A Bad Idea for Iraq

A WSJ op-ed said that proportional representation is the wrong thing to do in Iraq. Germany is used as an example of what can go wrong. Granted Germany is a mess right now but it was the model of consistency during the Cold War. A better posterchild would have been Italy. Here is what is wrong with PR (proportional representation not Puerto Rico):

Germany's system of almost pure PR has consistently produced coalition governments and now, for the first time, a situation in which no party constellation can produce a government with a coherent program for much-needed reforms. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's reform of Britain's sclerotic economy wouldn't have been possible with PR and cooperative federalism; nor could one imagine Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi accomplishing anything similar in Japan.

The more subtle but ultimately more insidious problem is that PR--unless balanced by plebiscitary institutions such as a directly elected, powerful executive--tends to be constitutionally unstable. Instead of institutional checks and balances, PR constitutions resemble temporary peace pacts among contending interests, classes or warlords. The structure is only as stable as the underlying constellation of forces; or it is stabilized by nonpolitical means.