Human Elements and Democratic Self-Government

• Author: Kirk Meighoo/Peter Jamadar
• Profession: Member of the Democratic National Assembly and the author of Politics in a Half-Made Society: Trinidad and Tobago 1925?2002/Judge of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago and the author of The Mechanics of Democracy
• Pages: 75-93

Human Elements and Democratic Self-Government |75

Human Elements

and Democratic

Self-Government

3

In the last chapter we examined the development of government

institutions in Trinidad and Tobago in order to evaluate the state of

democracy in the country. A vital distinction emerged between the

system as it exists on paper and the system as it operates in practice,

highlighting the importance of effective reform. The question, then, is:

if new systems of government on paper are not sufficient, are institutions

at all the key to understanding or advancing democratic self-government?

Is institutional analysis the best way to understand a system of

government and politics as it exists in practice?

The answer is complex. To be sure, the centrality of a free, strong,

and responsible parliament is the most valid and reliable observable

indicator of the strength of democratic self-government, but it is not

the thing in itself. Just as the level GDP is important but not sufficient

to understand an economy, the state of the police does not fully tell us

about the state of law and order, or one’s blood pressure is important

but not sufficient to gauge one’s heart condition, the status of parliament

is important and, we argue, key for objective and rational evaluative

purposes. It is the crucial empirical phenomenon to observe and measure,

but this is not sufficient to understand the ideal of democracy itself.

There is a more intangible core of which we must not lose awareness.

Democratic institutions alone are not sufficient for democratic

self-government. There are more human elements – habits, expectations,

customs, attitudes, traditions, history, social structure, and social

relations – that must also be considered in evaluating any real system of

government as it operates in particular times, places, and circumstances.

Indeed, these human elements are what make a system of government

76 | Democracy and Constitution Reform

on paper differ from a system of government in practice. Certainly, Eric

Williams’s stress on the importance of party politics in Trinidad and

Tobago demonstrates his understanding that formal institutions weren’t

all that mattered. He did want effective reform. Political culture was the

key element that he identified, and his institutional reforms were aimed

at re-shaping the culture to produce disciplined, nationalist, party

politics. As suggested above, his vision was focussed far more on the

establishment of nationalist government than the development of

democratic politics. His constitution reform proposals were overtly

designed to bring about a party system, and the national vision,

intellectual discipline and focus which he thought a party system was

bound to bring. With his extraordinary force of will, he stamped his

character on our current constitutional arrangements, for better or worse.

As suggested in the last chapter, the PNM – though apparently far

more successful than any other party in Trinidad and Tobago – seemed

not to live up to the challenge of democratic organisation for the purposes

of political discussion, debate, and the public hammering out of ideas

and visions. (Perhaps the only party to be committed to vibrant party

life has been the Tapia House Movement, whose lack of electoral success

perhaps holds lessons for us, although one must also appreciate Tapia’s

context where the Williams-led government firmly restricted the single

television station and two radio stations from giving air time to other

political parties). Williams perhaps did not anticipate how difficult it

would be for popularly responsible and autonomous political parties to

prosper in Trinidad and Tobago. The existence of such parties was key

to his system on paper to work in practice. The failure of such parties to

develop meant that the system in practice was perverted, reverting to

unreconstructed versions of the Crown Colony system. To be sure,

development of a democratic political attitude and culture is complex.

It seems not easily amenable to conscious intervention, and real change

seems to occur over a long time horizon. While we acknowledge

Williams’s attempt as not being incompatible with our vision, there

seem to be requirements prior to party organisation that we must

distinguish as being important to establishing effective democratic self-

government.