Cardona
MPSA 2004
4
who formulate new demands, and/or by upsetting the balance of power among existing
actors. The “solution” to the problem of public order is never straightforward or without
cost. To eliminate one threat – chaos – may create another one – coup, stalemate, or
revolution. The ability of policy-makers to foresee these future threats and incorporate
them into institutional design is less my concern than the conjunctural political
circumstances that led to specific design choices. My concern, therefore, will be to
reconstruct the short-term factors that led to a specific solution to a perennial problem,
and then assess the long-term consequences of the particular type of solution that is
reached.
What establishes the specific set of problems that societies face is the overarching
institutional framework of governance that the society adopts. Different frameworks
imply different types of problems, and require different types of solutions. Most human
societies have operated within a framework of hereditary monarchy, which generates
problems of the reproduction of semi-divine authority and the maintenance of a
hierarchical social order that assigns specific, inalterable roles to different people based
on their social location. In the last several hundred years, Western European societies,
and gradually those from other regions of the world, have begun adopting different types
of frameworks along the model of a constitutional republic. One of the principal
problems that arises within this framework is the extent to which the majority of the
population can participate in the decision-making process—a possibility generally not
contemplated within a monarchical framework. This problem gives rise to the issues of
representation and democratization.
Convention