Almost all the current rulers of the United States have a legal education. David Yin supplies this useful table:
| United States | (first nine in order of succession, modified Senate pres.) | |
| Barack Obama | President | law |
| Joe Biden | Vice-President | law |
| Nancy Pelosi | Speaker of the House | political science |
| Harry Reid | Senate Majority Leader | law |
| Hillary Clinton | Secretary of State | law |
| Tim Geithner | Secretary of the Treasury | economics and East Asian studies |
| Robert Gates | Secretary of Defense | history |
| Eric Holder | Attorney General | law |
| Ken Salazar | Secretary of Interior | law |
This is in sharp contrast to the leadership of China, which apparently has one lawyer in the top rank (it’s mostly engineers). Singapore, India, and Germany fall at various points between these two extremes (see David’s post for a fuller breakdown).
Why is this so?
David tells what I think is a slightly misguided story about national character and “core values.”
Americans are, for better or worse, preoccupied with political rights (even for citizens of another country). Sometimes it seems more important for a politician to be Christian and pro-life/choice/guns/privacy than well-educated, competent, and possessed of a clear plan for the future. In college, students are expected to have a liberal arts education–in literature, philosophy, and history, but not necessarily in science, math, and economics. Our core values are in the humanities. It’s no surprise that our leaders reflect our values, and for their legislative and policy decisions to reflect their educational expertise.
There’s a lot of truth in this, but in context it makes it sound like Americans elect lawyers for the same reason they elect Christians — because they like them best. I’m pretty sure Americans don’t like lawyers, though. My view, excerpted from a comment I made, is more institutional:
Lawyers become leaders in countries where power is mediated primarily by law. What sorts of countries are those? Speaking broadly: developed countries; countries with older systems of government; countries with democratic institutions; countries with competitive politics.
In the comment I also briefly discuss the case studies. I think there are two big ideas here: 1) in a rich, developed country, the valuable commercial life is regulated by law; this makes law powerful; 2) in a country with competitive politics, competing powers (e.g. parties) need some form of neutral mediation that allows them to share power; the law serves this purpose; this makes law powerful. When law is a source of power, lawyers will be rulers. Both 1) and 2) apply to the US and Germany; 2) applies to India; 1) applies to Singapore; neither applies to China.
What do you think? Am I overreaching?
Possible further questions: in a country with competitive politics, there may be more than one possible modus vivendi for sharing power. Some may be more legally-oriented than others. Presumably, in a country with competitive politics where power-sharing among factions is mediated by something other than law (access to the emperor? war?), lawyers will not occupy the top ranks. Are there rich, peaceful countries with competitive politics where lawyers don’t feature prominently?
PS I’m calling everyone the “ruler” from now on. It feels funny to talk about “the rulers” of a democracy, right?
Update: interesting follow-up comment back on the original post.
My off-the-cuff account of this would include the following points: (1) Ceteris paribus, lawyers should be overrepresented in a democratic govt. because (a) people who are interested in politics are likely to be interested in law as well, (b) lawyers are often good speakers by training and/or inclination. (2) In developed countries, lawyering is a respectable upper-middle-class profession; this is less likely to be the case elsewhere, because litigation is a less important part of life. (If you were dispossessed you might want to go to the local warlord/party boss…) The political elite is, by and large, likely to be drawn from this class, whoever it might happen to consist of, because of contacts, patronage networks, etc. etc. What this class happens to be is of secondary importance as it’s self-propagating through the education system. (3) In many third-world countries the educational hierarchy is attuned to first-world demand, in the sense that (enough of) the brightest/highest-status kids would like to emigrate that the highest-status professions are likely to be those that “travel” / permit emigration. This force favors sciences over humanities and — esp. — law.
(1) applies in all democracies, (3) — via (2) — in all poor countries.
Also having looked at DY’s list I don’t agree w/ your characterization of the other cases as being somewhere in between. It is really bimodal with China and Singapore at one end and everyone else at the other.
Three authors to look at to expand this view:
Alexis de Tocqueville
Max Weber
Jurgen Habermas
Of the three, I think Tocqueville captures our uniquely American reasons best: lawyers are democratic elites who derive their prestige from the mastery of laws that are allegedly the product of the general will but actually tremendously conservative and redolent with the authority of tradition. So law is a way of preserving elites in the face of a national commitment to anti-elitism, which is why in the US lawyers simultaneously praise the common wisdom and guard a common law tradition that is made by judges rather than legislatures. In Europe, by way of contrast, lawyers are much more likely to see themselves as geniuses propounding a unique theory of justice rather than as careful interpreters of precedent and legislative intent.
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