Andrew Allison and I wrote this draft under the influence of SFL Top 100 Retreat, This many not be characteristic of either of our best work.
Many countries are not happy with the government they have. Governments often have trouble representing their constituents, and in large part, this is due to different regional interests. In Canada for instance, the West tends to vote conservative while the East tends to vote liberal. At best, large national elections frustrate entire regions- at worst conflicts escalate and lead to humanitarian crises.
In the United States, we often rely on swing states to decide national elections when otherwise states want radically different policies. It’s been recently argued that the United States is really 11 separate ‘nations’ with entirely different cultures. When large regions of the country hate each other, it seems questionable that both regions should be bound under the same government. If the Midwest prefers different policies to California, why should one decide the others? Many recognize that criticizing the ethanol lobby in Iowa used to be a political non-starter because of their electoral significance. At the same time, millions of people in California are effectively disenfranchised by a system with very few opponents total because the electoral college does not favor their state.
Presidential campaigns in particular give two options, and the primary process is largely inaccessible to many of the people within it. As a result, campaigns are filled with vitriol as people worry that values they hate are going to be imposed upon them from above. It’s not clear what the harm is of people being able to have more binding laboratories of democracy. If the United States had a vote on whether people would be allowed to eat only hamburgers or hotdogs, I’m sure that many people who would have otherwise minded their own business see it as imperative to get their way because losing and eating the disfavored meat would be catastrophic. This plays out in the language of politics as well. In the United States, there are many honor-based regions that much of the media landscape is unable to effectively cater to. This may in part be because of a concentration of media based in the Northeast, whereas many political races are not. The media is at best swimming against the current when trying to accurately report on interregional politics. It seems the bigger the area, and the more intensive the regulations, the harder it becomes to have peace.
However the problem is deeper the larger a nation is.
Think about it this way: if there was a college class that one’s grade depended solely on the average of the class, there is very little incentive to study because you only affect your results slightly. This pushes the average down the larger the class gets because it becomes harder to coordinate. Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University estimates that a close county election has odds of voting mattering at about 1-in-1000 whereas in a close national election the odds are about 1.1*10-91 which provides infinitesimal reason to become an educated voter. Becoming an educated voter takes a lot of time and effort, and the system heavily discourages doing so.
Regions are spread out in many parts of the world and local culture is dissimilar between them. Within the United States, regulation in the colloquial for instance can refer to something very good in the Northeast, or very bad in Appalachia. However, if media is tasked with reporting to both viewing demographics on one program, they’re limited in the effectiveness of their communication.
That’s not even the biggest issue. Having more flexible institutions is a great way of having better government. If it’s easier to leave, and smaller countries are easier to leave, then a national split would be an excellent way of improving government.
Let’s give breakup a try.
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