Sunday, August 26, 2007

Analyzing term limits

Miguel links to an article he wrote about eliminating term limits, focusing especially on Bolivia. Although I don’t agree with everything in his analysis, it puts the issue in more analytic perspective. The debate has been almost entirely hot air and largely accusatory, with Chávez supporters touting the proposed change as truly democratic and Chávez opponents saying it is about dictatorship. Both see their arguments as self-evident.

I’ve blogged before about how we should look at the type of term limit change as well as the means of achieving them. But there are other issues as well. In no particular order:

--Chávez supporters rightly point to France, which has no term limits. We need to ask why that has not produced abuse there. In general, Chávez supporters label critics as hypocrites because they fail to address similar situations elsewhere (Uribe is a common example) and I think this is a legitimate criticism.

--We also need to analyze the effects of indefinite election elsewhere. When does it increase corruption, abuse of opponents, etc.? What is the political context within which abuses emerge? There must be studies of this somewhere.

--Miguel rightly points out that incumbents have a huge advantage, and in the Venezuelan case Hugo Chávez has increased state control in a number of areas, and so with each election will have far more resources than any opponent. On the other hand, he also has won large majorities and clearly is popular. To what degree can we separate artificial advantage and real popularity?

--there is a large literature on term limits and legislatures, with regard to issues like accountability. To what degree can those insights be applied to presidents?

--A final important question, related to all of the above: under what circumstances does an incumbent president lose an election when there are no term limits? How does that context change when the president is seeking a second, third, fourth, etc. term?

12 comments:

Miguel Centellas 1:03 PM  

Thanks for the link/comment. I posted response to your comment over there, but a few point hers.

I think you're right to argue for a more analytical, empirical, and evidence-driven discussion of the issue. And I think you're right to suggest that some of the literature (a large body of literature in the US!) on term limits & reelections could be a place to start for hypothesis-constructing.

That said, there is literature on the US case and presidential reelection that suggests that presidents loose reelection bids when the economy is down (there other variables, of course, but this seems to be the biggest one). Carter & Bush 41 are examples. Perhaps the biggest determinant of Venezuela's political future is the price of oil? Chávez has enjoyed rising prices; and he came to power in 1998 (when the price hit a low point).

I suspect the biggest advantage Chávez has in reelection bids is that he controls the state's oil revenues, which he has used to fund programs that make him popular. He can do that w/o looking like he's "buying" votes, which is the accusation if a non-incumbent spent money on similar goals.

Greg Weeks 1:06 PM  

OK, but what I meant was what happens in systems w/o term limits, which is not the U.S.

Miguel Centellas 5:59 PM  

Could we extrapolate from congressional reelections in the US? Most states don't have term limits, so I was referring mostly to how Senate (and House) seats are often "captured" by an incumbent for decades.

Greg Weeks 9:15 AM  

That's a tough question. Some insights will definitely be relevant, but the political context, media attention, stakes, etc. are so different.

Miguel Centellas 9:49 AM  

And how necessary is it to use only presidents where no term limits exist? Couldn't a comparison between presidents who *can* run for reelection be insightful? It would tell us how many presidents fail to win reelection, and for what reasons. I think it would be interesting to use the US lit on presidential reelection as a guide, and use Latin American (and other region) cases to expand theoretical generalizations. Although, using evidence from US congressional elections, I would suspect that the longer a president is in office, the easier it is for him/her to win reelection. But that information could be put into the model.

Greg Weeks 3:26 PM  

Maybe we could get some good insights, but I still think it would be most useful to start with cases where there were no term limits but still competitive elections. But aside from France, I really don't know the cases.

Miguel Centellas 8:37 PM  

I really don't see why they have to be cases w/ unlimited reelection, since only France fits as an unquestionable liberal democracy (and Venezuela would be an iffy case).

I think we could take any sitting president that could be reelected, and then see which ones win, which ones lose, and under what conditions that happens. You could then simply introduce a variable to account for whether this was the first, second, third, ... attempt at reelection.

But I think just looking at whether presidents win or don't win reelection -- even if only the second time -- would tell us much.

Justin Delacour 8:44 PM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Justin Delacour 8:46 PM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Justin Delacour 8:47 PM  

Miguel rightly points out that incumbents have a huge advantage, and in the Venezuelan case Hugo Chávez has increased state control in a number of areas, and so with each election will have far more resources than any opponent.

Well, how exactly are you quantifying resources here? The only thing you're quantifying here appears to be the Chavez government's superior command of state resources. That says nothing of the distribution of private wealth and resources, which is well understood to be pivotal in the balance of political forces.

Who controls more radio stations in Venezuela, for example? The opposition.

Newspapers? The opposition.

Where do these factors come into your analysis?

Greg Weeks 7:52 AM  

Right now we're just talking about the best way to do such an analysis--we could incorporate hostile opposition media or other private resources. This comes back to my original question, though--what are the other cases where there are no presidential term limits? I've been really busy lately, so haven't looked into it, but it would be interesting to see whether other cases could shed any light on the Venezuelan debate.

Justin Delacour 12:05 PM  

I've been really busy lately, so haven't looked into it, but it would be interesting to see whether other cases could shed any light on the Venezuelan debate.

If you use a most similar systems design approach, omitted variables can become a serious problem. Suppose you were to say, ah, yes, France and Venezuela are comparable because they both lack term limits.

Well, the problem is that the distribution of political resources within society affect politics and may be completely distinct in the two cases. In other words, you're not necessarily dealing with most similar systems just because both have eliminated term limits.

Political scientists tend to have extreme difficulty dealing with the broader social context within which institutions operate and how that broader social context has its own independent effects upon political outcomes. In other words, institutions themselves are not the only variable to be studied. The socio-economic structure within which institutions operate is key.

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP