Newsflash: another most excellent election result

Venezuelan voters just nixed constitutional reform.  This is good news.   

I have another point, though, which is that people should keep in mind that Chávez has maintained a scrupulous dedication to legality since coming to power.  I won't analyze why, but I will say that, and the fact that the man has not governed outside the law says good things about both his administration and the country.

Yeah, I said "administration," not "regime."  If the referendum had gone the other way, I might have chosen differently.  But it didn't.  And like I said, that's good news. 

Comments

[Carlos]

I have a question that's still ill-formed about referendums, populism, Venezuela, and the world's fifth-largest economy.

Actually, I'm asking if you can help me ask the right question.

[Will Baird]

Fifth largest economy, Carlos?

[King-Walters]

California?

[Carlos]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29842

My confusion comes from this: I think referendums are a great idea, but I don't trust them at all. Four possible opinions (great/suck; trust/distrust) and of course I have the weirdie. So I'm wondering what the empirical evidence is, vis-a-vis referendums, policy, and legitimacy.

[Noel Maurer]

In California, referendums have produced a form of budget sclerosis, since most state spending is now mandated. That used to be mitigated by a prohibition on deficit spending, but the muscleman (who, to be fair, has at times governed quite wisely) seems to have discovered a useful workaround on that.

What I'm not sure of is whether that result travels. There a lot of reasons to think that it might pertain only to California.

Another question would have to do with constitutional referenda. It seems a better case can be made for them than for everyday legislative ones, but it isn't clear to me how you would measure whether the resulting outcome is better or worse than the counterfactual. Do the governments of countries where the people vote on constitutional changes enjoy greater legitimacy? How would you know?

My gut feeling is that referendums on big issues (constitutional changes, big infrastructure projects, and the like) aren't bad, but using referendums to substitute for legislatures won't work out that well. The problem is that the first part of that gut feeling is based purely on emotion --- and the second part is based solely on the example of the Golden State.

The way I'd start to make progress on this, Carlos, is to ask you to two questions. Why do you like referenda? Why don't you trust them?

[Carlos]

It's because I believe in people's ability to make their own decisions, but I distrust populist political movements.

[Noel Maurer]

What's your definition of "populist"?

[James Angove]

Noel: if you look north of California, I think you'll find that the initiative systems in Oregon and Washington have a had very similar consequences to the one in California.

[Carlos]

Good question. Like Justice Stewart said about something else, I know it when I see it, but the judge and I might see the same things differently.

Here's a stab at my internal definition: a low information, resentment driven, mass movement. It might not satisfy a political scientist's sense of rigor.

[Noel Maurer]

That's a reasonable working definition.

That said, most California referendum movements do not satisfy those criteria, and those that come closest tend to fail. That even include the recall and Schwarzenegger's election campaign. People disliked Davis, and they were annoyed about the energy fiasco, but I presume that you mean "resentment" in the broader social sense.

In addition, note that the recent Venezuelan constitutional reform failed. I'm pretty sure that Chávez could have gotten his reforms through had the Venezuelan constitution contained American-style amendment provisions, whereas he could not get 50% + 1 of the vote.

It may be the case that referenda provide a check on the power of populist political movements, rather than serve as an enabler for them. That would, in fact, be consistent with the budget sclerosis in California (and possibly elsewhere in the Pacific northwest).