Why Not Parliamentarism?--Review and Rejoinder

My latest Hornbook Review at 3:16 AM is of Tiago Santos' excellent book on parliamentarism and can be found HERE. While we agree on the main issues, I did find a couple of things to complain about in Tiago's work (when do I ever not?), so I thought it would be nice to give the author an opportunity to respond here at luckorcunning. I'm grateful that he did generously provide the following remarks:

It is probably petty of me to write a rejoinder for such a flattering review, but anyway, here we are. It is clear that Horn and I agree on a fundamental level on the majority of issues. Still, I would like to address the two paragraphs where there is some disagreement and try to clarify my views. Setting aside that I am not sure I would endorse democracy if it were consistently associated with terrible outcomes, I would point out that the parliamentary type of democracy is exactly the one most prone to bringing about “what the people there want”. My point is that whatever justification you think is most important for a form of government, whether achieving good outcomes, or achieving what people want, parliamentary democracy is superior to presidential democracy.

I also do not think the book the book has an epistocratic tinge. I admit I do agree with Jason Brennan that the quality of votes can matter significantly. However, I don’t think an epistocratic form of government could be implemented in any practical way. One reason is that those qualities are distributed normally, so that any cutoff point would seem arbitrary. A second is that any such proposal, even if theoretically sound, would face insurmountable political challenges. However, the main point is that neither Caplan’s nor (Geoffrey) Brennan and Hamlin’s analysis of voting, which are the ones my book relies on, depend on there being any kind of difference in rationality among voters for the undesirable results (both from an outcome point of view as well as from a “what voters actually want” view) to come about. In fact, Both Caplan, as well as Brennan and Hamlin assume rationality.

And this does matter for the parliamentary-presidential debate. In elections for president, it is much easier for a candidate to choose a few salient issues (while ignoring the vast number of other problems a country may have) and run their campaign on those issues alone, making the presidential elections close to a plebiscite on them. Smart candidates with little concern to the actual consequences of their promises will pick exactly those kinds of issues which will gather expressive support. Candidates in parliamentary systems, however, will much more often depend on a well-organized party, which will not have the luxury of ignoring the consequences.

All in all, the fact that both a critic of epistocracy such as Walter Horn as well as a proponent of it as Jason Brennan have endorsed parliamentarism* over presidentialism appears to show the robustness of parliamentarism (or, conversely, the fragility of presidentialism).

*As readers of my book will have noted, Jason Brennan was very kind to have written a blurb for the book. In a terrible lapse, I failed to thank him in the acknowledgment section. So I hope I can use this opportunity to very belatedly thank him (and Horn, of course) for the words.

--Tiago Santos