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What stops these 7 members forming two coalitions and having it regress to a two-party polarization?

baby 6y ago
that's something I never understood about US politics, what prevented Sanders from creating its own party for the US election and not run for the democratic primaries?
- keiferski 6y ago
  He easily could but would end up taking votes from the Democrats, thus helping his opponent in the process. The American system doesn’t work well with third-party candidates and mostly incentivizes against them; see the 1992 election for a recent example.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Ok, but in Canada a new upstart Conservative party (Reform) took away Votes from the existing Conservative Party (PC) and over several elections eventually got a majority. So sure, Bernie might take away votes from the Democrats, but that doesn’t mean support will eventually shift to him.
    - keiferski 6y ago
      Much more money and resources at play in the U.S., and Bernie is also fairly old and doesn't really have a 'party' or a clear successor. He/his followers wouldn't gain much from starting a new party.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Two things: 1. The media would ignore him if he did. He wouldn't get to take part in any of the debates, and most people would have no idea he was even running. 2. It might not even be possible for him to get on the ballot in most states as a third-party candidate. Election laws make it nearly impossible for third parties to get on the ballot in many states. In the last 20 years, the Green Party has never managed to get on the ballot in more than 45 states. In 2004, they only managed to get on the ballot in half the states. The Democratic party fights tooth and nail to keep them off the ballot (just like the Republican party fights to keep the Libertarians off the ballot). Because almost all the local and state election officials and judges are Democrats and Republicans, the deck is stacked against third parties. Finally, Sanders would be viewed as a spoiler, robbing votes from the Democratic party. Most people would feel like they would be throwing their votes away.
  - wolco 6y ago
    Third parties tend to emerge when one party has been in too long and has a large percentage of the vote. New party tries to take 30% of the 70% and 10% of the 30%
- md_ 6y ago
  The primary attribute of American politics that encourages a two party system is what’s known as “first past the post” elections. America’s two main parties have changed over the years (remember the Whigs?), so the existence of a two-party system cannot be attributed purely to control exerted by the current two parties. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Another, often overlooked part, is that competing in an American election requires very expensive media and outreach campaigns. Clinton spent $1.2B in 2016 and Trump spent $680B. These are formidable sums for non-establishment parties. Bernie spent $230M in a primary. To give a rough comparison, the UK limits spending per constituency, so the upper limit a party is allowed to spend in the UK is 19.5 GBP.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > Trump spent $680B I think this is not true. > the upper limit a party is allowed to spend in the UK is 19.5 GBP I'm pretty sure they spend more than that, as well.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        the B is a typo, should be M. > I'm pretty sure they spend more than that, as well. As per the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50170067 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50170067 > In the 2017 general election, 75 parties and 18 campaign groups reported spending more than £41.6m between them. The Conservatives spent most at £18.6m. It fielded 638 candidates, winning in 317 constituencies. Labour came in at £11m and the Liberal Democrats at £6.8m.
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        > As per the BBC The BBC figures are a million times larger than yours if you meant it as a total, and a hundred times smaller than yours if you meant it as per-capita.
- bmn__ 6y ago
  CGP Grey - The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained (section The Spoiler Effect): https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?t=300 https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?t=300 http://enwp.org/Ralph_Nader#Spoiler_controversy http://enwp.org/Ralph_Nader#Spoiler_controversy
- auganov 6y ago
  He's a Democrat senator and got Biden to essentially support most of his platform. Running as an independent or 3rd party would be political suicide and wouldn't help his agenda. But aside from that most countries have a single process to get on the ballot country-wide. In US you'd have to navigate this process for each state. I'm sure Bernie could pull that off. But it is definitely the reason you see many fewer randoms making a dent. Also if you consider the way primaries work in both parties it's way more transparent and approachable than most other places. Many major parties around the world don't have a primary process at all. And even when they do it's usually limited to insiders. So if you want to change things you're almost forced to create a party by default. If you couldn't make it in a primary of a party that's closer to your beliefs than the general population - how can you expect to make it on a national level?
abc03 6y ago
Firstly, a councillor is supported by a party. If you don't have the support of your party anymore, you are gone. Secondly, a federal councillar is "above" the party. You are representing first the federal council and not the party towards the public (i.e. a federal councillor represents the opinion of the federal council and not that one of his party).
- exclipy 6y ago
  What stops the parties from forming coalitions?
  - oblio 6y ago
    I don't know about the Swiss system, but I do know a bit about coalitions. I'll assume you're American and are not familiar with them. Coalitions are much less stable than 2 party systems, which is great. Political positions don't ossify and get turned into sports and people rooting for their camp. Plus representation is in my opinion better since the big guys frequently have to accommodate the little guys just to get the majority.
    - exclipy 6y ago
