Different Democratic Forms and Practices

Democracy. It's a beautiful thing, and generally accepted in most circles as the only legitimate form of government. However, there are many different ways to implement it, and looking at various democratic governments around the world, we see very different political systems. In this post, I will single out four important differences that are relevant to modern democratic practice. On each point, I will make the case for one option over the other; this will not be a neutral weighing of pros and cons, far from it. But of course, I'm interested to hear the arguments on the other side - that's what it's called a discussion for.

Beneath most of the points I will make lies a deep conviction that democracy is supposed to be about consensus and compromise, not an epic battle of conflicting ideologies, and that good leadership means being a skilled diplomat rather than a strong-arm hero of the people. This is not an argument, of course, but cultural and psychological notions like these can influence debates massively, so it's better to have them out in the open.

That being said, let's get down to business with the first point...

Parliamentarianism vs. Presidentialism. The idea for this entire post came to me after reading an excellent essay, "The Perils of Presidentialism" (Juan Linz, 1990). Hence this is the point I will start with.

What, exactly, is the difference here? In a parliamentary system, only the legislative branch is elected by the people, and the executive branch is appointed somehow. In a presidential system, the head of the executive branch - who is also the head of state - is also elected directly. (Note that some countries, like Germany and Italy, have presidents, but they aren't elected directly and do not wield executive power; such ceremonial presidencies do not count as "presidential systems").

This immediately brings us to the first problem of the latter. For if the legislative and the executive both have a mandate from the voters, then what happens when they disagree? Both can claim to represent "the people", and good luck resolving that debate - they were both elected, after all. This can lead to all kinds of deadlocks which frustrate the political process. When the elections for the legislative and executive branch are far apart in time (as is the case in the US), the risk of this increases, because the results of these elections are more likely to differ significantly. By contrast, in a parliamentary system, the lines are clear: the legislative is elected, the executive isn't, so in any conflict between the two, the executive will have to back down or get ousted. The executive branch has no mandate from the voters, and is completely dependent on the consent of the legislative, which does have such a mandate.

Another problem is the single-winner character of presidential elections. There Can Be Only One president, and consensus-building and coalition-forming become a lot harder - and less obviously necessary - when such a tremendously powerful position is in the hands of a single political faction. For the president and his supporters, it can be all too tempting to ignore the other parties and just steamroll ahead with their own agenda; see De Gaulle, Nixon, Chávez and Morsi for a few examples, which also serve to illustrate where such an approach can lead. Of course, the prime minister in a parliamentary regime can become similarly arrogant (Thatcher, Juncker) but at least he knows he isn't the direct voice of the people, but merely a servant (that is what minister means, after all) of some other power, in this case, parliament. In other words, a prime minister knows he isn't a single winner, but merely the first representative of a whole bunch of winners. This tends to inspire more humility, and more readiness (often out of pure necessity) to form coalitions and strike deals with other parties.

Single-winner elections in general have the added problem of greatly limiting voters' options. In a presidential election, there are usually only two - sometimes three - candidates which stand a serious chance of winning: it's either Obama or Romney, either Hollande or Sarkozy. Compare this to the myriad of parties great and small that have a shot at getting one or more seats (assuming proportional representation with no threshold, but I'll get to that later) in a parliamentary election, and ask yourself, which of the two offers voters more choice?

And then there is a more symbolic, almost psychological problem. I mentioned that a country's president is also the head of state; it's inherent in the definition of the word. This puts the president in two roles at once. He represents a specific political group with its own agenda, and has won his power in a polarising showdown against his opponents. But he is also the figurehead of the nation, expected to be the leader of his people as a whole and to be above party to some degree. This dichotomy can make the president's job a very hard one, as he must take care not to alienate his own supporters by being too inclusive, or the rest of the nation by being too partisan. In a parliamentary system, these roles are divided between the prime minister and the head of state (a monarch or a ceremonial president). This leaves the prime minister free to speak clearly about his government's views and plans, while the head of state can be a uniting factor standing above the political game. In fact, in many constitutional monarchies, the monarch is explicitly forbidden from speaking his or her mind about political matters in public. Because neither the prime minister nor the head of state has to balance two conflicting roles like an elected president does, both can do their jobs better.

Presidential democracy is Wild West democracy, complete with a Showdown at High Noon at the ballot box. It increases polarisation, reduces voters' options, carries a risk of political deadlock, and tends to make those in power more arrogant. These problems can arise in a parliamentary system as well, but presidentialism has a lot of features that almost seem designed to encourage them. For a harmonious, inclusive democracy which offers voters a wide array of choices and doesn't draw deep lines in the sand between "winners" and "losers", parliamentarianism is clearly the better choice.

Full Separation of Powers vs. MPs as Ministers. Linz's essay is a great read and contains a lot of good points, but I tripped over this sentence:

I don't see what's so normal about this. The example Linz cites is Britain, but the British political system is such a crazy mess full of bizarre Grandfather Clauses - no separation of church and state, no written constitution, no equality between the constituent countries - that I wouldn't hold up any part of it as an example of anything, except as an example of how not to do things. (It's a good runner-up to Belgium, with its six tiers of government for 11 million people, for "Craziest Political System of Europe"). Allowing ministers to sit in parliament is one such example.

Britain, and any other country which allows politicians to be a minister and an MP at the same time, apparently didn't get the memo about separation of powers. This principle, when rigorously applied, forbids any overlap between the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

It is generally agreed that when a single person fulfills multiple roles in any given situation, conflicts of interest are likely to arise. An all-too-common example is public officials giving lucrative government contracts to companies which just happen to be owned by their spouses or relatives.

