Perfectistan: How To Build The Perfect Country: Part 2 – Establishing The Government

If you have been following this blog series from the previous posts…I am attempting to build the “perfect” country. I am not actually constructing anything really, but merely combining the best that the world has to offer to “build” a perfect nation. Perfectistan, as I have so dubiously called this fictional land, will be made up of traits from the very best nation on each subject. I will attempt to use statistical analysis as well as studies published by people far more intelligent (and more well-funded). Those things, along with my own personal reasoning (which of course is subjective but necessary for this exercise), will help guide me to each conclusion.

PREVIOUS POSTS:

Perfectistan: How To Build The Perfect Country: Part 1 – An Introduction

WARNING!!!

Let me say again, that my purpose in this thought exercise is to not only find out what nation is the best at each of these things, but to then contrast that against the United States System, whose citizens hail as the “GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH”. My goal is to not simply establish the greatest country in each sector, but to also establish that America is NOT the greatest. Making you aware of this goal will allow me to express my ideas without fear that I will be accused of some underlying bias, because in fact it is not a bias but a central theme to this series.

But before we jump ahead of ourselves….

The first step in any nation-building process would be the creation (and of course ratification) of establishment papers, more commonly known as a “Constitution”. But of course….the process of this thought exercise is not to do any creating ourselves, but rather to find the best government in the world and claim it as our own.

The first question one might ask is….”How do we determine the best government in the world?”… Well thankfully this study has already been done for us. In 1996, The World Bank started what they called the “Worldwide Governance Indicators Project”.

As they describe on their website…..

The Worldwide Governance Indicators Project….

reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies over the period 1996–2011, for six dimensions of governance:

• Voice and Accountability
• Political Stability and Absence of Violence
• Government Effectiveness
• Regulatory Quality
• Rule of Law
• Control of Corruption

These aggregate indicators combine the views of a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. They are based on 30 individual data sources produced by a variety of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and private sector firms.

What exactly is governance you might ask?

The World Bank describes governance like this: Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.

So we have a baseline for how to measure (statistically) how well each country’s government is actually operating. But, you might ask….what exactly do these six categories have to do with government? Well….lets break down exactly what is taken into account for each of these categories.

(each of these are described as defined by the WGIP)

1. Voice and Accountability: Captures perceptions of the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media.

2. Political Stability and Absence of Violence: Measures perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including politically-motivated violence and terrorism.

3. Government Effectiveness: Captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the governments commitment to such policies.

4. Regulatory Quality: Captures perceptions of the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development.

5. Rule Of Law: Captures perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence.

6. Control Of Corruption: Captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as “capture” of the state by elites and private interests.

Taking these 6 factors, WGIP has ranked each country according to how they performed in each aspect by giving them a percentile score.

So how did the countries score?

A grade of the top 25 governments in the world (as graded by the WGIP) 2009.

Ad you can see from the chart above….each country is giving a letter-grade designation for each of the 6 categories….and also an ‘overall’ average of their 6 scores.

• A+ (97-100)
• A (93-96)
• A- (90-92)
• B+ (87-89)
• B (83-86)
• B- (80-82)
• C+ (77-79)
• C (73-76)
• C- (70-72)
• D+ (67-69)
• D (63-66)
• D- (60-62)
• F (below 60)

you can always view the exact score of every country for yourself, as well as all the determining factors and methodology employed by the WGIP by visiting their website.

So who wins?

Finland scores the best overall in the 2009 report. Taking this factor (and from the preliminary data i have downloaded for the 2012 update) it looks like as of 2012, Finland has the best government in the world.

Finland’s Government:

Finland is a republic (representative democracy). The Parliament (Eduskunta) is made up of 200 members, representing 15 districts. An election is held every 4 years, with candidates running from various parties in each district. The votes are totaled, and the seats are awarded according the number of representatives in each district (determined by population).

For example: Helsinki (District 01) holds the most seats at 21. (Åland has a special privilege and is always given 1 seat, regardless of their population size)

This electoral body then elects a Prime Minister, who will serve as head of the Parliament for the next 4 years. The Prime Minister will then nominate cabinet members in a variety of different areas, which are approved by the President of the Republic.

The President Of The Republic is elected every 6 years by popular vote (as of 1994), and may serve a maximum of 2 terms (as of 1991)

The Parliament (Eduskunta) has many of the same powers as the elected body in your country (i.e. US Senate or House of Representatives). The enact laws, can change the constitution, and draft the yearly budget.

What does it all mean:

Why is this system such a model government for the rest of the world. There are a few contributing factors, but none that may have quite an important impact as the D’Hondt Method of proportional representation, which encourages multiple parties and provides a much truer representation of the country and its ideologies. Another effect of this method of electing representatives is that basically guarantees that there will never be 1 majority party in parliament. This means that each party is forced to work with the other political parties in parliament and that all ideologies will be kept relatively in check.

Why is this better than the US System.

Well to understand the answer to this question, you first must understand a little about US politics.

The first thing to note is that in America, we have a 2 party system, meaning that there will always be a Majority government in the representative body. This basic precursor guarantees that the political process will be slow, and that continuity among policies will be limited. Because candidates run for election knowing that there is only 1 contrasting idea to their own (their counterpart), then ideologies tend to swing farther from center. Another byproduct of this is that there is an inherent necessity for the majority party to block the minority party’s legislation, and this bullying can severely hamper the political process. The final problem with this system is seen in the practice of earmarking bills. If you want your bill passed through the legislature, you can be pretty sure that your bill will have all kinds of additions that satisfy those representatives you wish to back your original idea. What ends up happening is that this barter system drives up our spending (when bills are passed), and slows down our political process (when earmarks kill a bill that’s original intent has been cluttered with special-interest line-items).

The second thing you must understand about the legislative branch of the US government is that in is basically a compromise of 2 ideas. When the founders of the US Constitution met in 1787, there was a disagreement about how they should elect representatives. This disagreement stems from the inherently American idea of “states rights”…meaning the power given to each state to decide how to govern its inhabitants. The disagreement basically came down to this: The states that had larger populations wanted a representative body based on population. The states with low populations wanted their to be a designated number of representatives that were equal for each state. What the compromise decided is that we would have both. (Which, if you are still following me, is not a compromise at all. The DEFINITION of compromise is that each party gives up something.)

but I digress….

We would have a Senate (in which there would be 2 representatives from each state), and a House of Representatives (where each state would get a number of representatives based on their population). Sounds like a great idea right? Well, this compromise basically guaranteed that the political process would be slowed down.(because now each bill had to pass through two representative bodies instead of one). Now, as the population grows, and the state lines become more blurred (as technology in the areas of communication and transportation increase) this system grows more and more out of touch. (I will argue this idea of states rights more eloquently in a later post). Another underlying problem of having both of these representative bodies is that either the Senate or the House of Representatives can author a bill. What this means is that between the 435 Representatives and the 100 Senators, there are over 500 different people involved in the passing each bill. (this doesn’t include aids, lobbyists and administrators). Compare that to Finland, where there is 1 body with 200 members, and you can see how difficult it can be for the US to get anything done. Now couple that with the fact that we have only 2 major parties, and at the present time both houses are split almost directly down the middle, stalemates, filibustering and bill-blocking become common practices.

The Conclusion:

My conclusion is that a system like Finland makes the most sense because it is representative of the population and yet small enough to truly get things accomplished. Their system actually promotes a multiple-party system which is one of the major problems with American politics. In Perfectistan, it is important that we get multiple views from many different sides of the argument.

The conclusion this writer takes from the study of this data is that Perfectistan will adopt the Government and Political System of Finland.

Go To Part 1: An Introduction