      I'm actually Australian but previously lived in Switzerland and currently in the US. Australia's political coalitions have been pretty stable despite instant run-off voting and not having any mention of political parties in the constitution. Politicians just gravitated towards forming parties and coalescing those parties into two sides because it was effective to do so.
      - ajdlinux 6y ago
        Except there's only really one stable coalition in Australia, and that's the coalition between the Liberal Party and some state divisions of the National Party (the Nationals in SA and WA, for example, are not part of the Coalition). The Lib/Nat Coalition has lasted so long that they are treated by the public as if they're one party, and indeed in Queensland and the NT they've merged. It's not a good example of political coalitions in general. In recent years, there have been Labor-Greens and Labor-Nationals coalitions at a state/territory level, and of course the Gillard minority government federally, but they aren't stable - they last for as long as Labor can't form a majority government. (Instant runoff voting doesn't necessarily tend towards formation of multi-party systems, it merely removes the risk of three-cornered contests that comes with FPTP (which is still a significant improvement for the chances of minor parties, obviously). The electoral system factors that really determine how multipartisan a political system is are whether you use proportional representation vs majoritarian (see Duverger's Law), and within PR systems, district magnitude. Proportional representation is the reason that in Australia you regularly see minority/coalition governments in the ACT and Tasmania but much more rarely elsewhere, and we see plenty of minor parties in upper houses rather than lower houses.)
renewiltord 6y ago
Presumably the proportional representation part of what he said empowers a team which has even 14% of the vote and so being independent is way more powerful than glomming together (where you’re likely to lose supporters who don’t like the guy you decided to get in bed with and you’re not likely to gain any new supporters).
SllX 6y ago
Cultural divisions along linguistic, religious and political fronts. That’s why the Cantons have so much autonomy. The Swiss Federal government has a much smaller much less high stakes political portfolio because the largest points of controversy, like naturalization, are handled by referendum at the Cantonal rather than the Federal level. The Federal Council is also elected by the legislature, the Federal Assembly, with the precise composition negotiated through Parliamentary procedure. Every member of the Council has parties to answer to, more so than a directly elected individual with a mandate that can appeal directly to voters and have more popularity than the party backing them. As Swiss culture is far from monolithic, all Federal politics has to be conducted within a coalition. This is true in America as well, it’s just the coalitions are formed under the auspices of the political parties when they form their platforms, which is why it causes problems when you have a directly elected President that is more popular than the party that nominated him. There’s a lot of lessons here for America, but we wouldn’t be able to transplant the Swiss system here without heavy modification. For example, almost the entirety of the referendum process described in the original article could have been a description of California’s ballot initiative process, with only minor differences in details and processes, and I would argue has been to the detriment of the State of California.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > ... and I would argue has been to the detriment of the State of California. I am suspicious of all of California's policies, your opinions and the apparent link between direct democracy and material success (Switzerland and California both being synonymous with outrageous wealth). If the US just tried direct democracy without heavy modification the complaints would be thunderously louder than they are now. No question. The oligarchs would be furious and the media would never shut up. What would actually happen on the ground is unclear.
  - fiblye 6y ago
    > The oligarchs would be furious and the media would never shut up. It’s not hard to find people who follow along party lines 90+% of the time, and who support policies basically because they’re told that’s what they should support. It’d be incredibly easy to game. One thing that stands in the way of people shooting themselves in the foot with bizarre, harmful policy is the sometimes decent court system. And people regularly get pissed at court decisions even if they rule in favor of betterment for the people.
esrauch 6y ago
Civic understanding is just much different; the 7 seats aren't actually allocated proportionally through a legal mechanism, the parliament just voluntarily chooses to keep the balance in the executive. If they were willing to violate that they could form a coalition in the parliment and actually take all 7 seats of the executive.
smoe 6y ago
A couple of the things, why this just doesn't make much sense to do: - Except on specific topics, the different parties don't actually agree on much. E.g. during the last cycle the center-right to right parties had the majority in parliament, but they barely got anything trough in four years - Besides having the role of head of state being shared among 7 people, the federal government also has much less power compared to other countries. Most domestic things happen at a canton (state) and municipal level. - Basically everything that the council decides, or parliament for that matter, can and often is challenged via popular referendums. If you don't establish the coalitions trough the entire system they will be pretty much useless. Also because of direct democracy, I think political discourse more often centers around the issues being voted on, rather than the parties and coalitions. That is what in my opinion is the strength of the Swiss political system. It is very hard for someone, be that a person or party to obtain enough power to really cause long lasting damage. The other side of this coin of course is, that any change will happen extremely slowly. Which can be both good and bad

baby 6y ago

that's something I never understood about US politics, what prevented Sanders from creating its own party for the US election and not run for the democratic primaries?