In national politics, avoiding conflicts of interest is very important - yet conflicts of interest are precisely what happens when ministers are also MPs. Parliament is supposed to watch the executive branch critically, but how is this possible when the people who make up the executive branch are in parliament themselves? If there are enough ministers, the cabinet may by itself form a significant voting bloc within parliament; this makes votes of confidence easier and votes of no confidence harder. It's ridiculous that a minister should vote on whether he has confidence in himself.

And that's not even going into the simple practical argument - in a modern democracy, minister and MP are both more-than-full-time jobs, which are almost impossible to combine without neglecting a lot of duties on one side or the other.

Rigid separation of powers is important. Letting parliament and cabinet overlap means blurring the line between the legislative and the executive branch, and turning the former into more of an uncritical rubber stamp for the latter.

Proportional Representation vs. Constituency Voting. Like feudalism, constituency voting is a political system that has been rendered obsolete by technological developments. Unlike feudalism, constituency voting is still alive and kicking - it's an important feature of the British (again!), French and American political systems.

Again, a short explanation of the difference. Under proportional representation, a party's number of seats in the national legislature is directly and linearly related to the percentage of the popular vote they pulled in nationwide. For example, if there's a 200-seat legislature, and Party X got 30% of the popular vote, then Party X will get 60 seats. Under constituency voting, the country is chopped up into small districts called "constituencies", each of which can elect a single member. In each constituency, the candidate with a plurality of votes (that is, more votes than any single opponent - not necessarily a majority!) gets elected. In the example with the 200-seat legislature, there would be 200 constituencies, each roughly encompassing 0.5% of the population.

Now, if Party X still has 30% of the popular vote, then how many of the 200 seats will they get under constituency voting?

The answer: hell if I know. Suppose, for simplicity's sake, that Party X's votes are perfectly evenly spread across the country; that is, they get exactly 30% in each and every constituency. They may end up with zero seats (if in each constituency, another party scored more than 30%) or they may get each and every seat (if their 30% was enough for a plurality everywhere). The problem with this should be obvious.

And it gets worse. The assumption that Party X's votes would be evenly spread across all constituencies is nonsense. In any Real Life political situation, Party X is going to pull in more votes in some areas and fewer votes in others.

Large parties, such as Party X, benefit from a more even spread, whereas smaller parties - say, Party Y with 5% of the popular vote - benefit from highly concentrated support. If Party X gets 100% of the vote in 60 constituencies and nothing in the other 140, it has 60 seats. But if it gets 60% of the vote (a majority, and thus automatically a plurality) in 100 constituencies and nothing in the other 100, it has 100 seats, with the same percentage of the popular vote. And with 30% of the vote in each constituency, it still has a good chance of getting a plurality in more than 60 constituencies. For Party Y, it's the other way around: 100% in 10 constituencies and nothing in the other 190 will get them 10 seats, whereas an even spread of 5% in every constituency is unlikely to get them anything.

The point is, for both small and large parties, it's not only the number of votes they get that determines their number of seats, but also the geographical distribution of those votes. This means a lot of the election outcome depends on how you draw the constituencies' boundaries: if there's an area where Party X gets a lot of its votes, you can hand Party X a sure seat by putting it all in one constituency, or drastically reduce Party X's chances by carving it up and then tacking the parts onto other constituencies which tend to vote for their main rival, Party Z. This kind of manipulation is called gerrymandering; the US have some egregious examples.

Under proportional representation, none of this is possible. How your voters are distributed doesn't influence your results in any way; what matters is how many there are. Nobody can screw with the constituencies' boundaries because there are no boundaries.

Constituency voting turns one big multiple-winner election into a whole bunch of tiny single-winner elections. I outlined the problems with single-winner elections under "Parliamentarianism vs. Presidentialism", above, and they apply here just as well. Single-winner elections unfairly favour large parties, and severely limit voters' options: almost all countries with constituency voting are two- or three-party states in practice. Poor Party Y with their 5% of the vote might not get any seats at all unless their supporters are highly concentrated in a small area. If you didn't go along with the most common choice in your area, you might as well have thrown your ballot in the trash. In extreme cases, a majority of voters might as well have thrown their ballots in the trash. Show of hands, who thinks this is a fair system?

This massive advantage for larger parties leads to another problem. The current British government is a rare exception, but usually, constituency voting produces an absolute majority for one party in parliament. This means no coalitions need to be formed to secure parliamentary support for a government. As with the presidential system, this encourages - in fact, enables - the governing party to push through their own agenda with little regard for other parties' wishes. Of course, this increases polarisation, as can be seen quite clearly in the US, Britain and France.

Under proportional representation, on the other hand, no single party is likely to gain an absolute majority, making every government a coalition government. This takes the sharp edges off any single party's agenda in necessary negotiations with at least one, often two, and sometimes more coalition partners.

Proportional representation thus tends to lead to more moderate policies from the government. This not only has the advantage of reducing polarisation, but also of making long-term planning easier. After all, it's hard to keep working on a large-scale project that takes 20 or 30 years if government policy makes a drastic turn to the left or right every four years.

The strongly geographical character of constituency voting raises other issues. Since many constituencies will go to Party X anyway, and many others are a sure bet for Party Z, political campaigns tend to focus only on those constituencies where the outcome is uncertain (e.g. the "battleground states" in the US). Candidates have no reason to try and reach voters in "safe" constituencies. Voters in the "battlegrounds" thus wield disproportionate influence. And obviously, candidates who only have to win votes in their own area will tend to think much more locally. Why should Party X's candidate for Constituency 84 worry about what's going on in Constituency 195? In this way, parliament is filled with members representing the particular interests of a lot of tiny areas rather than those of the country as a whole. This kind of petty provincialism does not lend itself to coherent national policy-making, but constituency voting encourages it.

