7 ms·

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

by 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.)
    - Jedd 6y ago
      > Australia's political coalitions have been pretty stable despite instant run-off voting and not having any mention of political parties in the constitution. Coalitions plural? I'll echo the earlier sibling comment that LNP is effectively one party - a coalition by name only now, a marriage of sometime convenience. Other coalitions are rare, to my memory, and I suspect the distinction between an ephemeral coalition and actual representative democracy is a bit fuzzy, if the end goal is to obtain compromise and consensus between multiple representatives with disparate opinions. As to the AU constitution - it was penned at a time when the dangers of party politics, let alone two-party politics, were not as obvious. Remember, our constitution doesn't mention a role of Prime Minister either. I'd be very happy to move towards a Swiss style approach here, or even just start with a triumvirate.
  - Animats 6y ago
    Israel, Italy, and the UK have had a terrible time with coalition governments in recent years.
    - jen20 6y ago
      The UK didn't have a "terrible time" with the coalition government from the point of view of having a stable government (whether or not you agree with the policies enacted). In fact, the single party governments (plural, since during the 5 year fixed-term parliament following the coalition there were three prime ministers and two general elections) since have been _far less_ stable.
    - willyt 6y ago
      The recent coalition government in Britain was much more stable than the following Conservative government. E.g Only one prime minister in 5 years and no major chaos. The two party system fails when both parties consistently fail to supply an effective leader, which has been the case since 2015 in the UK
      - thu2111 6y ago
        Fails in what sense? Effective in what sense? The most recent election went from a hung parliament in coalition to delivering a huge majority to the new leader. The two party system had failed, but it fixed itself. Also the UK isn't actually a two party system. There's the Conservatives and Labour, but also the SNP which is important, and the Lib Dems who used to be more important than they are now, and of course UKIP/Brexit Party who never won seats but proved highly effective at getting their desired political outcome by posing a credible threat as a third party.
        willyt 6y ago
        In the sense that the country flip flops between two political ideologies at huge expense in changes to procedures and physical infrastructure rather than agreeing a course to steer and sticking to it with occasional course corrections at elections. In the sense that the influence of small minorities like UKIP happens in back rooms of the Conservative party and likewise with Momentum in the Labour Party. If we had a fair voting system, which reflected the true voting intentions of the whole electorate, rather than the voting intentions of a small number of people in swing constituencies, a centrist party can say ‘if you don’t like it start your own party’ and the debate then happens in public. If the extreme socialists or the nazis make inroads then a centrist party either becomes more socialist or nazi or you end up forming a coalition, but at least it’s transparent and it’s a lot more predictable. No-one cared about the EU until Cameron sprung the referendum on us, that referendum was entirely the result of back room shenanigans in an attempt to reduce the influence of UKIP. First past the post means it is a de facto two party system. This is because people know that there is no point voting for a party that can’t win and in ~75% of constituencies there is a large enough majority that there is no point in voting at all unless you are supporting the incumbent. The only time that one of the main 2 parties was usurped by another was when the liberal party got us into a war that lead to decades of turmoil and killed vast numbers of people. I would rather that my vote could have some influence before things get that bad.
  - chadash 6y ago
    >* Plus representation is in my opinion better since the big guys frequently have to accommodate the little guys just to get the majority.* This is a double edged sword. Saying “little guy” makes it sounds like it’s always a noble cause that doesn’t get enough attention. It can also be an openly racist party, or perhaps a wealthy special interest group that wants some special treatment.
- m_mueller 6y ago
  It's basically just an agreement among the larger parties to share the government, which has been upheld since its inception. In German it is called 'Konkordanz'. I think that direct democracy leads to this agreement being upheld since there is a general fear of any party going into the opposition - direct democratic votes make an opposition overly powerful, in some ways more powerful than governmental powers.
  - exclipy 6y ago
    I find it hard to believe that politicians are just so honourable as to not team up to pass their agenda. Am I too jaded?
    - labster 6y ago
      In America the bipartisan system has corrupted our culture to the point that there really are only two normative agendas. In other countries, it’s still possible to have agendas that are sometimes in common, yet sometimes differ, without getting hit by either side’s cancel culture. In the US there is simply no common ground between the parties, so no reason not to join a team permanently.
    - zupatol 6y ago
      Politics is not a zero-sum game. When parties discuss with each other they have a chance of all furthering their agendas to some extent, and have all parties mostly support the compromise. It's also the case that if a party campaigns strongly one subject and win votes with that, its ministers will tend to get the ministries that allow them to implement their ideas. So if you're tough on security you might get the police, if you're a fiscal conservative you get finances. It's more complicated than that, but the longer they stay on the bigger the chance they end up where they want.
    - m_mueller 6y ago
      As I wrote, it's probably a power balance thing - parties in the Swiss system are actually more interested to 'bind' other parties into the government so they can't go out and do populist opposition politics as effectively. Think of it as a stable local optimum that seems to be better (by being more long term oriented) than the typical government/opposition party system.

