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Turn-taking in office

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Abstract

This paper provides a theoretical explanation for the adoption of turn-taking in office. Turn-taking in office is where two or more individuals are elected to serve individual terms for the same public office, with the exclusive right to exercise the public office rotating among those elected individuals at intervals shorter than the term. Turn-taking enables the benefits of shorter tenures to be realized without incurring, to the same extent, the costs associated with setting an equivalently shortened term and term limit regime. Turn-taking would be most likely to emerge among a factional electorate in order to generate support for shared governance institutions. A case study of three high-level public offices in the Republic of Venice provides evidence of the operation of turn-taking. The tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina provides a modern-day example of some aspects of office turn-taking in operation.

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Fig. 1

Sources: Ferraro (2012, 219, 223), Gasparini et al. (2019, Ch. 3), Lane (1973, Ch. 18, 436), and Madden (2012, 108, 170)

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Notes

  1. See Barro (1973), Besley (2006), Congleton (2007), Ferejohn (1986), Fukuyama (2011), Levison and Sachs (2015), Maravall (2003), North et al. (2009), Petracca (1996, 247), Tilly (2004), and Voigt (1999).

  2. For the public choice problems inherent in electoral representation, see Acemoglu and Robinson (2006), Acemoglu et al. (2013), Achen and Bartels (2016), Bardhan (1997), Besley (2006, Ch. 2), Brennan (2011). Buchanan and Tullock (1962[1999]), Caplan (2007), Downs (1957), Drazen (2000, pp. 23–30), Holcombe and Gwartney (1989, p. 669–70), Gelman et al. (2009), Mueller (2003), Olson (1982), Sappington (1991), Somin (2013), and Vanberg and Buchanan (2001). For a critique of these public choice problems, and a defense of electoral representation, see Dahl (1989), Udehn (1996), and Wittman (1995).

  3. See Alesina et al. (1999), Alesina et al. (2003), Coyne (2008), Easterly (2001), Kaldor and Vejvoda (1997), Mansfield and Snyder (1995, 2005), North et al. (2009), Putnam (1993), Rabushka and Shepsle (1972), Warren (1999), Williamson (2009), Zakaria (1997, 2003).

  4. See Bender and Lott Jr. (1996), Lopez (2003), Saint-Paul et al. (2016), Smart and Sturm (2013), and Tabarrok (1994) on term limits. See Brennan and Buchanan (2000), Buchanan (2001), and Hayek (1960) on constitutions and the rule of law, Coyne and Leeson (2009) on freedom of the press, and Stiglitz (2002) on transparency. Other radical reforms to democratic institutions advanced include vote selling (Buchanan and Lee 1986) and quadratic voting (Lalley and Weyl 2017).

  5. The Iraqi Governing Council, with broad representation and a one-month rotating presidency, offers another example of turn-taking in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 (Diamond 2015). Unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina, there was no history of turn-taking in Iraq, so it provides an example of turn-taking being exogenously imposed by a transitional government established by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Roman consular offers another example of turn-taking (Durant et al. 2018).

  6. For a more comprehensive review of the literature on term limits see Bender and Lott (1996), Lopez (2003), and Tabarrok (1994).

  7. Voter fatigue is not to be confused with incumbent party fatigue, which increases with term length (Bartels and Zaller 2001; Mayhew 2008).

  8. The European Union ensures rotation in the Presidency of the Council of the European Union without incurring any electoral costs by having the position automatically rotate among the member countries every 6 months.

  9. Durant (2011) and Durant and Weintraub (2014, 60) theoretical introduce a one-year rotation within a term for a winner and runner-up for an executive position in order to generate support for governance institutions among a factional electorate, but only in cases where no supermajority emerges. Durant et al. (2018) explore turn-taking for an executive in the experimental lab.

  10. The election of committees, where several individuals hold joint decision-making power under majority rule (a “directorial system”), has also been advanced and tried as a possible solution to the principal-agent problems inherent in electoral representation (Beniers and Swank 2004; Black 1987; Feld and Grofman 1986). Modern-day Switzerland, with their seven-member Federal Council operating under majority rule (Hug and Schulz 2007; Wolff and Karagök 2012), offers an example of a directorial system in operation. Directorial systems face a unique host of public choice problems primarily due to the fact that with joint decision-making responsibility does not fall on any one individual (Black 1987; Casella et al. 2017; Farquharson 1969; Gao and Jun 2018; Miller 1995; Shepsle and Weingast 1987; Schulte 2012).