And not only does constituency voting have a polarising effect, polarisation is also more likely to be along geographical lines - see the "red states" and "blue states" in the US, or the Labour North and the Tory South in Britain. When ideological and geographical polarisation go hand in hand, ugly "us vs. them" sentiments are very easily stirred - sentiments which don't exactly contribute to harmony or stability.

Up until the late 19th century, constituency voting made sense. Political parties in the modern sense of the word didn't exist yet. Without mass media, it was extremely difficult for candidates to run a real nationwide campaign, or for voters to inform themselves about candidates not from their area. Electing an MP meant sending a delegate, almost an ambassador, to far-off The Hague *

Times have changed, though. Technology Marches On, and with widespread access to television, radio and newspapers - to say nothing of the Internet - constituency voting is utterly obsolete. It's an Undead Horse Trope, and it's time for some of the world's largest democracies to wake up and realise that.

Unitarianism vs. Federalism. In Science Fiction, The Federation is usually cast as good. In the real world, federations suck.

Take Germany, with its sixteen federal states. The country is a stable, well-functioning democracy (albeit with worryingly high levels of extremist violence) and an economic success story on an otherwise crisis-stricken continent. But there is no reason to believe its federal structure has anything to do with this.

What its federal structure does have something to do with is the recent heavy flooding along the Elbe - the number of different federal states the river flows through makes it very hard to reach a co-ordinated structural solution. Also, remember the EHEC crisis? Here, too, poor co-ordination among the federal states made for a sluggish response from the authorities.

And then there's the issue of budgeting. Germany's financial structure is also heavily federal, making it easy to see how much a given federal state pays to the central government in Berlin (like a mediaeval domain sending tribute to its lord) and how much it receives. Of course, some states receive much more than they pay, and others pay more than they receive. This can lead to citizens of the latter (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse) grumbling about how 'we are paying for them' - fuel to the fire of regional hostilities which, as I mentioned above, don't exactly contribute to harmony or stability. This isn't a uniquely German problem, either: in former Yugoslavia, the northern states felt they were paying for the South, and in Belgium, the Flemish feel they are paying for the Walloons.

In a unitary state, this problem is much smaller, if it exists at all. No one in the Netherlands feels that their province is paying for another province, because our taxation system doesn't work that way. Almost all tax money is collected directly by the national government, and spent either on the national or the municipal level. (To illustrate: the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam each have bigger yearly budgets than all twelve provinces combined).

For extremely large countries like the United States, the federal system makes some sense. But the US are overdoing it massively. We once learned in school that even in the loosest federations, two things are the exclusive domain of the central government: foreign policy and the military. Not so in America - several states maintain their own "State Guards", which aren't accountable to the federal government in any way, shape or form. This raises questions about the status of the US as a sovereign nation.

Add to that the enormous differences in legislation, even on fundamental issues like gay marriage or the death penalty, and the point that "when deep in debt, pack belongings and kids and flee to another state" actually seems to work, and you get the impression that the US aren't a nation so much as a loose collection of mini-countries held together by duct tape and prayers - and with worryingly deep dividing lines between the "blue" and "red" blocs, as mentioned before.

Education, in particular, is something that should be handled on a national level because it has such an important nation-building function. Hell, even if the education system is terrible, then you're at least creating shared experiences for people to bond over if they all go through the same system.

A unitary state, with a strong central government and relatively few responsibilities for provincial and local authorities, makes it easier to co-ordinate national issues on a national level. It ensures that all its citizens have the same rights and are subject to the same laws. And it smoothens out, or at least covers up, economic and political differences between regions.

Note the 'or at least covers up'. Many people will probably say I'm confusing cause and effect - that a federal system is usually the result and not the cause of regional feuds. I'm well aware of this, but such rivalries are often more about perceptions than facts, and having the differences out in the open ('look how much money is going from us to them!') as is the case in a federation, tends to make things worse.

Unitarianism is the way to go - and if your country is simply too large for this, at least create a level playing field when it comes to the fundamentals.

TL;DR: The ideal democracy is a unitary state with proportional representation and strict separation of powers, but without an elected president. I am extremely satisfied with the political system of my country.

edited 18th Jul '13 7:13:00 AM by MidnightRambler

Impressive wall o' text, dude! Plus a scholarly article to read. It would take at least 5-6 threads to properly discuss all that. Since I was one of the people who offered a rebuttal in the Arab Spring thread, I'll try to respond semi-adequately.

Regarding Presidential vs. Parliamentary, I dont see an inherent advantage of one over the other. I suspect that checks and balances between power-centers are necessary in any functioning democratic system, it all depends on where you put them. In a presidential system, the balance is between two or three (three in the US) branches of government. In a parliamentary system, the balance is between competing political parties. In practice, this seems to mean that the primary divisions within a presidential system will be based on geography, while those in a parliamentary will be based on ideology.

Which one works better will depend on how a given population wants to be represented. I suspect that Americans perceive themselves to have more interests in common with their geographic neighbors than they do with people who hold similar opinions halfway across the country. This may also explain why we seem to prefer what you call Constituency Representation. In other countries, whether you are a communist, a socialist, a centrist, a liberal, or a nationalist may matter more.

Of course, this also speaks to your point about Federalism. You seem to be arguing against ineffective Federalism. In the US, the 50 states are semi-sovereign political entities in their own right, yet this hasn't prevented us from dealing with natural disasters in a coordinated way (Katrina excepted), nor from generating a national health, educational, environmental or other policies. Yet local governance is preciously defended here. So your objections don't seem to apply to us.

I think one reason we like our system so much is that a strong central executive can deal with emergencies (like the ones you mentioned) faster and more decisively. Most such emergencies are probably related to international interests- the US is highly invested in the global economic structure- the US public expects our national government to deal with threats to that structure relatively quickly and effectively. A single executive may be perceived as being in a better position to do that than a legislature, which must debate all policies until a consensus is reached.

