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PR gives disproportionate influence to fringe parties. Some people like this (especially when it's currently their fringe that is kingmaker) and some don't. Pe

by kps 13y ago

PR gives disproportionate influence to fringe parties. Some people like this (especially when it's currently their fringe that is kingmaker) and some don't. People discussing election systems need to understand Arrow's theorem and then understand what they're trading off with particular systems.

ronaldx 13y ago
It would be more accurate to say that PR gives more appropriate influence to third parties. It's true to say that political power/influence is not generally proportional to parliamentary party size, but is not specific to PR. For example, First-Past-The-Post typically gives disproportionate influence to the first and second parties (i.e. 100% of the power), which greatly reduces voter ability to express their preferences as politicians are forced to coalesce on one side or another of an arbitrary line. PR typically benefits parties who are able to negotiate and find common ground with their opponents. An extremist party will (still?) be left out in the cold. Finally: Arrow's Theorem isn't relevant to PR; it discusses transferable/ranked voting systems.
devx 13y ago
I take that over money influencing the main parties and then using that money to influence most of the population, as it happens in US. This just means the little parties can pop up out of nowhere, and win. That's actually good.
rmc 13y ago
Conversely FPTP gives disproportionate influence to large parties, meaning many groups get disenfranchiesed.
jvm 13y ago
The German system requires a 5% threshold to be seated; IMO that represents a sizeable chunk of people's viewpoints. And either way, the winning coalition must represent a majority of Germans. That promotes centrism not extremism.
- mjn 13y ago
  It sometimes does promote centrism, for example when the right and left parties each need to compete for the support of a centrist party to form a majority coalition. But that isn't an inherent feature of the system, and the opposite can also happen. Coalition politics can pull the government towards a fringe when they rely on a fringe party to reach a majority. This can happen, for example, when the two main blocs (center-right / center-left) each get around 40%, and then the far-left and far-right each get ~10%. One solution in that case is a left-right unity government with 80%. But another one is a left or a right government with barely over 50%, in which the extreme party holds the balance of power. Since the government depends on the extreme party to stay in power, that party is able to extract some concessions that are not desired by the centrist part of the electorate, and which they would not likely have been able to get outside of the coalition horse-trading process. An example of this happening was the 2001-2011 right-wing government in Denmark. The coalition was made up of the traditional center-right parties, together with the anti-immigrant populist movement, Dansk Folkeparti. Since the coalition could not afford to lose DF's ~12% vote, they ended up reluctantly agreeing to a number of anti-immigrant policies that would not otherwise have been passed.
YokoZar 13y ago
Arrow's theorem does not mean what you think it means. All Arrow's theorem says is that it's possible for a rock-paper-scissors style cycle to exist among the top preferred candidates. Arrow's theorem most certainly does not mean that for every advantage a voting system has there must be some sort of corresponding disadvantage, nor does it mean that "all voting systems are unfair" or that "all voting systems have similarly bad problems".

by kps 13y ago

ronaldx 13y ago

It would be more accurate to say that PR gives more appropriate influence to third parties. It's true to say that political power/influence is not generally proportional to parliamentary party size, but is not specific to PR. For example, First-Past-The-Post typically gives disproportionate influence to the first and second parties (i.e. 100% of the power), which greatly reduces voter ability to express their preferences as politicians are forced to coalesce on one side or another of an arbitrary line. PR typically benefits parties who are able to negotiate and find common ground with their opponents. An extremist party will (still?) be left out in the cold. Finally: Arrow's Theorem isn't relevant to PR; it discusses transferable/ranked voting systems.

devx 13y ago

I take that over money influencing the main parties and then using that money to influence most of the population, as it happens in US. This just means the little parties can pop up out of nowhere, and win. That's actually good.

rmc 13y ago

Conversely FPTP gives disproportionate influence to large parties, meaning many groups get disenfranchiesed.

jvm 13y ago

The German system requires a 5% threshold to be seated; IMO that represents a sizeable chunk of people's viewpoints. And either way, the winning coalition must represent a majority of Germans. That promotes centrism not extremism.

mjn 13y ago
It sometimes does promote centrism, for example when the right and left parties each need to compete for the support of a centrist party to form a majority coalition. But that isn't an inherent feature of the system, and the opposite can also happen. Coalition politics can pull the government towards a fringe when they rely on a fringe party to reach a majority. This can happen, for example, when the two main blocs (center-right / center-left) each get around 40%, and then the far-left and far-right each get ~10%. One solution in that case is a left-right unity government with 80%. But another one is a left or a right government with barely over 50%, in which the extreme party holds the balance of power. Since the government depends on the extreme party to stay in power, that party is able to extract some concessions that are not desired by the centrist part of the electorate, and which they would not likely have been able to get outside of the coalition horse-trading process. An example of this happening was the 2001-2011 right-wing government in Denmark. The coalition was made up of the traditional center-right parties, together with the anti-immigrant populist movement, Dansk Folkeparti. Since the coalition could not afford to lose DF's ~12% vote, they ended up reluctantly agreeing to a number of anti-immigrant policies that would not otherwise have been passed.

YokoZar 13y ago

Arrow's theorem does not mean what you think it means. All Arrow's theorem says is that it's possible for a rock-paper-scissors style cycle to exist among the top preferred candidates. Arrow's theorem most certainly does not mean that for every advantage a voting system has there must be some sort of corresponding disadvantage, nor does it mean that "all voting systems are unfair" or that "all voting systems have similarly bad problems".