The hardest task for any political system

Life is short but politics is long. The difference is what creates the sternest predictable challenge for any political system: managing succession from one leader to the next.

Many systems throughout history have waited for the old leader to die before installing a new one. This solves one part of the problem: getting the old leader to go. Death brooks no argument.

But the other part of the problem – choosing the successor – remains. Hereditary monarchies emerged to provide predictable solutions. Oldest sons were the most popular choice. Sometimes daughters were included as possible heirs, sometimes not. Childless monarchs threw things into a mess.

Predictable solutions to the succession problem were not always good solutions. Children of monarchs sometimes were capable rulers but often were not. Political systems that stuck with hereditary monarchies made a choice between predictability and capability, favoring the former. Such monarchies commonly collapsed when a run of rulers proved so incapable that the predictability of the system couldn’t make up for their ineptness. Typically the old dynasty would be replaced by a new dynasty, maintaining the spirit of monarchy despite the spirit-defying break in the hereditary line. Thus England had its Plantagenet monarchs, its Tudors, its Stuarts and its Hanoverians.

Monarchies originally justified their rule by the power of their arms. Some subsequently cited a higher power. James I of England enlisted the Protestant God on his side and that of his progeny, Louis XIV of France the Catholic God. The appeal to divinity lost purchase amid the Enlightenment, which enthroned reason instead. The English monarchy ceded primacy to Parliament in exchange for continued existence. No cession saved the French monarchy.

Practitioners of the other chief form of autocratic rule – dictatorship – often employed ideology in place of religion. Napoleon ruled in the name of the people of France, Lenin and Stalin and Mao in the name of communism, Hitler and Mussolini in the name of fascism.

Ideology was the shield of dictators while they lived, but it was no help when they died and successors had to be found. These modern dictators encountered the basic problem that vexed the dictators of antiquity, notably the emperors of Rome: to denote a successor was to tempt that successor to kill you and take your place forthwith. Declining to denote a successor didn’t smooth the succession, but it postponed the bloody doings until after your natural demise.

Democracy, the form of government that eventually replaced most monarchies, has strengths and weaknesses, like all forms of government. It rates high on legitimacy and low on efficiency. Its greatest strength might be its solution to the succession problem. Democracy reduces or – in versions with term limits – eliminates the prospect of remaining in office for life. The fate of officeholders is placed in the hands of voters at predictable intervals. The ambitions of presidents and prime ministers might be no less than the ambitions of monarchs and dictators, but laws and norms compel them to channel those ambitions toward accomplishment rather than longevity.

If democracy’s solution to the succession problem is a great strength of popular government, it is also a potential weakness. A president or prime minister determined to remain in office has to break the entire system to do so. This can be done by suppressing voting in elections, refusing to hold them or rigging results. Elections are what make democracies democracies. Dynasties could change without exploding the idea of monarchy. Stalin could murder his way to replacing Lenin without denying the teachings of Marx. But corrupting or terminating elections destroys the fundamental legitimacy of democracy.

Successions aren’t a problem of politics only. Businesses have to replace CEOs. The Catholic church has to anoint new popes. Criminal gangs have to agree on new leaders.

Most businesses have bylaws and procedures, with decisions commonly resting with boards of directors. This system can get complicated when CEOs try to fill the boards with friendly votes. Occasionally shareholders revolt. Consistent underperformance can tempt other corporations to mount hostile takeover bids. Sometimes the underperformers go quietly, often with an ego-assuaging buyout. Sometimes they don’t.

The Catholic church expects popes to serve for life, although a few have retired. The college of cardinals elects a successor. The system hasn’t always worked. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries dueling popes claimed the true succession to St. Peter. The voting is far from transparent, with outsiders awaiting the puff of white smoke above the Sistine Chapel and the proclamation “Habemus Papam.” Yet it has stood the test of time.

Succession to the leadership of criminal gangs is the most fraught. Those who live by the gun often die by the gun. Yet gangs have a glue denied to some other systems – money. Politics is about power basically and money perhaps incidentally. For gangs the balance is flipped. Power is hard to divide. The loser in a contest to be king or dictator doesn’t get a minority share of power. The loser gets nothing. Money, by contrast, divides easily. An aspirant for gang leadership not certain of his chances of reaching the top might well settle for a lesser share of the proceeds.

Perhaps the gangsters and the suits have something to teach the pols. Give them a golden parachute and maybe they’ll jump out of the plane without being pushed.