Which brings us to a final point: you said "...Beneath most of the points I will make lies a deep conviction that democracy is supposed to be about consensus and compromise, not an epic battle of conflicting ideologies, and that good leadership means being a skilled diplomat rather than a strong-arm hero of the people."

Well, sometimes that's true, but sometimes it isnt. Yes, in the long run, there should be a public consensus on issues of importance, but what happens if the public is inherently divided, and some policy must be pursued? Do you prefer a representative indecisiveness, or a less democratic but more effective leadership? Your answer to that question may be the critical factor that helps you decide which system to prefer.

I happen to prefer "Council Democracy" myself. We spent an entire thread developing a TV Tropes national constitution that ended up becoming a "Presidential-Popular Council" style government. Check it out

edited 17th Jul '13 6:46:04 PM by DeMarquis

Something that's always troubled me about proportional representation is accountability. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but as I understand it, in a proportionally representative system, the lawmakers we see voting and debating on television don't actually have any power; they're just a rubber stamp committee, and all the real decisions are made by party officials behind closed doors. I find it disturbing that the government might make decisions without anyone knowing the names or faces of the people responsible.

I mean, suppose a political party has made some unpopular decisions lately and loses a lot of seats come election time, so for the next election they revise their platform and vow to fix most of the public's problems with them. How do you tell if this new attitude represents an actual change-up in the party's management, or if the same people are in charge as before and they're just making token gestures of having reformed?

OP: I whole heartedly agree on the porportional representation part. I guess I just like voting for the best option instead of the least bad option .

Assuming that is true, how would adopting a Constituency Voting system change anything?

@Marquis. I recognise my case against federalism is probably the weakest of the four. It's the one that's most strongly based on deeply-rooted cultural assumptions about what being a nation-state means. Still, I think some things are inherently more difficult - not impossible, just difficult - in a federation than in a unitary state: co-ordinating stuff like law enforcement and emergency response, and maintaining a sense of national unity without sharp dividing lines between regions.

Your comment about 'a legislature, which must debate all policies until a consensus is reached' is slightly misleading. Normally, any government in a parliamentary system can count on the support of a majority in parliament - that's what coalitions are formed for. With complete party discipline (which is almost always the case), it is possible for a quick decision to be reached without endless debate. There's a majority anyway, unless the government starts pulling some really weird stunts and/or the coalition parties "break up".

(Of course, this has the unfortunate tendency of allowing the government to treat parliament more like a rubber stamp - but some degree of that is necessary for a reasonably quick decision-making process).

And then there's your question: the choice between 'a representative indecisiveness, or a less democratic but more effective leadership.' Well, I'll say it depends on how big the issue is. Of course, no government has 100% support for every decision it makes; you're often going to have to do something that pisses off, say, 30% or 40% of the country. You can't satisfy everyone, and there's no use in trying.

But on really controversial issues, I think it's better to go the sluggish, indecisive route full of watery compromises, rather than push through one side's agenda and risk seriously alienating the others. And I think that when a country is deeply divided politically, politicians have a responsibility to work together and try to de-escalate, rather than make things worse by relentlessly pushing for their own faction's viewpoint. Of course, most Real Life politicians don't seem to be that responsible.

Any kind of political process that tears a nation apart - be it along geographical or ideological lines - is a Very Bad Thing. The fate of Morsi's regime in Egypt (an emerging democracy), and the current extreme polarisation in the US (an established democracy) should serve to illustrate this point.

Oh, and one more point: avoiding such deep divisions isn't always about listening to opposing political parties. It's also about listening to the people you're actually making decisions about. For example, if you're going to reform the police, at least hear what the police officers' union thinks of your plans before you go ahead, and try to be considerate of them. If you're going to reform labour regulations and/or social security, try to strike some kind of deal with labour unions and business organisations. Yes, this can mean endless negotiations, but it's a lot better (at least in my opinion) than having large sections of society furiously protesting the government's plans.

@Raven. There is such a thing as party discipline, yes, but I don't see how this would be any different under constituency voting. How often do British MPs vote against party line?

You seem to think of party machines as dark, shady, Omniscient Council of Vagueness-style organisations full of Men Behind The Man. I don't know where you're from, but at least here in the Netherlands (and in other countries we regularly get political news about, such as Germany) that perception is entirely inaccurate.

Sure, behind-the-screens backstabbing goes on in any organisation - but political parties usually have a high degree of internal democracy and transparency. They are voluntary associations with thousands of members (all together, the members of Dutch political parties are about 2% of the population). Things such as election programmes and candidate lists must be approved on a party conference, where all members who bothered to show up get to vote about them. These conferences are very public affairs; in fact, any party will try to draw as much media attention to its conference as possible.

Party officials, such as the chairman and the members of certain committees, are likewise elected by the party members - and it's easy to find out who's who in the party hierarchy, for example, by checking the party's Web site. These aren't secrets, and any party which did try to keep them secret would be regarded with extreme suspicion by the media and voters.

As for the elected legislators being merely a rubber stamp for the party machine, that isn't true, either. Of course, no politician wants to lose the trust of his party members - they're his most loyal and active supporters. But when a conflict between a party's MPs and the party members at large gets really bad, when no amount of explaining or passionate speeching will get most of the party members around to the MPs' viewpoint, the MPs can and will say to the party members, 'Stuff it. You approved our candidacies, you approved the platform on which we ran, now you trust us to represent you! Oh, and did we mention that we were actually elected, and are thus fully legitimate representatives of the people, not just of our own party activists?'

Of course, most parties hope it never comes to this, because heavy internal conflicts are bad, bad news. Sensation-hungry media will jump on it, adding fuel to the fire, and most voters will quickly turn away from a party that looks like it doesn't have its act together.

