Jeroen:
>>What does happen with proportional representation is that small groups of
>>people have power to dictate their will to the rest of the people.
>
>That's highly unlikely. Such a thing can only happen if support for all
>their proposals is the price for forming a coalition with that party.
>However, if a party wants to form a coalition with a smaller party, it will
>not do so if the price is too high (like having to support some extremely
>radical proposals). It is therefore highly unlikely that a small group will
>ever be able to dictate its will to the rest of the population.
I think the confusion here is created by your use of the world "all."
Nobody is suggesting that minority parties in parliamentary systems get to
impose all of their will on a population. What I am saying, however, is
that in such a system, these minority extremist parties are able to extract
some price for joining a coalition government. That price is usually one
policy or another that would usually have no chance of passage otherwise.
In this case, giving the Greens a sizable portion of Congress, might get
one or two of their more radical environmental proposals passed, as opposed
to to their whole platform.
The American system, however, requires the horse-trading of policies to
occur before the election. For example, Bush had to make concessions to
the pro-life group of his Party to get the Republican nomination, thus
giving voters a more accurate representation of what sort of deals on
abortion he would have to make. With a Parliamentary system, when you
elect the Republicans, you don't know if they are going to get a deal on
abortion with the pro-lifers, a deal on guns with the NRA, or a deal on the
environement with the Greens to set up a coalition government.
>No, this is not democratic, but a single case is not proof that small
>groups of people have the power to dictate their will to the rest of the
>people. This particular case only shows that the party or parties the Shas
>formed a coalition with were quite desperate -- otherwise they wouldn't
>have agreed to support those religious proposals.
But it is also a product of the system, Jeroen. In America, the Shas
Party would never be anywheres close to holding that kind of power, unless
they had much broader support than their current 5%.
Do you see the difference now? If Israeli elections are held under the
American system, a fringe Party like the Shas gets nowhere, unless they can
truly claim the support of the people by winning a plurality of the vote in
at least a locality.
>>It sounds good when it's the 5% you want. But, lets say the religious
>>right wins 20% of the vote and will join any coalition that will ensure
>>that neo-evangelical Christianity is taught in the public schools.
>
>Such an idea would be considered extreme, so few (if any) larger parties
>would be willing to form a coalition with the religious right if supporting
>that proposal would be the price.
If a Party had 20% of the vote, it will be very tempting for someone to cut
a deal for a coalition government with them. LIke you said, Shas got power
because it was desperate. If you have three parties earning seats, 40% to
the Dems, 40% to the GOP, and 20% to the Christian Right, the Christian
Right suddenly holds all the power in Congress. Does the Christian Right
form a coalition with the Democrats on the basis of social justice? Or
the GOP based on moral issues and abortion? Their choice tilts the
balance of Congress.
JDG
_______________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"Now is not the Time for Third Chances,
It is a Time for New Beginnings."
- George W. Bush 8/3/00
******************VOTE BUSH / CHENEY 2000 *******************
