THE LACK OF DEMOCRACY CHALLENGE, PART III

 

The last two postings report the overall findings in Jonathan Rodden’s book, Why Cities Lose.[1]  That book claims that winner-take-all election arrangements – those that determine members of representative bodies (in national or regional legislatures, congresses, parliaments) – allow overrepresentation of conservative/rural areas at the expense of liberal/urban areas.  That structural element reflects a derived British bias since Britain and her former colonies, such as the US, all share that feature in how they select their representatives.

          So, while the US has the added element of gerrymandering, it does not stand alone in this form of inequality.  As a matter of fact, not only do those other nations not have gerrymandering, their districts are not drawn by elected officials as they are in the US.  Instead, they are drawn by independent commissions purposely established to make district boundaries neutral and avoid any imbalances within the resulting legislative bodies.  They have not succeeded in that aim.

One can form that judgement by reviewing election results.  For example, ideally, if the population is 60% urban, then representation of those urban centers should make up 60% of the representatives.  The previous postings share with the reader data that indicates that is not the case in “Anglo” jurisdictions, at least those jurisdictions at the national (and in the US, at the state) levels.  And in each case, it is the urban areas that are shortchanged. 

In turn, that gives conservative policy makers a meaningful advantage and this advantage, mathematically, has been a standard feature in the US since the New Deal.  Initially, those results were hidden but they have come out of incubation since the onset of the 1990s.  A little history will help explain how this imbalance developed.

The New Deal policies of the ’30s did encourage a strong population shift toward the urban areas.  But initially, since the popularity and application of New Deal programs stretched across the country, the policy differences between urban and rural areas were greatly subdued.[2]  But by 1960, this effect had significantly run its course. 

Yet, starting in the 1960s, local Democratic pols were sophisticated enough to know they had to change their messaging.  They drew away from the leftist positions of the national party and, with more conservative positions, were able to compete with conservative opponents.  These conservative Democrats, under such titles as “boll weevils” or “blue dogs,” won their share of elections beating Republican candidates.  They did this by creating distance between their espoused positions on most issues and those of the Democratic presidential candidates.

But Democratic candidates that maintained an allegiance to national, liberal platforms and presidential candidates catered to urban constituents, i.e., industrial workers, migrants from rural areas, and immigrants from other nations.  In turn, those areas, geographically, trace their roots to nineteenth century industrial (and now postindustrial) economic developments. 

One can physically see that evolution by looking at where railroad lines were laid since the main customers of those trains were industrial producers.  They needed to have access to their resource supplier and, in turn, to their customers who were located more and more in urban centers.  Previously, this blog mentions that by the time of the Civil War, most lines stretched east to west and linked the larger cities such as New York, Cleveland, and Chicago.[3]  

Labor unions were instrumental in how all this took shape in terms of the resulting politics.  At first, there was a bias toward socialist parties (see WWW and the candidacy of Eugene V. Debs) but eventually shifted to the Democratic Party.  By 1940, the large cities became the bedrock of the Democratic support and that arrangement still exists today.  But before one accepts this linear progression, as with much of reality, there is a hitch.

And that hitch has to do with civil rights.  Part of the Democratic coalition of old, as a product of that party’s association with Southerners and the slave economy,[4] was the “Solid South” contingency.  That alliance survived through World War II but with the Truman administration (with the desegregation of the armed forces) and the advancements in equalizing the conditions of African Americans with the passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s, Southern Democrats became Southern Republicans.  Once established, the Democratic Party became the undiluted urban/labor party of the US – constituting its current public image.

So, what does that public image mean in terms of policy positions?  Well, in total, the party now funnels all those positions that make up the left side of the divide.  Yes, that includes labor interests and civil rights but it also includes environmental advocacy, pro-choice abortion rights, gender equity, and more liberal immigration policies.  The party is the more secular party in terms of governmental approach to religion while its rhetoric does not abandon the religious ties its individual members claim.

While diverse and by necessity compromising among its various voices, the party does have its boundaries.  And part of this exclusive element is its unwillingness to bend further to accommodate those Southerners or other constituents who are not willing to sign onto its liberal agenda. 

The “Republican-ation” of disposed workers demonstrates how true one needs to be to be included into the Democratic Party; that is, swim along or become a Republican seems to be the message.  In the process one is hard pressed to find a non-urban, elected Democratic office holder.[5] 

Yet, due to further complicated developments, the Democratic side includes higher educated urban dwellers.  They support the global economy and at times find their position being counter to the needs of labor workers.  And what this points out is that the left of center coalition is not only diverse but highly complicated.  The party is striving to become more congruent within its ranks and to win general elections, it needs to find the ways by which to smooth out the rough edges between and among its various constituencies. 