As for the hypothetical scenario of a party having "changed its ways" - well, it's up to your own judgment whether you trust them to be genuine about it. But anyway, who's in charge within the party is out in the open for all to see, as I just explained. (Or rather, for all who can be bothered to look it up. Most voters are blissfully ignorant of the basics of our political system, let alone the inner workings of political parties).

@Midnight Rambler, I agree with you on many points, but I don't share your opinion on federalism. It probably depends on the size and population of a country but I do believe that in bigger countries, federalism has its merits.

You bring up some good arguments and underline them with specific examples and I do agree that some key areas should be directed from Berlin (a common education policy would be good) but as some analysts pointed out, federalism can actually quite cost-effective. For example there was an comparison made by my professor between France and Germany on the efficiency of infrastructure projects. Projects supervised by the German Länder tended to be finished a lot faster and in total be cheaper than those supervised by Paris.

"But there is no reason to believe its federal structure has anything to do with this." It is indeed difficult to prove this, but as many articles pointed out, the German economy depends heavily on the "Mittelstand" which are often small companys which often get some benefits from local governments. As you can again see between France and Germany, money which is supposed to help companys is often better given by local authorities.

I think federalism is a good way to introduce countries with strong local idendities and little democratic experience to democracy. This way they have possibility's to not only influence policy on the country-level, but even on matters they are directly effected. You just have to make sure that the structures are not getting to inefficient or posing a danger to national security. Today some reasons for federalism (protections of minorities, protection against authoritarian ambitions et all.) are not that important anymore because there is no real danger of the situation becoming worse. However people would react badly if Washington/Berlin/whatever would try to cut their politically autonomy. You can't say that a federalistic organization always reconsiles minorities or regions with a strong local identity with the state. Sometimes it works (Bavaria in Germany), sometimes it works less (Tirol, Italy) and sometimes not at all (Catalonia, Spain). But it can work better sometimes if it fails, the outcome would have been hardly different if they'd chosen a more unitaristic approach.

edited 18th Jul '13 7:57:58 AM by Zarastro

My points:

• The Constituency system also ensures a close link between the Representative and the people that elected them — in the British system people can, and do, go to their MPs to ask for their help when they're having difficulties with Government Agencies, for example. In fact, most British MPs have surgeries where Constituents can come to them with their problems, whoever they voted for (and even if they didn't vote at all).
• I don't see what's so normal about this. The example Linz cites is Britain, but the British political system is such a crazy mess full of bizarre Grandfather Clauses - no separation of church and state, no written constitution, no equality between the constituent countries - that I wouldn't hold up any part of it as an example of anything, except as an example of how not to do things.

I will say that the British system wasn't made by people sitting down and deciding how things should be done from scratch — it is a system that has evolved over hundreds of years. And Britain does have a written constitution — it is in hundreds of legal judgements and laws over hundreds of years — but you are correct in that it is not codified into a single document.

Then again, remember that Britain hasn't had the upheavals that Continental Europe has had; the last major shake up of the system was the English Civil War. Added to that is there is a Conservative streak running through British^note  English mostly. Not Scotland, as it's turning out. Politics — we will not change something unless we really need to.

edited 18th Jul '13 8:12:08 AM by Greenmantle

I concur with most of your points, Rambly. However, I would make a compromise between Constituency and Proportional.

I suggest we have multi-member constituencies, as seen in countries like Ireland. While the Irish system is unique to Ireland, the way it works in the Northern Ireland Assembly is actually quite good. It preserves the link between person and MP(s), and yet, applies the proportionality that we associate with proportional systems.

And also, we both share the same idea about what is a nation-state (well, after all, it was the Dutch who invented it! :D), but federalism is possibly needed. I mean, you know the calls for regional assemblies in England. I believe federalism in that way is good for England because the Tories are a party of the South, and yet, the North and the Midlands did not vote (in large numbers) for the Tories.

I think too much federalism (a la America) is bad, because it just creates mini-nations with a big thing tying them together. And yet, too much centralism (a la England under the UK) is just as bad, as it creates an overarching government that wasn't elected by a certain region making legislation for it. For example, the UK Government makes urban policy based on London. Yet, Birmingham is not London, despite there only being a 200 km distance.

Subsidiary is pretty good in that regards. But I think we should split powers:

Let's take Health. I am no doctor, but I have a few ideas.

Provincial:

• Running of hospitals/hospital regions
• Provision of hospital services
• Specialisation of hospitals

National:

• Health budget
• Drugs/treatments available for use

This keeps the large power of the national government (which it should have), but allows a degree of differentiation between the Provinces - but not enough difference that each Province gets too big for its boots.

There was that Referendum in 2004 for a Regional Assembly in the North East^note  At the time, the Region Labour thought was most likely to want to create one — the proposal was rejected by 696,519 (78%) votes to 197,310 (22%). Nothing has been heard since.

I think at this point, an English devolved Parliament is more likely.

edited 18th Jul '13 9:12:06 AM by Greenmantle

What about non-geographic constituencies? I would like to see a Senate or Parliament elected on ridings divided by income level (the poorest percentile gets one seat, the second poorest percentile gets one seat, and so on up to the 1%).

Like a University constituency?^note  That's right, Universities did elect an MP in Westminster until 1950. The Irish still do.

edited 18th Jul '13 10:55:34 AM by Greenmantle

Interesting. So everyone in your alma mater gets the same riding, or more successful universities with more graduates get more ridings? I wouldn't make that the norm unless universal postsecondary education was provided for everyone.

X7, The thing with German Federalism is that it's very different from other types of Federalism, it's built on the idea of the Federal and local governments working together on pretty much everything, while American Federalism is build on the idea that each level has its own thing that it does and they should stay out of each others way.

