How America
Chooses its Leaders: What Brazilians Need to Know
"American democracy shows the
enormous capacity of institutions to absorb and filter change in society
without resulting in challenges to the law. … It's the force and vitality of
American democratic institutions - and not its economy - that the election
campaign brings to the fore of the international debate."
The electoral
campaign in the United States raises a question that warrants several answers,
all of them valid. Why do American elections stir up so much emotion with
people here and in the other three corners of the world?
Two unprecedented
changes draw the attention of the observer. First of all, the interest is
global, entails strong emotion and is generally viewed positively. Therefore,
the many forms of anti-Americanism that the Iraq War has exacerbated have been
turned inside out. On the other hand, similarities among the various forms of
“anti-Americanism” in different regions and nations show the unprecedented
nature of the campaign. Reactions vary not only depending on the ideology and
interests of those doing the talking, but also from where they are from. If one
examines reactions to the campaign systematically rather than from a single
angle, one is better able to understand the prevailing reaction [to the U.S.
election], “on this inconsequential side of the world,” as [Argentine writer]
Jorge Luis Borges would put it . In this regard,
two questions arise. What does this electoral cycle reveal about the quality of
American representative democracy? And what reflections does it inspire about
the quality of our own?
ELECTION FUN: MAKE MCCAIN
EXCITING - MADONNA
American
democracy shows the enormous capacity of institutions to absorb and filter
change in society without resulting challenges to the law. The dispute in the
Democratic Party between “a woman” and “a Black,” leads to an institutional
question: Why and by what mechanisms were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
chosen as the most competitive electoral candidates? The same question can be
posed about the nomination of John McCain since it also reflects a shift in the
value system of the Republican Party on immigration, the environment and
secularism. Taken together, this is a "change in season" in the
sphere of politics and reflects a profound transformation in that society's system
of values and criteria for political legitimacy. The international impact of
this will be significant because the United States is still a dominant player
and because we live in the information age.
Societies today
are exposed to global processes of political interaction and a dissemination of
values over which nations and party leaders have little control. Apart from
changes in the axis of global power and the role of the major emerging
countries, it is the force and vitality of American democratic institutions -
and not its economy - that the election campaign brings to the fore of the
international debate. Confronting the successive “shocks of reality” to which
U.S. society has been subject - from the losses associated with the war in Iraq
to the subprime crisis - the process of regenerating
American social life has begun in the political realm rather than through any
particular policies. This will now play out in the contest between Obama vs.
McCain.
The rise to the
top of the most electorally-competitive candidates
occurred thanks to their continuous exposure to the scrutiny of public opinion,
the media and party leaders over the course of a year. They have had to pass
through successive tests of stress that the primary system subjects the ideas and
organizational capacity of candidates and their advisers. If society’s message
was heard by the political and economic elite, it's because the institutions
were driven by two processes that constitute the engines of democracy:
participation and competition.
ELECTION FUN: MAKE MCCAIN
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PARADY OF THE MOVIE 'A CLOCKWORK
ORANGE'
But institutions
cannot be transplanted. The primaries alone wouldn't constitute an effective
system for sifting through candidates without the grounding that American civic
culture provides them. There is however a parallel between the self-reinvention
inherent in representative democracy and the cumulative erosion of our
[Brazilian] democracy. We are now celebrating 25 years of the “citizen
Constitution.” Despite the precariousness of our situation in terms of economic
governance, we have consolidated social, legal and political achievements that
were a response to changes in the system of values and criteria for political
legitimacy in our society.
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Hence talk of the
1980s as a “lost decade” is economic reductionism [a gross
oversimplification]. The specific difference of our experience is that in
the midst of a great economic crisis and despite mega-inflation, the forces
capable of making constructive policy were forced to respond to the pressure of
independent social movements hostile to our traditional conservative
leadership, and directed toward greater cooperation and social regulation by
the State. Two of these forces were: the “new unionism” (of President Lula ) and movements in
the health sector, which shaped the design and content of the relevant social
policies that were written into the Constitution. Today, by contrast, it is the
attempt by the State to absorb these political, social and organized interests
that is accelerating the erosion of our representative system.
ELECTION FUN: MAKE MCCAIN
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One can observe
this on several fronts. One: the exacerbation of the dominance of the
Executive, through a coalition government in the legislature, cemented by
access to State appointments, the price of which is a self-appointed political
class which has turned its back on society. Second: the incorporation of
organized interests into the State, which is the quintessence of a corporate
inheritance. This is observable in the absence of accountability for labor
unions and the MST [Landless Workers Movement], as well as the politicalization of State regulatory agencies which allows
for the integration of business interests into the State that are convenient to
the government, all of which comes at a high social cost. Third and most
symptomatic: the precarious relationship between the law and the Constitution,
which is repeatedly challenged by lawmakers in Congress and in speeches from
the president.
*Peter Katzenstein and Robert Keohan are
the authors of Anti-Americanisms in World Politics. Lourdes Sola, Ph.D. in
Political Science from Oxford, senior professor at USP,
political consultant for MB Associados and president
of the International Political Science Association.
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