Steve Eppley wrote:
Hi,
I prefer a definition of "representativeness" that differs from
Kristofer's. To me, the more similar the *decisions* of a legislature
are to the decisions the people themselves would make collectively in a
well-functioning direct democracy, the more representative is the
legislature.
Given my definition, a non-proportional legislature comprised solely of
centrist majoritarian compromise candidates may be very representative,
since the people themselves would reach centrist compromises on the
issues in a well-functioning direct democracy. It might be more
representative than a proportional legislature, since the proportional
legislator could match her constituents' favorite position on every
issue yet fail to match the way they would compromise.
By considering issue representativeness, I was trying to reduce the
problem of deliberation within a representative assembly to that of a
direct democracy. Whatever problems the assembly might have, the people
would also have if a direct democracy on the scale in question would be
feasible in the first place: problems like tipping-point coalitions
having undue power (as the Banzhaf and SS indices try to measure) would
exist in both cases.
However, that, as you say, depends on that issues are the only thing
that matter. Now, the dynamics among the candidates could differ from
those of the people, but I don't see how those dynamics could be
simulated. In order to measure the proportionality of decisions alone,
there would have to be some sort of "decision generator" that takes the
dynamics into account.
Also, the centrist majority candidates you mention would have to be very
good at being neutral, incorruptible, and not belong to the same
majority. The feedback is much more direct in a proportional assembly:
if one of the representatives start to diverge, their support wanes, and
voters can discriminate between dropping support of one part of the
assembly and of another. If the assembly consisted of centrists, a
veering centrist could benefit more than he loses just by moving closer
to a certain majority, since a majoritarian method would reward him for
doing so.
Why should anyone care more about the legislature's proportionality than
about their decisions?
If the issues are good predictors of decisions, one would care about
issues for that reason alone.
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