X5, X6 I agree on keeping the link between an MP and his constituency, it's important. It keeps M Ps (slightly) more humble if after they get back from a big government meting they get a phone call from the little old lady on Twister Street who wants her bins sorted.

I like the Scottish system for that, you vote twice, once for a party and once for a candidate. At the end all the party votes are totted up and if any part got less seats (via candidates) than % of party votes they get a "top up" of extra M Ps who aren't linked to any specific seat.

edited 18th Jul '13 11:04:00 AM by Silasw

Several of you seem to acknowledge arguments in favor of at least some degree of federalism. The thing is, once you concede a degree of local control to districts of some kind, certain implications follow. If locality, at least to some degree, can define common interests, then doesnt that mean that political ideology (right, left, conservative, liberal) is therefore less important? Which means that political parties are less important? Which means that proportional representation will be less important? Is it better to be represented by a group of like-minded party officials that I will never meet, or an representative from an opposing party whose office is located in my town and who answers his mail? I realize that there are hybrid designs that confuse the issue.

Midnights point about party majorities making consensus more likely and decisions more quickly is a good one, except for those people who didn't vote for that party. In a properly balanced presidential system, the executive cant impose it's will on the legislature for very long, because the dont control the budget- but they have almost complete freedom to respond to short term emergencies. To do anything that is going to take more than about six months they have to appeal to a wider range of stakeholders and constituencies in order to carry a majority in Congress, which will usually mean that they have to appeal to a wider range of public support than any single party would. My point is that the practical difference between a directly elected executive and a parliamentary system is less than theory makes it out to be.

"And then there's your question: the choice between 'a representative indecisiveness, or a less democratic but more effective leadership.' Well, I'll say it depends on how big the issue is. Of course, no government has 100% support for every decision it makes; you're often going to have to do something that pisses off, say, 30% or 40% of the country."

Ah, but then, what do you do if there is no public majority at all? In other words, any policy you adopt is guaranteed to piss off a majority of people? Yet a solution cant wait? That calls for decisive leadership. A directly elected president might have the guts to do that.

Can you think of an example of a situation where a majority of people would be opposed to any possible decision and a decision must be made?

Fixing budget deficits?

Pick any hot button social issue: Abortion, Gay Marriage, Gun Control, the Federal Budget Deficit in the US.

@Zarastro. I think the greater support for small businesses in Germany has more to do with political orientation than with the structure of government. France is traditionally a more left-leaning country, with a more suspicious attitude towards private enterprise. But you may well be right that regional authorities are better at allocating business subsidies than the national government, especially in a country as huge as Germany.

@Greenmantle. Yes, the constituency system ensures a closer link between MPs and their voters - that's exactly what I mean when I talk about 'members representing the particular interests of a lot of tiny areas rather than those of the country as a whole.' I see a close link between MPs and the areas that elected them as an argument against constituency voting rather than for it.

As for the whole "MPs help their constituents with government stuff" thing - well, what is government? A collective effort for the benefit of all, or a mysterious, distant entity that can't be understood by laypeople without the help of the local shaman? The extra tasks of an MP in the British system definitely fit into the latter view better. In extremely sparsely populated areas with little government presence, such as the Australian Outback, the Canadian prairies or the US's Flyover Country, this makes some sense. In Britain, it doesn't.

MPs ought to be national lawmakers, not local helpdesks. There is also the simple issue of workload: as I mentioned in the OP, MP is already a more-than-full-time job. When an MP wants to argue for Position X in parliament, it's quite common for a pro-X lobbyist to hand her a cut-and-dried PowerPoint presentation with all the arguments, background facts and catchy oneliners she could wish for - which she then gratefully accepts, because with the precious little assistance she gets, she doesn't have the time to do the research herself. And this is in the Netherlands, with no constituencies and no extra tasks for MPs. I shudder to think of how bad this gets in Britain.

Members of parliament have two tasks: deciding on legislation, and watching the government critically. If you give them any more jobs to do, they'll have even less time for those primary tasks, reducing their independence with respect to the government and making them more vulnerable prey for special-interest groups.

And very few political systems are 'made by people sitting down and deciding how things should be done from scratch.' Those that are often fail spectacularly. That doesn't change the fact that some systems have more rules that used to make sense but don't anymore in them than others.

@Hopey. I'm curious about how we're supposed to have "invented" the concept of a nation-state - in fact, the old Dutch Republic was an extremely loose federation (as its full name, the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, indicated) whose political class was so completely local-minded that coherent national policy-making was nigh impossible. The concept of a unitary state was imported from France during the Wars of the Revolution, and initially imposed on us quite forcibly. And as far as I know, the idea of a nation-state also arose in the wake of the French Revolution, with no specific pioneering role for us.

Anyway, moving on from the history lesson: your idea for a hybrid system, with multi-member constituencies, sends a shiver down my spine because that's what Belgium has. In national elections, Flemish voters can't vote for Walloon candidates and vice versa, in effect creating two completely separate party systems and making the language divide ever deeper. And one of the reasons why Belgium set a new world record for Longest Time to Form a Government (541 days!) a few years ago is that Flemish and Walloon politicians couldn't come to an agreement about the constituency of Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde.

But of course, these problems stem more from the Walloon-Flemish rivalry, which is specifically a Belgian issue, than from the system as such.

Anyway, as may be gleaned from the OP, I see few to no advantages to constituency voting, and few to no disadvantages to proportional representation. Hence, I think your system is better than a pure constituency system, but not as good as full PR.

@Taoist. And why exactly would you like to see this? I see all kinds of problems with it. For one, it might encourage parties to specifically target rich or poor voters, effectively turning the political process into a more civilised form of class warfare (especially in countries with large income disparities). Also, how would electoral considerations affect economic policy? I doubt it would be for the better. But I'd like to hear your arguments for this.

