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A multiparty system, while it may represent more diverse interests, invariably leads to weak majorities that ends up hamstringing any changes that government wa

A multiparty system, while it may represent more diverse interests, invariably leads to weak majorities that ends up hamstringing any changes that government wants to make because all it takes is for someone with 2% of the vote to pull out of the coalition to bring the government down.

alistairSH 3y ago
How is they worse than the current weak majority that has largely hamstrung the government?
- tptacek 3y ago
  Has it hamstrung the government? Or is there just a governing consensus on many aspects of the status quo?
  - hgsgm 3y ago
    There is a lack of consensus, so you get the two sides using procedural details to block each other's efforts.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      Which efforts are those? The last congress passed historic amounts of funding for infrastructure and technology investment. One of the primary powers of congress is that of the purse. What's the significant policy thing congress should clearly have done, because the polity so obviously supports it and is being thwarted by structural and elite factors? I bet it's not as clear as it seems.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Good question. There’s certainly some consensus on the status quo. But, then we have things like health care, abortion, and firearm regulation. Americans largely want better/cheaper access to the first two and more of the third. Yet, we can’t get any of them.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      You have to be careful with these reads on sentiment, because they're based on public opinion polling, which is incredibly imprecise. You can get majority support in a policy opinion poll for almost anything, but when we have actual tests of those policies at the ballot box, support crumbles --- the best example for that is single-payer health care. I happen to agree with you about abortion, and thing the opposition party is and will continue to be punished for passing unpopular restrictions on reproductive health care. But one thing I don't think anybody can reasonably say is that GOP voters were bamboozled into voting for curtailment of reproductive rights; abortion and public schools are the two fundamental defining differences between the parties!
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  If you're talking about the US, then I believe it's actually a strong minority that generally hamstrings the government and occasionally rules using non-democratic methods as needed.
maerF0x0 3y ago
This reads like a comment on Canadian politics. afaik this post is very US centric.
winstonewert 3y ago
That's an imagined and unrealistic scenario. Most countries with proportional systems have a threshold that requires something like 5% of the vote to earn seats. So nobody with 2% of the vote is going to be part of the coalition. Furthermore, pulling out of coalition, without a very good reason, is an excellent way to ensure that nobody wants you as a coalition partner in the future. Yes, some countries with PR have government stability issues. So does the US, see government shutdowns, accusation of obstructionism, etc. That's just an inevitable consequence of humans disagreeing about policy.
sampo 3y ago
> all it takes is for someone with 2% of the vote to pull out of the coalition to bring the government down If you have a proportional voting system with 5% electoral threshold, they you don't have any 2% parties in the parliament, as the smallest possible is 5%.
dragonwriter 3y ago
Only if (1) the proportionality is fine-grained enough to have a 2% party, and (2) the governing coalition is narrow enough to only have a <2% margin And “bringing the government down” often just means a new coalition is formed with a couple cabinet seats changing hands; multiparty proportional systems have less cabinet change as a proportion of the cabinet than duopoly systems, though they have more frequent partial cabinet changes. The dramatic langauge may be appropriate with FPTP in a parliamentary system, but is less so in a multiparty proportional parliamentary system. And, of course, since TFA addresses particularly the democrat-republican-independent dynamic in the USA, a proportional multiparty electoral system is actually a whole separate change from a parliamentary system, and the “a 2% coalition partner defecting can bring down the government” concern only applies to parliamentary systems, even if you adopt multiparty PR in US legislative elections (even for the elections of Presidential electors) it does not apply to the US without the separate and larger change of adopting parliamentary government. Multiparty PR (using, say, STV within states) for the House and even approximately (via the safe harbor statutes) as a norm for Presidential electors is viable by statutory change, a parliamentary system would take Constitutiional change.

alistairSH 3y ago

How is they worse than the current weak majority that has largely hamstrung the government?

tptacek 3y ago
Has it hamstrung the government? Or is there just a governing consensus on many aspects of the status quo?
- hgsgm 3y ago
  There is a lack of consensus, so you get the two sides using procedural details to block each other's efforts.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Which efforts are those? The last congress passed historic amounts of funding for infrastructure and technology investment. One of the primary powers of congress is that of the purse. What's the significant policy thing congress should clearly have done, because the polity so obviously supports it and is being thwarted by structural and elite factors? I bet it's not as clear as it seems.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Good question. There’s certainly some consensus on the status quo. But, then we have things like health care, abortion, and firearm regulation. Americans largely want better/cheaper access to the first two and more of the third. Yet, we can’t get any of them.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    You have to be careful with these reads on sentiment, because they're based on public opinion polling, which is incredibly imprecise. You can get majority support in a policy opinion poll for almost anything, but when we have actual tests of those policies at the ballot box, support crumbles --- the best example for that is single-payer health care. I happen to agree with you about abortion, and thing the opposition party is and will continue to be punished for passing unpopular restrictions on reproductive health care. But one thing I don't think anybody can reasonably say is that GOP voters were bamboozled into voting for curtailment of reproductive rights; abortion and public schools are the two fundamental defining differences between the parties!
hotpotamus 3y ago
If you're talking about the US, then I believe it's actually a strong minority that generally hamstrings the government and occasionally rules using non-democratic methods as needed.

maerF0x0 3y ago

This reads like a comment on Canadian politics. afaik this post is very US centric.

winstonewert 3y ago

That's an imagined and unrealistic scenario. Most countries with proportional systems have a threshold that requires something like 5% of the vote to earn seats. So nobody with 2% of the vote is going to be part of the coalition. Furthermore, pulling out of coalition, without a very good reason, is an excellent way to ensure that nobody wants you as a coalition partner in the future. Yes, some countries with PR have government stability issues. So does the US, see government shutdowns, accusation of obstructionism, etc. That's just an inevitable consequence of humans disagreeing about policy.

sampo 3y ago

> all it takes is for someone with 2% of the vote to pull out of the coalition to bring the government down If you have a proportional voting system with 5% electoral threshold, they you don't have any 2% parties in the parliament, as the smallest possible is 5%.

dragonwriter 3y ago

Only if (1) the proportionality is fine-grained enough to have a 2% party, and (2) the governing coalition is narrow enough to only have a <2% margin And “bringing the government down” often just means a new coalition is formed with a couple cabinet seats changing hands; multiparty proportional systems have less cabinet change as a proportion of the cabinet than duopoly systems, though they have more frequent partial cabinet changes. The dramatic langauge may be appropriate with FPTP in a parliamentary system, but is less so in a multiparty proportional parliamentary system. And, of course, since TFA addresses particularly the democrat-republican-independent dynamic in the USA, a proportional multiparty electoral system is actually a whole separate change from a parliamentary system, and the “a 2% coalition partner defecting can bring down the government” concern only applies to parliamentary systems, even if you adopt multiparty PR in US legislative elections (even for the elections of Presidential electors) it does not apply to the US without the separate and larger change of adopting parliamentary government. Multiparty PR (using, say, STV within states) for the House and even approximately (via the safe harbor statutes) as a norm for Presidential electors is viable by statutory change, a parliamentary system would take Constitutiional change.