As there's a presidential election upcoming that will profoundly influence the lives of many of you guys across the pond (I refer of course to that in the APA), I'll stick to the thread concerning voting systems. But first a psychological observation about the bickering that occasionally breaks out between Canadian TIPSters and Americans. The influential Hollywood school of psychology has taught us that such bickering indicates that Americans and Canadians, in their heart of hearts, love each other to bits, but haven't yet realised it.
On 28 October Rick Adams wrote: > Actually, the problem comes from the fact that we don't have proportional > representation! Under truly sophisticated systems, voters elect the > candidates to Parliament that best represent their views, then those > representatives work with others in Parliament to form a coalition of > like minded parties that will govern, with the leader of the largest > party becoming Prime Minister. Leaving aside that the leader of the largest party may not be able to gain the support of a majority of Members of Parliament, by Rick's criterion the most formally democratic country in the world is Israel. What we see there illustrates that there is no simple principle to define what is the most democratic system. With what is (I believe) the purest form of proportional representation in the world, in Israel we have the spectacle of small religious parties holding the balance of power, and exercising a veto on the government by threatening to withdraw support if they don't get their way on matters which they regard as vital for their fundamentalist interests. Even where there is a modified form of proportional representation (e.g., only parties that receive 10 percent of the overall vote are allowed to have representatives in Parliament), there are comparable problems. Small parties may exert an influence out of all proportion to their support in the country. An example of the anomalies that may occur in a parliamentary system based on proportional representation occurred in the recently inaugurated Scottish parliament, in which no party had an overall majority. One condition that the Liberal Democrats insisted upon for its joining a coalition with Labour was that the Labour-led administration for Scotland incorporated into its health policy the principle of free residence in Old Peoples' Homes for all senior citizens needing it, regardless of their financial situation. To avoid a constitutional crisis (no prospective administration having the support of a majority of SMPs) the Scottish Labour Party acceded to the Lib Dems demands. The result has been that funds have had to be diverted away from more immediately vital parts of the Scottish National Health Service to finance what has turned out to be a massively costly policy, creating severe under-funding in some areas of the Scottish NHS, with worse to come in the future with the prospect of increasing numbers of people living into their 80s and 90s. So a minority party was able to force its ill-advised policy onto a reluctant administration against the Scottish Labour Party's better judgement, something that would probably not have happened had there been a Westminster-style "first past the post" election (which, needless to say, has its own anomalies and disadvantages). As Chris Green wrote, there is more than one electoral system that can be described as (more or less) democratic; all have their pros and cons. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------- Thu, 28 Oct 2004 Author: "Rick Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: APA Presidential Elections > Actually, the problem comes from the fact that we don't have proportional > representation! Under truly sophisticated systems, voters elect the > candidates to Parliament that best represent their views, then those > representatives work with others in Parliament to form a coalition of > like minded parties that will govern, with the leader of the largest > party becoming Prime Minister. > > Instead of voting for the least sleazy candidate (as has become the US > norm), voters in those nations vote for the party that represents the > closest views to their own--and the total percentage of votes cast for > each party determines how many seats it will occupy in Parliament (with > the candidates starting from the first one on the party's list down to > that number) filling those seats. > > It works. It's representative. And it allows for the election of > representatives who actually DO represent the views of the voters, since > they don't have to play to the "middle line" as is true of the parties > here in the US. > > Try it--we'll LIKE it! :-) > > Rick --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