@Marquis. You say an elected president will 'have to appeal to a wider range of public support than any single party would.' This is somewhat misleading, since I explicitly mentioned forming coalitions to get a majority, right there in that passage. But your point about parliamentarianism and presidentialism not differing all that much in practice is a valid one - Linz, too, notes this:

(I especially like that last remark about television).

As for the situation where any decision will piss off a majority of voters - my remark about 'not trying to please everyone' still applies when it's 70% or 80% rather than 30% or 40% you're pissing off. Especially on the issue of budget cuts, people tend to take simplistic and wildly unrealistic positions (for example, cutting a certain department's budget by 10 billion when that budget is only 2 billion in the first place) and be very hard to reason with. Of course the government shouldn't listen to all of that.

Sometimes painful measures are necessary, even if they make your government very unpopular. I don't see why a president would be more likely to have the guts to do that than a prime minister - after all, a president wants to be re-elected too (or if he's hit his term limit, he'll want to boost the chances of his party's next candidate).

@The thread in general. You may wonder why I am so vigorously opposed to any kind of geography-based representation. Well, I have a confession to make: I am from the Randstad, the heavily urbanised area in the west of the Netherlands, centered around Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. It's similar to living in the big cities in the northeastern US, or in Paris or London (with a lot of the same cultural implications).

Of course, this region is always well-represented in government anyway. Had I been born in a sparsely populated region, far from my country's economic and political centres, I would probably have thought a little differently about this. As one political columnist put it, when discussing the differences between PR and constituency voting, 'In the Netherlands, no one gives a damn what the people of Stadskanaal think about an issue.'

Now, this doesn't mean I'm only advocating PR because it's a good deal for my hometown - I think it's only fair that rural areas get less representation, because they simply have fewer people. And as I pointed out in the OP, a candidate who only has to win votes in, say, Helmond will care even less about the concerns of voters in Stadskanaal. But again, I think I should be honest about how my own background colours my perceptions. After all, the fact that all the systems I advocate are exactly the systems used in my own country is no coincidence either.

edited 18th Jul '13 3:18:11 PM by MidnightRambler

The day-to-day work of any MP will be handled by the Civil Service, including everything from dealing with personal correspondence, to researching information for Cabinet Ministers to implementing executive policy on the ground.

Being Crown employees, rather than employees of Parliament, with similar political restrictions as there is on the rest of the Crown, keeps it from being tangled up in Parliamentary shenanigans.

What happens in a proportional representation system if a legislator decides to quit their party, either to join another party or to be independent? Do they still get to keep their seat?

@ Presidential vs Parliamentary

I would largely say that Parliamentary tends to be superior, from what I can tell, due to the greater amount of decision consensus and thought required versus showmanship of Presidential systems.

@ Ministers versus Full Separation

I'm a little unfamiliar with what you mean by full separation and the lack of ministers. Many Parliamentary systems throughout the world have M Ps double as Ministers. What exactly are the types of alternatives that you have seen so that I can discuss this in more detail? I am assuming you don't mean the Presidential system of having an appointed cabinet by the President.

@ Proportional vs Constituency

In my experience thus far, constituency voting has resulted in mostly garbage for Canada. It puts far too much power into political parties that don't deserve it (usually Liberal or Tory). When they should be compromising with the public because they only captured 35% of the vote, instead they can steamroll through bad legislation because they received majority power in Parliament.

Moreover, Constituency voting has led to massive regionalist politics in Canada and in many other countries in which I've seen it (such as Britain). Crazy Tory religo-nutball anti-gay rhetoric would never fly if they had to win via proportional representation.

@ Unitarianism vs Federalist

I assume by fiction you mean American fiction where Federalism is always awesome, locality of power is best and you always need to rebel against some evil Empire or Authority?

The reality is that Federalist system is not by choice, it is by necessity. You're from Netherlands. I can commute to work at a distance bigger than your country. (I don't by the way because I hate commuting) The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, China, Japan, Russia etc they aren't Federalist because they hate Unitarianism, they are Federalist because they're effing huge. When the Central Authority wants to roll out (for instance) public healthcare, it takes a long time to do it from a central location so instead you do it from several authorities instead (for instance, in Canada, the healthcare is provided by provinces). Now, after it's been set up, then you start seeing problems because the lack of unitary policy causes issues. But before it is set up, unitarianism makes it impossible to get set up.

However, changes to the system are similarly difficult. Can you apply the same agricultural policy to France as you do to Poland? Not likely. And it's the same problem in places like Canada where if you put in the Wheat Control Board, it helps the Prairie provinces but the central provinces need/want fruit supply protection.

Think about it like this. Canada or United States are larger than Europe. You want to roll out gay marriage across the whole place at once? Did the EU? No? Then you really can't expect North America to suddenly go "Okay gay marriage is done!". It took Canada roughly a year to two years to roll it out across the country. America is slower but the diversity of culture and values in the USA is far larger than it is in Canada.

(Edit: Just a note about National Guard units, the Federal government has massively breached states rights, in my opinion, with regards to them. I suppose that can be seen in a positive light from your perspective but not from mine. Their primary purpose is to protect and serve people of a state. When Hurricane Katrina happened the Federal government had deployed a significant number of the local units to Iraq which depleted their ability to help out when the disaster occurred. Think of them, in their modern form, as super fire-fighter-cop-paramedics instead of individual state armies)

edited 19th Jul '13 12:35:06 AM by breadloaf

I'm guessing thet would depend on the country. In Finland they would still be M Ps.

edited 19th Jul '13 1:52:08 AM by Qeise

@Batty. Well, that's one thing Britain has a better system for, then. Here, an MP gets a single assistant - employed by their party, not by the Crown. Often, this is a bright-eyed fresh graduate with lots of enthusiasm for the cause but little experience. There are also two small research institutions (for the entire Second Chamber) where they can take their trickier questions. And that's it.