keiferski 6y ago
He easily could but would end up taking votes from the Democrats, thus helping his opponent in the process. The American system doesn’t work well with third-party candidates and mostly incentivizes against them; see the 1992 election for a recent example.
- refurb 6y ago
  Ok, but in Canada a new upstart Conservative party (Reform) took away Votes from the existing Conservative Party (PC) and over several elections eventually got a majority. So sure, Bernie might take away votes from the Democrats, but that doesn’t mean support will eventually shift to him.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Much more money and resources at play in the U.S., and Bernie is also fairly old and doesn't really have a 'party' or a clear successor. He/his followers wouldn't gain much from starting a new party.
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
Two things: 1. The media would ignore him if he did. He wouldn't get to take part in any of the debates, and most people would have no idea he was even running. 2. It might not even be possible for him to get on the ballot in most states as a third-party candidate. Election laws make it nearly impossible for third parties to get on the ballot in many states. In the last 20 years, the Green Party has never managed to get on the ballot in more than 45 states. In 2004, they only managed to get on the ballot in half the states. The Democratic party fights tooth and nail to keep them off the ballot (just like the Republican party fights to keep the Libertarians off the ballot). Because almost all the local and state election officials and judges are Democrats and Republicans, the deck is stacked against third parties. Finally, Sanders would be viewed as a spoiler, robbing votes from the Democratic party. Most people would feel like they would be throwing their votes away.
- wolco 6y ago
  Third parties tend to emerge when one party has been in too long and has a large percentage of the vote. New party tries to take 30% of the 70% and 10% of the 30%
md_ 6y ago
The primary attribute of American politics that encourages a two party system is what’s known as “first past the post” elections. America’s two main parties have changed over the years (remember the Whigs?), so the existence of a two-party system cannot be attributed purely to control exerted by the current two parties. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Another, often overlooked part, is that competing in an American election requires very expensive media and outreach campaigns. Clinton spent $1.2B in 2016 and Trump spent $680B. These are formidable sums for non-establishment parties. Bernie spent $230M in a primary. To give a rough comparison, the UK limits spending per constituency, so the upper limit a party is allowed to spend in the UK is 19.5 GBP.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > Trump spent $680B I think this is not true. > the upper limit a party is allowed to spend in the UK is 19.5 GBP I'm pretty sure they spend more than that, as well.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      the B is a typo, should be M. > I'm pretty sure they spend more than that, as well. As per the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50170067 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50170067 > In the 2017 general election, 75 parties and 18 campaign groups reported spending more than £41.6m between them. The Conservatives spent most at £18.6m. It fielded 638 candidates, winning in 317 constituencies. Labour came in at £11m and the Liberal Democrats at £6.8m.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        > As per the BBC The BBC figures are a million times larger than yours if you meant it as a total, and a hundred times smaller than yours if you meant it as per-capita.
bmn__ 6y ago
CGP Grey - The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained (section The Spoiler Effect): https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?t=300 https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?t=300 http://enwp.org/Ralph_Nader#Spoiler_controversy http://enwp.org/Ralph_Nader#Spoiler_controversy
auganov 6y ago
He's a Democrat senator and got Biden to essentially support most of his platform. Running as an independent or 3rd party would be political suicide and wouldn't help his agenda. But aside from that most countries have a single process to get on the ballot country-wide. In US you'd have to navigate this process for each state. I'm sure Bernie could pull that off. But it is definitely the reason you see many fewer randoms making a dent. Also if you consider the way primaries work in both parties it's way more transparent and approachable than most other places. Many major parties around the world don't have a primary process at all. And even when they do it's usually limited to insiders. So if you want to change things you're almost forced to create a party by default. If you couldn't make it in a primary of a party that's closer to your beliefs than the general population - how can you expect to make it on a national level?

abc03 6y ago

Firstly, a councillor is supported by a party. If you don't have the support of your party anymore, you are gone. Secondly, a federal councillar is "above" the party. You are representing first the federal council and not the party towards the public (i.e. a federal councillor represents the opinion of the federal council and not that one of his party).

