A geographically contiguous set of governments bind themselves tightly together by creating a supergovernment that unites them all. Important departments like foreign policy or finance and the economy are handed over to the supergovernment. The constituents content themselves with administration of their territories, but still retain significant powers. The region is now defined by a common market, a common currency, freely transferable labour, and a reallocation of resources.

I am talking about the European Union, but if you think about it I could just as easily be talking about India. We too have a central government that unites fractious and ethnically diverse state governments that have little in common except the national identity. While their formations differ - India's present political boundaries were defined by the British Empire, while the European Union is a voluntary coming-together of its constituents - the political models are more similar to each other than they are to any other country.


In the case of the EU, its voluntary nature allows members to create their institutions as they go along. This has for the moment resulted in a lot of bickering over process and detail (witness the ongoing saga of the draft EU constitution). But speed is sacrificed for the promise of greater stability, and well thought-out institutions. The European Central Bank, in particular, has done a reasonably good job so far in managing the growth-inflation trade-off in Europe. With a price-targeting mandate in a price-conscious region, it has stuck to its anti-inflationary guns, and so far has kept to the task it was designed for.

But I would be interested to see how the political structure of the EU manages the problem of representation. This is to my mind the biggest drawback in the Indian political system, and the EU would do well to circumvent it somehow.

What do I mean? Consider this: how many fully democratic countries can claim to be ruled by an unelected prime minister? This is the case in India today. At the time that an Indian casts a vote, he or she has absolutely no idea who will lead the country, even if that party wins. We vote for our local MP, and somehow the pieces come together and we have a national government. (As a contrast, when the British say that Gordon Brown is unelected, they mean unelected as prime minister. He is still an MP. And in the US, you know whom you are voting for.)

European ministers too are cut off from the eventual voters that they represent, but for different reasons. They are indirectly elected or nominated by member governments and far removed from individual citizens. And European ministries will not remain weak always; the direction of power in Europe is clearly towards the unified centre. This makes the question of electoral legitimacy all that much more relevant.

But it isn't just about electoral legitimacy. Indian governments have that too. It is the connectedness to the voter that is the main question. Can a voter, sitting at home and considering a vote, see the path between the vote and the final result? They cannot in India. The EU would be better off if their citizens could.

It will be an interesting experiment. The EU, like I said, has the advantage of being nascent, and is thus more flexible to solve these problems. Our political structure is for the moment too deeply embedded to be changed in any suitable fashion. But we both aspire to the same solution, even if it is for different problems.