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I think that's a silly notion. Many countries have political systems with many political parties, e.g. Germany has 14 and Denmark has 11. Certainly these partie
by geewee 7y ago
I think that's a silly notion. Many countries have political systems with many political parties, e.g. Germany has 14 and Denmark has 11.
Certainly these parties often pair up to form government in (reasonably) established political blocks, but it still allows for intra-block disagreements and even parties from different blocks working together on issues they care particularly much about.
- maze-le 7y agoWe have far more than 14 active political parties. Most of them are founded for very narrow and specific issues (Tierschutzpartei -- "party for animal welfare", Die Violetten -- "party for mysticism/esotericism"). Some operate only on a regional level, like the SSV -- the party of the danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Schleswig_Voters%27_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Schleswig_Voters%27_Asso...). On the municipal level it is not uncommon to have candidates without party affiliation -- some of them organize in "loose parties" that are more a coalition of individuals than a real party (Freie Wähler). I think the tendency to form coalitions and compromises than hyperpartisan confrontations has its roots in the voting system. We have a system of proportional representational voting -- not first past the post voting. This allows for more flexibility on the stance of single members on some issues. It is not unheard of to have 2 or more blocks in the same party that have very different opinions on specific issues. While this might be true for any representational system, first-past-the-post voting tends to focus on one issue that becomes the core of identification for some.