exclipy 6y ago
What stops the parties from forming coalitions?
- oblio 6y ago
  I don't know about the Swiss system, but I do know a bit about coalitions. I'll assume you're American and are not familiar with them. Coalitions are much less stable than 2 party systems, which is great. Political positions don't ossify and get turned into sports and people rooting for their camp. Plus representation is in my opinion better since the big guys frequently have to accommodate the little guys just to get the majority.
  - exclipy 6y ago
    I'm actually Australian but previously lived in Switzerland and currently in the US. Australia's political coalitions have been pretty stable despite instant run-off voting and not having any mention of political parties in the constitution. Politicians just gravitated towards forming parties and coalescing those parties into two sides because it was effective to do so.
    - ajdlinux 6y ago
      Except there's only really one stable coalition in Australia, and that's the coalition between the Liberal Party and some state divisions of the National Party (the Nationals in SA and WA, for example, are not part of the Coalition). The Lib/Nat Coalition has lasted so long that they are treated by the public as if they're one party, and indeed in Queensland and the NT they've merged. It's not a good example of political coalitions in general. In recent years, there have been Labor-Greens and Labor-Nationals coalitions at a state/territory level, and of course the Gillard minority government federally, but they aren't stable - they last for as long as Labor can't form a majority government. (Instant runoff voting doesn't necessarily tend towards formation of multi-party systems, it merely removes the risk of three-cornered contests that comes with FPTP (which is still a significant improvement for the chances of minor parties, obviously). The electoral system factors that really determine how multipartisan a political system is are whether you use proportional representation vs majoritarian (see Duverger's Law), and within PR systems, district magnitude. Proportional representation is the reason that in Australia you regularly see minority/coalition governments in the ACT and Tasmania but much more rarely elsewhere, and we see plenty of minor parties in upper houses rather than lower houses.)

renewiltord 6y ago

Presumably the proportional representation part of what he said empowers a team which has even 14% of the vote and so being independent is way more powerful than glomming together (where you’re likely to lose supporters who don’t like the guy you decided to get in bed with and you’re not likely to gain any new supporters).

SllX 6y ago

Cultural divisions along linguistic, religious and political fronts. That’s why the Cantons have so much autonomy. The Swiss Federal government has a much smaller much less high stakes political portfolio because the largest points of controversy, like naturalization, are handled by referendum at the Cantonal rather than the Federal level. The Federal Council is also elected by the legislature, the Federal Assembly, with the precise composition negotiated through Parliamentary procedure. Every member of the Council has parties to answer to, more so than a directly elected individual with a mandate that can appeal directly to voters and have more popularity than the party backing them. As Swiss culture is far from monolithic, all Federal politics has to be conducted within a coalition. This is true in America as well, it’s just the coalitions are formed under the auspices of the political parties when they form their platforms, which is why it causes problems when you have a directly elected President that is more popular than the party that nominated him. There’s a lot of lessons here for America, but we wouldn’t be able to transplant the Swiss system here without heavy modification. For example, almost the entirety of the referendum process described in the original article could have been a description of California’s ballot initiative process, with only minor differences in details and processes, and I would argue has been to the detriment of the State of California.

roenxi 6y ago
> ... and I would argue has been to the detriment of the State of California. I am suspicious of all of California's policies, your opinions and the apparent link between direct democracy and material success (Switzerland and California both being synonymous with outrageous wealth). If the US just tried direct democracy without heavy modification the complaints would be thunderously louder than they are now. No question. The oligarchs would be furious and the media would never shut up. What would actually happen on the ground is unclear.
- fiblye 6y ago
  > The oligarchs would be furious and the media would never shut up. It’s not hard to find people who follow along party lines 90+% of the time, and who support policies basically because they’re told that’s what they should support. It’d be incredibly easy to game. One thing that stands in the way of people shooting themselves in the foot with bizarre, harmful policy is the sometimes decent court system. And people regularly get pissed at court decisions even if they rule in favor of betterment for the people.

esrauch 6y ago

Civic understanding is just much different; the 7 seats aren't actually allocated proportionally through a legal mechanism, the parliament just voluntarily chooses to keep the balance in the executive. If they were willing to violate that they could form a coalition in the parliment and actually take all 7 seats of the executive.

smoe 6y ago

A couple of the things, why this just doesn't make much sense to do: - Except on specific topics, the different parties don't actually agree on much. E.g. during the last cycle the center-right to right parties had the majority in parliament, but they barely got anything trough in four years - Besides having the role of head of state being shared among 7 people, the federal government also has much less power compared to other countries. Most domestic things happen at a canton (state) and municipal level. - Basically everything that the council decides, or parliament for that matter, can and often is challenged via popular referendums. If you don't establish the coalitions trough the entire system they will be pretty much useless. Also because of direct democracy, I think political discourse more often centers around the issues being voted on, rather than the parties and coalitions. That is what in my opinion is the strength of the Swiss political system. It is very hard for someone, be that a person or party to obtain enough power to really cause long lasting damage. The other side of this coin of course is, that any change will happen extremely slowly. Which can be both good and bad