The European Dream, by Jeremy Rifkin, has been getting positive reviews around the place, along with Timothy Garton Ash's Free World. Garton Ash is one of the highlights of each week's Guardian Weekly.
The most interesting thing about the Newsweek article was its argument that new democracies are adopting parliamentary, rather than presidential, governments. Here's the interesting part. The author regards America as having a presidential style of government, and writes:
Once upon a time, the U.S. Constitution was a revolutionary document, full of epochal innovations—free elections, judicial review, checks and balances, federalism and, perhaps most important, a Bill of Rights. In the 19th and 20th centuries, countries around the world copied the document, not least in Latin America. So did Germany and Japan after World War II. Today? When nations write a new constitution, as dozens have in the past two decades, they seldom look to the American model.When the soviets withdrew from Central Europe, U.S. constitutional experts rushed in. They got a polite hearing, and were sent home. Jiri Pehe, adviser to former president Vaclav Havel, recalls the Czechs' firm decision to adopt a European-style parliamentary system .... After American planes and bombs freed the country, Kosovo opted for a European constitution. Drafting a post-apartheid constitution, South Africa rejected American-style federalism in favor of a German model, which leaders deemed appropriate for the social-welfare state they hoped to construct.
This mixes up a lot of variables, but here's the thing. The American system was originally designed to guard against any one element being too strong. Since FDR, however, the Presidency has become much stronger. Add to this, the recent rise in partisan discipline in the House and Senate (especially on the Republican side), and you have a system that is not quite working the way it was meant to.
Moreover, you could still be inspired by the Bill of Rights and yet still choose a parliamentary system. It's also kinda odd to read that "South Africans rejected American-style federalism in favor of a German model," when the last time I looked Germany was itself a federal system. There's no conflict between federalism and the welfare state, as anyone who has traveled to Canada, Germany or Australia in the last sixty years will know. Not to mention (here's the kicker) that South Africa is a federal system, too.
Federalism in this context is a misnomer. Many large (population or area) countries have some form of federalism. It's possible to overlay that with a parliamentary or presidential system of government at the national level.
The most distinctive aspect of American government is not any one element -- such as the powerful Presidency, the federal division of powers, or the byzantine local government divisions -- but their combination. Taking some element of this mix out of context and proclaiming it distinctively American is like trying to unbake a cake.
Posted by robe0419 at January 24, 2005 6:36 PM