This story, according to Rodden’s research, has more wrinkles to it, but the above gives a civics teacher a starting point by which to grapple with this side of the polarized divide.  He gives his readers an extensive description of how this end of the polarized arena developed, how urban underrepresentation is currently shaping the politics of the nation, and how the resulting polarization is detrimental to the health of the overall polity.

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[1] Jonathan Rodden, Why Cities Lose:  The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide (New York, NY:  Basic Books, 2019).

[2] Such programs as rural electrification helped in this liberal trend among agricultural areas of the country.

[3] Ted Widmer, Lincoln on the Verge (New York, NY:  Simon and Schuster).

[4] A tradition that stems back to the party’s origins and even earlier – that is all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and solidified under Andrew Jackson.

[5] One notable exception is Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  His record shows pro conservative positions in terms of budget restraint and gun rights.  But he does seem to hold a liberal bent when it comes to socially compassionate policy positions.

THE LACK OF DEMOCRACY CHALLENGE, PART II

 

Citing the work of Jonathan Rodden,[1]the last posting begins sharing what that political scientist reports on the undemocratic nature of American governance.  Using the standard, “one man/woman, one vote,” the US Constitution provides certain provisions that defy that standard.  For example, the fact that each state has equal representation in the US Senate illustrates these counter democratic provisions.  In that body, the 600,000 citizens of Wyoming with the 40 million citizens of California have equal voice.[2]

          Now, the aim in that posting was not to share anything new with civics teachers.  They already know about these inequities.  In addition, any news-watching citizen surely has heard from time to time references to this and other undemocratic aspects of the American governmental arrangement.  That posting’s aim is to set the stage for what is to follow. 

This posting, for example, focuses on another provision which adds to this less than ideal democratic processes; that is, how the system draws representative districts and the utilization of gerrymandering.  But as one investigates gerrymandering, one finds that that provision is not so central in denying democratic equality.  While gerrymandering does have an effect, when one compares the US system to others, one sees that another quality plays a more determinate role in creating the undemocratic results. 

Rodden claims that there are various practices that nonurban forces (mostly rural, conservative area factions) use to deprive urban areas equal representation and further indicates that the role of location is central to this overall condition.  This can get a bit complex and the best way to appreciate these less than democratic practices is to compare the US system to that of European systems.

There the common approach in choosing representatives is for the representative districts to be large and to have multiple representatives be elected for each district.  That means, the system is not a winner-take-all approach.  Also, the various parties are represented in such a way that their numbers reflect their share of the vote within each district. 

The way that system arranges representation, therefore, guarantees that a party will be given that number of seats reflecting how well it did on election day.  And to keep the number of representatives to a reasonable number, the districts are much larger than most districts in the United States, especially those in US states with sizable urban areas.

          Here, in the US, there is a “majoritarian” system in which districts are smaller and a single winner wins a single seat.  If one party has most of its voters concentrated – “bunched” – geographically, such as Democrats do in mostly urban areas, many of those votes are “wasted.”  They are wasted even if the districts are not gerrymandered.  As soon as the system has a winner-take-all set up in small geographic districts, a party that has its supports so bunched will be underrepresented compared to its opponent.

To understand this system and how it has become so undemocratic, one needs to look historically at its development.  Given Rodden’s analysis, there seems to have been a qualitative shift (reflected in quantitative election results) with the advent of the New Deal under the Franklin Roosevelt administration.  For example, Woodrow Wilson’s victory in 1916 showed no difference between urban and rural support that Wilson was able to garner.  Yet, by 1960, Kennedy’s victory was strongly aligned with urban vote totals.  That bias reached extreme levels with Hillary Clinton’s vote and her support in urban counties vs. rural counties in 2016.

This well-entrenched urban bias is noted not just in vibrant, new information-based economic centers (e.g., Seattle), but in both postindustrial cities (e.g., Detroit) and medium-sized cities (e.g., Reading, PA).  Of importance here is that while some cities are losing populations (such as in postindustrial cities), across the board, cities are gaining population which is further intensifying the underrepresentation of these peoples’ political views.

So, these disparities have become an integral aspect of the polarized political landscape.  In terms of having legitimate political sentiments being adequately represented in policy-making bodies, this underrepresentation of urban interests promises to further destabilize the politics of this nation.  As things stand, as a glaring consequence from Republicans’ overrepresentation, it gives shape to the volatile urban-rural sectionalism, a growing aspect of contemporary politics.