by abc03 6y ago

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.)
  - Jedd 6y ago
    > Australia's political coalitions have been pretty stable despite instant run-off voting and not having any mention of political parties in the constitution. Coalitions plural? I'll echo the earlier sibling comment that LNP is effectively one party - a coalition by name only now, a marriage of sometime convenience. Other coalitions are rare, to my memory, and I suspect the distinction between an ephemeral coalition and actual representative democracy is a bit fuzzy, if the end goal is to obtain compromise and consensus between multiple representatives with disparate opinions. As to the AU constitution - it was penned at a time when the dangers of party politics, let alone two-party politics, were not as obvious. Remember, our constitution doesn't mention a role of Prime Minister either. I'd be very happy to move towards a Swiss style approach here, or even just start with a triumvirate.
- Animats 6y ago
  Israel, Italy, and the UK have had a terrible time with coalition governments in recent years.
  - jen20 6y ago
    The UK didn't have a "terrible time" with the coalition government from the point of view of having a stable government (whether or not you agree with the policies enacted). In fact, the single party governments (plural, since during the 5 year fixed-term parliament following the coalition there were three prime ministers and two general elections) since have been _far less_ stable.
  - willyt 6y ago
    The recent coalition government in Britain was much more stable than the following Conservative government. E.g Only one prime minister in 5 years and no major chaos. The two party system fails when both parties consistently fail to supply an effective leader, which has been the case since 2015 in the UK
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Fails in what sense? Effective in what sense? The most recent election went from a hung parliament in coalition to delivering a huge majority to the new leader. The two party system had failed, but it fixed itself. Also the UK isn't actually a two party system. There's the Conservatives and Labour, but also the SNP which is important, and the Lib Dems who used to be more important than they are now, and of course UKIP/Brexit Party who never won seats but proved highly effective at getting their desired political outcome by posing a credible threat as a third party.
      - willyt 6y ago
        In the sense that the country flip flops between two political ideologies at huge expense in changes to procedures and physical infrastructure rather than agreeing a course to steer and sticking to it with occasional course corrections at elections. In the sense that the influence of small minorities like UKIP happens in back rooms of the Conservative party and likewise with Momentum in the Labour Party. If we had a fair voting system, which reflected the true voting intentions of the whole electorate, rather than the voting intentions of a small number of people in swing constituencies, a centrist party can say ‘if you don’t like it start your own party’ and the debate then happens in public. If the extreme socialists or the nazis make inroads then a centrist party either becomes more socialist or nazi or you end up forming a coalition, but at least it’s transparent and it’s a lot more predictable. No-one cared about the EU until Cameron sprung the referendum on us, that referendum was entirely the result of back room shenanigans in an attempt to reduce the influence of UKIP. First past the post means it is a de facto two party system. This is because people know that there is no point voting for a party that can’t win and in ~75% of constituencies there is a large enough majority that there is no point in voting at all unless you are supporting the incumbent. The only time that one of the main 2 parties was usurped by another was when the liberal party got us into a war that lead to decades of turmoil and killed vast numbers of people. I would rather that my vote could have some influence before things get that bad.
- chadash 6y ago
  >* Plus representation is in my opinion better since the big guys frequently have to accommodate the little guys just to get the majority.* This is a double edged sword. Saying “little guy” makes it sounds like it’s always a noble cause that doesn’t get enough attention. It can also be an openly racist party, or perhaps a wealthy special interest group that wants some special treatment.
m_mueller 6y ago
It's basically just an agreement among the larger parties to share the government, which has been upheld since its inception. In German it is called 'Konkordanz'. I think that direct democracy leads to this agreement being upheld since there is a general fear of any party going into the opposition - direct democratic votes make an opposition overly powerful, in some ways more powerful than governmental powers.
- exclipy 6y ago
  I find it hard to believe that politicians are just so honourable as to not team up to pass their agenda. Am I too jaded?
  - labster 6y ago
    In America the bipartisan system has corrupted our culture to the point that there really are only two normative agendas. In other countries, it’s still possible to have agendas that are sometimes in common, yet sometimes differ, without getting hit by either side’s cancel culture. In the US there is simply no common ground between the parties, so no reason not to join a team permanently.
  - zupatol 6y ago
    Politics is not a zero-sum game. When parties discuss with each other they have a chance of all furthering their agendas to some extent, and have all parties mostly support the compromise. It's also the case that if a party campaigns strongly one subject and win votes with that, its ministers will tend to get the ministries that allow them to implement their ideas. So if you're tough on security you might get the police, if you're a fiscal conservative you get finances. It's more complicated than that, but the longer they stay on the bigger the chance they end up where they want.
  - m_mueller 6y ago
    As I wrote, it's probably a power balance thing - parties in the Swiss system are actually more interested to 'bind' other parties into the government so they can't go out and do populist opposition politics as effectively. Think of it as a stable local optimum that seems to be better (by being more long term oriented) than the typical government/opposition party system.