That is precisely their function, which protects minorities and the stability of the law.

The same mechanism turns around according to the position one occupies. It protects when one is in the minority and blocks when one is in the majority, which explains why judgements about checks and balances so often vary in the same people across alternations. It is not hypocrisy, it is the predictable consequence of an arrangement with asymmetrical effects.

The arrangements for designating oversight bodies constitute a trade-off in their own right. Appointment by political authorities ensures indirect legitimacy but exposes one to the suspicion of proximity; designation by peers ensures independence but moves away from the vote.

No solution escapes the dilemma. That is why reforms most often bear on secondary safeguards, such as the length of terms, their non-renewability, or the obligation of a public opinion before appointment.

The length of terms, their simultaneity, the possibility or otherwise of dissolution, decide the rhythm of political life. Aligned terms favour coherence of action; staggered terms multiply the occasions for sanction.

In France, aligning the presidential term with that of the deputies reduced the probability of cohabitation, and therefore of deadlock, while at the same time reducing the occasions for correction along the way. It is an explicit trade-off, often wrongly presented as a technical simplification.

For each rule, three neutral questions can be put: what conflict of values does this rule decide, in which direction, and who can challenge it if it produces a bad result? These three questions make it possible to discuss institutions without discussing the people who occupy them.

They also show that institutional preferences are part of political convictions, alongside preferences about substance. Two people who want the same policy may disagree about the way it is legitimate to obtain it, and that disagreement is rarely measured.