But when one compares the US system to other democracies, this gerrymandering attribute is limited to the American system.  But that is not to say that an urban-rural divide only characterizes the US.  Countries derived of British colonization and Britain itself all have single-representative systems.  That is, they have winner-take-all districts. 

The other “Anglo” nations also have marked underrepresentation of urban areas as compared to their rural counterparts.  In addition, one can find that labor or progressive parties are associated with urban interests and as in the US, their elections pit more cosmopolitan and postindustrial city interests against traditional rural sentiments.  And even without gerrymandering practices, their vote results and resulting representative allocations resemble that of the US.

To support this, Rodden points out that British parliamentary elections since 1950 show that the Conservative Party (the right of center party) received 41% of the vote while the Labour Party (the left of center party) received nearly 40%; one can judge this as fairly close results.  Yet, Conservative rule garnered 63% of the representative seats during that time (1950-2017). 

In the more recent years, due to the way its support is geographically distributed, it, the Conservative Party, has been in the position to form governments while only accruing 37% of the vote.  And given the relative power that parliamentary systems give the controlling party – they do not have the level of dispersed powers that federal systems have – one can see how undemocratic that stretch has been.  Similar results are found in other Anglo nations such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

None of these Anglo systems have gerrymandered districts.  Again, as in the US, Rodden attributes these results to geographic factors.  As with Democrats in America, the leftist parties abroad, while putting together policy positions that appeal to urban voters, find it difficult to package those messages that appeal to either suburban or rural voters. 

Consequently, they win big within city limits, but fall woefully short in the other areas of their respective nations.  As with the US, left of center parties find it excessively challenging to become sufficiently unified – remember, this blog has argued that the Democratic Party in the US is much more diverse than the Republican Party.  And that diverseness expresses itself here in the US and in other Anglo nations as suffering from ongoing tensions over various issues in which urban voices tend to be ideological and suburban voices are more pragmatic.[3]

These divides can and are becoming quite complex.  For example, there is a growing tension between rising “global” cities and declining postindustrial cities.  This latter strain is further fueled in multiparty systems in the other Anglo nations where the left of center factions find themselves drifting further apart. 

In that sense, polarization in the US might be precluding that from happening here due to the “Schattschneider” effect, previously explained in this blog.  That is, Democrats can’t afford to split on this or any issue of substance and still be competitive with the right of center party.[4]  But this could be an “incubating” problem that might explode if the current polarized arena is resolved.

That is, Democrats, in a more normal political environment, might find themselves openly fighting over policy:  summarily, should it assist the furtherance of global economic activity or should it revert to representing the more traditional manufacturing workers?  Pragmatist control the former; ideologues control the latter. 

Currently, this is no small issue since many “blue collar,” unemployed workers have been drifting to the Republican ranks as that party has opted to issue identity-based messaging described in previous postings.  In other Anglo countries, this divide might be preceding the splitting of Labour type parties and the emergence of newer, further leftist, ideological parties.

So, in short, this underrepresentation of left of center coalitions seems to be a feature of winner-take-all set ups whether they have gerrymandering practices or not.  This summary judgement is made by looking not only at the American scene but at all such systems that coincide with the “British” derived governmental arrangements.  And that underrepresentation mostly falls to the detriment of advancing urban interests, be they interests reflecting the new information-based economy or the older manufacturing economy. 

Obviously, the question begged in all of this is:  should these Anglo systems adopt the multi-representation district system employed in European democracies?  And if they do, will they become more truly democratic?  A lot of that analysis depends on definitions and how one sees one’s interests.  It seems to this writer that one needs be on guard against simplistic views to attain democratic solutions to the above concerns.  This blog will continue this review in the next posting.

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[1] Jonathan Rodden, Why Cities Lose:  The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide (New York, NY:  Basic Books, 2019).

[2] Stated another way, just in regard to this factor, a Wyoming voter has seventy times the representative strength than a California voter.

[3] The urban ideological disposition tends to be more affected by critical theory, a current form of Marxian thought.  The suburban voice tends to be more open to global, information economic forces and lean toward practical solutions that are conducive to global developments.

[4] Leading into the 2020 national election, the Democrats are exhibiting this condition in that the spectrum of its varied political positioning has been set aside in a fairly unified support for the party’s presidential candidate, the moderate Joe Biden.