  11. Another possible argument to make in support of turn-taking is that, by enabling short rotations in office, it would make it more feasible for citizens holding private-sector employment (as opposed to career politicians) to pursue and hold office. While there are many popular arguments advanced for the benefits of citizen officeholders (Bandow 1995, 1996; Coyne and Fund 1992; Will 1992), there is little evidence to support the theory (Garrett 1996; Osborne and Slivinski 1996; Owings and Borck 2000; Payne 1991; Reed et al. 1993).

  12. The European Union’s system of rotating the presidency between member nations every 6 months was initially plagued with the lack of policy continuity, resulting in the adoption of the system of bunching presidencies together in groups of three terms based on a common agenda.

  13. The author thanks an anonymous referee for this important insight.

  14. There is also evidence to suggest that non-patricians were divided by deep-seated factions (Davis 1994, 1996, 1998; Ruggiero 1980).

  15. The Collegio was also comprised of the Savi agli Ordini who were the ministers of maritime affairs, the Savi da Terra Firma who were the ministers of the military, and the Signoria, a council comprised of the doge, six ducal councilors, and the three Chiefs of the Forty, the supreme criminal court of Venice (Norwich 1982, 283; Lane 1973, 254–5).

  16. The Senate was comprised of 60 senators elected by the Great Council, 60 senators recommended by those 60 senators and approved by the Great Council (referred to as the Zonta), the Council of Forty, and ex-officio magistrates (Finlay 1980, xvi; Norwich 1982, 283).

  17. The Council of Ten meetings always had the doge and his six ducal councilors present, so the committee was effectively comprised of 17 members (Ferraro 2012, 55; Norwich 1982, 282).

  18. The Council of Ten also used turn-taking for its Treasurer (rotated every 6 months) and their Inquisitors (rotated every month) (Chambers and Pullan 1992, 55).

  19. The exact date that mintmasters were established is unknown, but the earliest record of Venetian mintmasters is from 1224 (Stahl 2000, 261).

  20. 2013 population estimates put Bosniaks at 50.1 percent, Serbs at 30.8 percent, and Croats at 15.4 percent (Central Intelligence Agency).

  21. The history of a presidential executive committee, including with some limited rotation elements, can be traced even further back in Yugoslavia’s history and likely emerged out of the communist system of central party leadership (Benson 2004; Burg 1983). For instance, prior to the 1974 reforms, the Presidency was collectively held by 29 party members (Burg 1983, 243).

  22. Each republic and province could held veto power over legislation (Denitch 1996, 105).

  23. Just as with terms and term limits on executives (Acemoglu et al. 2013; Baturo 2014; Corrales and Penfold 2014; Maltz 2007; Ginsburg et al. 2011), the threat of an ambitious executive disbanding the rotational system remains is a weakness of turn-taking systems on executives.

  24. The president appoints the Chair of the Council of Ministers, with approval from the National House of Representatives. The Chair then appoints the remaining ministers for each department (Nardelli and Dzidic 2014).

  25. The Dayton Peace Accords set the term for the first members of the presidency to 2 years with the term moving to 4 years thereafter.

  26. While Lebanon’s governance system does not utilize turn-taking, it did include similar diversity guarantees to get a factional electorate to agree and support their governance institutions, with the President being a Maronite Christian, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim, and the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim.

  27. Tabarrok (1994, 1996) provides the first analysis of this unique rotation system in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an example of the benefits of turn-taking in office.

  28. Troop levels and foreign aid are contending explanations for the decline in violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Latif 2005), but there is systematic evidence on the failure of these two factors in other contexts (Coyne 2008; Easterly 2006).

  29. Setting quality institutions, of course, may be able reduce the adverse consequences of fractionalization (Easterly 2001).

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The author thanks Alex Tabarrok, Dalila Lindov, the participants of the Free Market Institute Research Workshop (Fall 2018), Rania Al-Bawwab for research assistance, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Smith, D.J. Turn-taking in office. Const Polit Econ 31, 205–226 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-020-09308-4

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