There are better solutions for Glasgow than 'hard man leaders'

The sporadic calls for mayors to be introduced in Scotland have returned today with newspapers quoting a new report by the Centre for Cities suggesting that this could be a route for closing what it claims is Glasgow's economic underperformance.

Setting aside for a second whether Glasgow has underperformed economically (which is contested), returning to the use of the word 'Mayor' below, and let's also ignore that this proposal removes local democracy from all the areas surrounding Glasgow and basically hands power to Glasgow as the centre of a 'regional authority', the question is whether there is any evidence that a mayoral system is inherently 'better' or 'worse' than the current model and whether it lead in any sense to better outcomes, economic or otherwise?

To understand that question it is worth being clear what a mayoral system is and what it would replace. There are two rough models of governing in the democratic west. One we might call the 'first among equals' model and the other is 'hail to the chief'. In the former we all elect politicians to represent us and all those politicians enter the system of politics as equals.

They are elected based on the promises they have made to get elected and those promises may not be supported by other people who therefore elected different politicians (also as equals) who are there to try and deliver on different promises. Government then becomes a negotiation and leadership is chosen from between the elected politicians.

The other model involves selecting a single individual who is personally granted the sole power over governing which in the other model has to be shared. People stand on individual platforms explaining what they want to do, the public picks which version they like and whoever gets the most votes gets to do what they want.

These systems have names. They are known as a parliamentary system and a presidential system. They each have strengths and weaknesses – a parliamentary system is more representative, a presidential system can move faster, a parliamentary system can reform itself in real time (by reorganising itself), a presidential system cannot, and so on.

The theory behind the campaign for a mayoral system is precisely the same theory behind the rise of support for 'hard men rulers not constrained by parliaments'. The assumption is the same – find the right person and remove checks and balances on them and then they can really get things done.

Here's the problem; that only means government becomes as good or bad as the single person elected. For those on the liberal or pro-democracy side of things, Donald Trump is not an advert for Mayors.

Both presidential and mayoral systems are vulnerable to high-profile individuals with wealth who can self-promote and game the system. For example, there is a very high likelihood that, had she wanted it, Michelle Mone could have used her wealth and celebrity to have won a mayoral contest in Glasgow.

But they face a bigger problem – the evidence consistently shows again and again and again that presidential systems produce worse outcomes than parliamentary systems. They can produce positive change quickly and their advocates will always point to examples where they do, but that is not the average experience of them. Presidential systems are the search for a ‘virtuous benign dictator’ which is a rarity; the average experience is you'd be better with a parliamentary system.

A large part of Glasgow's problems over the devolution years was the overbearing power of a cabal of local wealthy and connected individuals who operated as a kind of shadow government. This led to corruption and the fall of the closest Glasgow has had to a high-profile mayor (Stephen Purcell) who was wrapped up in what became known as the Team Glasgow scandal (which you should catch up on if you aren’t familiar with it).

Team Glasgow would almost certainly have been able to identify a credible candidate they could have bankrolled. There is little to believe that this would not have resulted in worse outcomes and a worse scandal than the 'mayor-lite' model that was actually used. Recent history cautions against such a move if overwhelming evidence isn't enough.

So let us return to that deferred point from above; the Centre for Cities is a London-based think tank. It should make itself aware that Scotland does not have mayors, has never had mayors and instead has its own system, traditions and histories. We call them 'Provosts'. If we absolutely must debate this question, perhaps we might use the appropriate language.

The solution to Scotland's problems of democracy and governance are not going to be solved with shortcuts and work-arounds. We need a proper process of democratic renewal, as Common Weal has proposed in our book Sorted.