A Rochester team introduces the idea of 糖心传媒榙emocracy by deterrence糖心传媒櫶切拇綌and shows why it might be weakening in the United States.
American democracy is in crisis糖心传媒攁 majority of scholars and the public agree. Allegations of unfair voting practices, such as voter suppression and gerrymandering, abuses of executive power, and mounting concerns about the legitimacy of elections have become regular occurrence in the United States, rather than isolated events.
If we accept the premise that politicians and political parties generally want to stay in power, then why would they ever听蹿辞谤驳辞听dirty tricks to win elections? The answer may simply boil down to this: fear of revenge.
Worries over retaliation by the opposition party can deter the incumbent party from using antidemocratic tactics to win, argue a team of political scientists糖心传媒攖he and , and their former colleague , now at the . But, they warn, under certain conditions this natural 糖心传媒渄emocratic deterrence糖心传媒� may break down.
In their recent paper, ,糖心传媒� published in the , the team argues that a self-enforcing democracy requires political parties to refrain from exploiting legal opportunities to tilt electoral rules: informal norms of mutual restraint and formal constitutional rules are fundamentally intertwined into a 糖心传媒渓ogic of deterrence.糖心传媒�
糖心传媒淏y circumscribing how far each party can legally bend the rules, these legal bounds create reversion points if mutual forbearance or restraint糖心传媒攊f you will糖心传媒攃ollapses,糖心传媒� says Helmke, a professor of political science and one of the cofounders of听, a non-profit watchdog organization of leading political scientists who monitor US democratic practices from a comparative perspective.听
What is 糖心传媒榙emocracy by deterrence糖心传媒�?
The phrase conveys the idea of a dreaded 糖心传媒渢it-for-tat糖心传媒� spiral. Republicans, for example, might forgo using antidemocratic tactics where they disenfranchise Democratic-leaning groups of voters, to avoid a scenario in which Democrats respond by disenfranchising some Republican-leaning voter groups. The team outlines three key factors for understanding the principle of democracy by deterrence in the US: scope, asymmetric听legal bounds, and partisan sorting.
- Scope. The US has well-established norms of adhering to judicial interpretations of a written constitution, which means a military coup or the refusal to hold scheduled elections is near inconceivable. Yet, despite hard legal bounds听in the Constitution, there糖心传媒檚 still considerable legal scope to tilt the electoral playing field. Unlike most developed democracies, the US has no national elections commission, and state politicians have considerable leeway to determine who can vote, and to draw boundaries for congressional districts in ways that give their own party an advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering.
- Asymmetric legal bounds. Limits on legally permissible actions don糖心传媒檛 necessarily affect both parties equally糖心传媒攐ne side might enjoy more scope to bend the rules than the other, which can cause democratic deterrence to fail because the party with the advantage is less fearful of punishment by the other side.
- Partisan sorting.听Implicitly, the US Constitution favors some groups over others. Despite various federal amendments that have expanded voting rights, the scope of voting rights has narrowed for some groups through practices such as excluding former felons, requiring photo identification to cast a ballot, and the purging of voter rolls. While all of these tactics are legally viable, they are empirically tied to race, the political scientists note. Black and Hispanic voters in particular, they argue, face greater hurdles than white voters when politicians impose restrictions along these dimensions.
Says Kroeger: 糖心传媒淚f race is highly correlated with party identification or high partisan sorting糖心传媒攖he party that disproportionately receives more support from white voters enjoys greater legal scope to disenfranchise supporters of the opposing party. In the US right now, that糖心传媒檚 the Republican Party.糖心传媒� Conversely, she adds, 糖心传媒渋f race were not highly correlated with partisan support, the Republican Party would perceive fewer gains from using these tactics, which ultimately would make 糖心传媒榙emocracy by deterrence糖心传媒� more effective.糖心传媒�
How 糖心传媒榙emocracy by deterrence糖心传媒� breaks down
As part of their formal model of 糖心传媒渄emocracy by deterrence糖心传媒� the team stipulates that:
- if legal bounds are symmetric between parties, they deter electoral rule bending by making each party糖心传媒檚 threat to punish transgressions by the other likely.
- if legal bounds become sufficiently asymmetric, however, the foundations for restraint crumble. Asymmetries emerge when some groups (a) are more vulnerable than others to legally permissible electoral distortions and (b) groups that are more vulnerable vote overwhelmingly for one party over the other.
The Constitution, of course, was not written with parties in mind. But according to Helmke some features of the constitutional order give disproportionate weight to some citizens, which then translates into an advantage for parties: 糖心传媒淚f the rules make it easier to gerrymander urban districts as opposed to rural districts and Democratic voters tend to live in urban districts while Republicans tend to live in rural districts, then the constitutional order ends up giving the GOP an advantage when it comes to gerrymandering, even if both parties want to engage in the practice.糖心传媒�
The political scientists focus specifically on gerrymandering and voting rights/voter suppression in the post-Civil Rights era. The fact that seat allocation is not based proportionally on the percentage of votes that each party receives tends to favor the fewer rural voters (largely Republican) over the larger number of urban voters (largely Democratic), resulting in strong asymmetry. While voting districts must be equally sized, be contiguous (without gaps between members of the same district), and not be artificially dispersed, there is no requirement that the percentage of seats held by each party in a state must correspond to the percentage of votes that each party receives.
The team notes that the lack of proportional representation makes it easier for Republican politicians to concentrate large numbers of Democratic voters into a small number of districts that are almost entirely Democratic. As with voter suppression, there is a failure of deterrence; Republicans can pursue this strategy with impunity, and Democrats are largely powerless to retaliate, they write.
糖心传媒淕errymandering and vote suppression are two key areas of contemporary American electoral politics that really threaten our fundamental principles of democratic representation,糖心传媒� says Paine, an associate professor of political science whose research focuses on authoritarian politics.
糖心传媒淎nother troubling development,糖心传媒� Paine adds, 糖心传媒渋s that these asymmetries are now affecting another sacred democratic principle糖心传媒攃onceding electoral loss. Republicans increasingly seem inclined to use their advantage in statehouses to gain leverage over vote counting in the 2024 election.糖心传媒� This practice can undermine the public糖心传媒檚 trust in fair elections糖心传媒攁 necessary hallmark of a stable democracy.
What can be done to prevent antidemocratic rule bending?听
Reducing the legal scope for antidemocratic tilting and fixing asymmetries in the US Constitution is difficult. According to the team, the hurdles for passing federal amendments are high, and the current Supreme Court majority has consistently chosen not to intervene on charges of voting rights or fair districting violations.
糖心传媒淏ut we cannot begin to understand the maladies in contemporary US politics without understanding how deterrence can uphold democracy, and why deterrence is failing in many facets of American politics,糖心传媒� warns Helmke.
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