This leaves MPs woefully underequipped to deal with all the shit that lands on their desks, leading to easy lobbying as I outlined in my previous post.

@Raven. It depends on the country and on the person. In Dutch politics, an MP will occasionally say Screw This, I'm Outta Here if parliamentary work is not what they made it out to be. Usually, they remain party members.

This resignation may also happen under pressure, if you've said or done something really stupid and it would be impossible for your party to keep you on as MP.

However, once you're elected, you're elected, and party leadership can't force you to give up your seat. An MP with a considerable ego and an adventurous streak may go on as an independent, whether they were kicked out forcibly or quit out of dissatisfaction with their party's policies. These "renegades" often try to form their own parties, which tends to fail hilariously. However, once in a blue moon, a succesful renegade can really come back to bite their former party in the ass; Geert Wilders, the notorious far-right troublemaker who even made international media with his theatrical anti-Islam campaigns, started out this way.

So, either you quit the party but remain in parliament, or quit parliament but remain in the party. Both can happen under pressure or out of your own free will. Quitting parliament and your party all at once is rare.

Switching from one party to another while in parliament is unheard of here, and I doubt it's legal. It would lead to immediate cries of No Fair Cheating from all corners of the political spectrum, and no sane party would accept you since you've just shown yourself to be very unreliable.

However, different countries have different practices: years ago, I read an article about a country - I'm fairly sure it was South Africa - where there is a set point in time at which MPs may switch from one party to another. Then again, I don't know if South Africa even has PR at all.

@Breadloaf. Regarding more detail on the "full separation" point: well, ministers are often formally appointed by the head of state, but except in a presidential system, the decision isn't his to make. Which party gets which cabinet posts is part of coalition-forming talks; once the posts have been divided, it's up to the leadership of each party to "fill" the posts they have been assigned. Their selection will often include elected MPs, who have to give up their seats if they accept positions in cabinet (the seats will go to others from the same party who initially didn't make the cut).

As for federalism, like I said, it makes some sense in large countries. But Canada doesn't really count as "large" because while it's absolutely huge by area, it's small to mid-sized by population. More populous countries than Canada have 'suddenly gone "Okay gay marriage is done!"'

And I wasn't talking about the US National Guard in the OP, but the various State Guards. Even if those are mostly "super-fire-fighter-cop-paramedics" in practice, they're still armed forces that aren't under the control of the central government. That seems very dangerous to me - what if Texas, or some other state with a State Guard, goes rogue? Granted, it's unlikely to happen, but it's the principle of the matter.

@Qeise. Belgium eats a lot of sugar, yes, but I'm just describing my own first association with the idea. I quite clearly acknowledge that 'these problems stem more from the Walloon-Flemish rivalry, which is specifically a Belgian issue, than from the system as such.'

But what about the ability of the people to remove any bad eggs? In a pure PR system what stops an incredibly unpopular MP for being put at the top of the list, and staying elected because even though they are disliked they can't be removed without sinking the entire party

Also you missed the point I made about how we should keep M Ps linked to the people so as to prevent them getting to big headed. In a pure PR system the MP doesn't answer to the people first, he answers to the party first and the people second

Also, how do you run as an independent in a PR system? I assume you would have to form a one man party, but then what happens when a one man party gains more than one seat?

@Silas. What 'stops an incredibly unpopular MP from being put at the top of the list' is their party's political survival instinct. If voters really hate Alice because she Eats Babies or whatever, and Party X puts Alice on a high position on their list of candidates, how many people do you think are going to vote for Party X?

But suppose that someone really wants to vote for Party X but still dislikes Alice. Under constituency voting, they may have no choice but to vote for Alice anyway because she's Party X's candidate for their constituency. Under proportional representation, they can vote for another candidate on Party X's list, with a chance of keeping Alice out via preference voting or at least sending a clear message to Party X that Alice isn't popular.

And yes, an MP answers to the party first and the people second. But the party is a subset of the people - more specifically, of that small group of people who care about politics enough to actively get involved. In a way, your point, like so many complaints about representative democracy, boils down to 'people who don't care about politics don't get enough political influence,' which is rather circular and redundant. You're just stating the iron law of oligarchy, which is inescapable in modern democracies and isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Running as an independent... Well, you'll have to form a one-man party, yes. Some parties aren't officially one-man parties, but are obviously built on the charisma of a single Great Leader, with the other candidates as little more than filler (again, see Wilders). Some of them may even be explicitly called "Bob's List" or "Bob's Group" or what have you. Read about the fate of the Lijst Pim Fortuyn for an example of what happens to such a "filler party" when the Great Leader is removed from the equation.

Anyway, in our elections, any given party's number of candidates will be much larger than the number of seats they can reasonably expect to get. A party which would be lucky to get even a single seat may have, say, 10 candidates. For small to moderately sized parties expecting 10-15 seats, 30 is a common number. The largest parties may well run with 75 candidates, even though no party has scored more than 50 seats in our 150-seat Second Chamber since 1989. It's quite common for celebrities with strong sympathy for a party but no intent of actually becoming MPs to fill the lowest positions on the list, in the hope their "star power" will bring in extra votes.

The point is, a party winning more seats than it has candidates (as in your example with a one-man party getting multiple seats) is a completely theoretical situation, and I'm not aware of any precedent for that. It's hard to Google, too, so finding out what the rules are will involve either Reading The Fine Print of electoral law or e-mailing the responsible institutions. It's an interesting question, though, precisely because there's no obvious or straightforward solution.

edited 19th Jul '13 7:34:19 AM by MidnightRambler