German elections don't make sense
pudo.org
pudo.org
I think proportional representation would improve many of the democratic systems in the Western world.
In my opinion, the best way to combine direct election of members of parliament with a somewhat proportional representation is preferential voting, attempted in the UK as ‘Alternative Vote’.
This was ruled unconstitutional by the Bundesverfassungsgericht in 2008 and the law was eventually changed. The current voting law in effect in 2013 reduced the effect but it's still there.
So to balance those overhang seats, balancing seats are introduced which might increase the number of total seats beyond the originally intended number by quite a significant amount.
People discussing election systems need to understand Arrow's theorem and then understand what they're trading off with particular systems.
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.
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.
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".
But in addition to this -
* It creates a higher proportion of safe seats, which encourages party people to play to their base.
* PR makes it easier for groups to get elected who are pursuing sectional interests.
In short - PR makes politics more divisive compared to something like the Westminster system (single-member electorates). That's bad for democratic systems in a practical sense as well: it contributes to political instability and media circus.
It also promotes deceiptful or just weird practice through the dynamics around preferencing. The recent Australian election came up with some bizarre outcomes in the senate due to the quirks of PR. Tradeoffs to try and correct for this lead to more problems, such as in Germany where CDU voters feel they need to vote for the FDP in some regions to try and get them over minimum quota to avoid a worse option getting through. There's been elections where tickets try to game the elimination order by flowing votes through parties from the other side of the divide, but then get the math predictions wrong: in the senate vote for Victoria in the 2004 Australian federal election - voters for the mainstream left party accidentally elected a Christian values party to a balance of power role in the upper house ahead of the Greens because the party men botched an attempt to stay ahead of the greens in elimination.
There are lots of quick clean wins that most western electoral systems could implement that don't have the drawbacks of PR:
* Boundary-setting by independent electoral commissions. This is huge. For example - the US electoral system tends to have one of the major disadvantages of PR (too many safe seats) with none of the advantages, due to party control over electoral commissions.
* Optional preferential voting allows people to vote for an independent whilst still affecting the likely outcome. Compulsory preferential voting forces people to make a decision even about the electoral order of people they dislike (which is definitely in the spirit of forced democracy of the Athenians)
* Removing party names from the ballot paper while introducing random sorting of names across the ballot reduces the value of party brand and leaflets, whilst evening out the resulting increase donkey vote.
* Restrictions to political advertising: ways that money can be spent, ways it can be raised, cutoffs before the election.
* Mechanisms to reduce the benefit of incombancy over other groups.
The biggest problem seems to be that virtually no party seem interested in creating a better democratic system. They are just interested in skewing the system for their own short term powergrab.
The countries you're talking about are simply more civilised than the rest of us.
Particularly Sweden - you guys are able to execute things that just don't work in other places - PR, very widespread gun ownership with very low crime, stunningly high tax with growth, huge welfare that works, europop.
I live in England.
I'm from Ireland (which has multi-seat-constituancies and PR), and married to someone from the UK (which has neither), and these complaints about PR don't make sense form what I see.
IME, First Past the Post (FPTP) that the UK has, has more safe seats than PR which Ireland has. I was suprised to find out that in the UK it's uncommon for candidates to put posters on lampposts for elections. Irish canidates in party safe seats still need to campaign, because they are competing with another candidate from their party as well.
"More divisive" doens't make a lot of sense because coalitions are much more common in PR system like Ireland than UK. There hasn't not been a coalition government in Ireland in decades. This means political parties have to work together, and the extremes of each party are tempered by the coalition.
What experiences are you basing your claims about the negatives of PR on?
FPP is a mess - I agree. But PR is the wrong response to it. My response to it would be to pick one of the preference options from my earlier post - problem solved.
In the UK the Liberal Democrats are a party who have less seats than you'd expect from the strength of your support, and they'd perform far better with optional or compulsory preferences.
> I was suprised to find out that in the UK it's
> uncommon for candidates to put posters on
> lampposts for elections.
Your bit about coalitions is a strong point I hadn't considered when I wrote my post. In some European countries this has a strong tradition (netherlands, somewhat Germany). Particularly in those European countries where you can have public policy that just doesn't work anywhere else (Scandies, Switzerland).
> What experiences are you basing your claims about
> the negatives of PR on?
We are often motivated by our fears, and I suppose my reaction to PR is generated by a combination of things I think to be undesirable: I don't think it's a good thing to have political debate defined by political extremes flinging mud at each other, and PR tends towards that. And I don't like the constant trend towards politics being run by a distinct, professional political class. PR plays right into that.
I'd much rather have weak parties and lowly-paid politicians who get into it after they've had a career doing something else. Single-member electorates with preferences are a straightforward and simple mechanism for getting mainstream members of parliament who are incentivised to work together for everyone.
In most cases.
It wouldn't be very good in a region like Belgium or Northern Ireland which is polarised along a distinct cultural line. PR and smaller parties may be a good way to shake up those situations.
That kind of points to you're not really appreciating was politics is actually like in a proportional representation system. It also explains why you think it would be more divisive; parties would need to cooperate in a PR system in order to pass legislation, that's less divisive. And the US seems a great example of an incredibly divisive situation, borne out of first past the post. Having two bitterly opposed camps for decades or centuries causes polarization, not moderation.
Your point about seats not being safe is odd. US Congress incumbency rates are over 90%.
When you're elected from a single-member electorate, there's a lot more incentive to be inclusive and to govern for all.
The game-theory around this is fairly clear-cut: you need to be careful not to be a pain in the ass in most single-member electorates, whereas in PR it is often an advantage. Frequently in PR your main competition is for party selection rather than election.
And the US seems a great example of an
incredibly divisive situation
* gerrymandering in places
* FPTP system rather than preferential.
* non-compulsory voting
The good examples of non-PR are some of the Australian lower-house systems - rare examples of compulsory voting. This means members need to be extra-careful about not pissing people off, even people who generally don't pay much attention to politics. Contrast this to the culture in FPP systems like the US or UK where you need to "get the base out" on voting day.
Within that you can go shopping for the preferential system you're looking for (e.g. AV - Victoria, optional - NSW, compulsory - federal)
Like the US, Australian electorates tend to be retained. But the political culture discourages divisive behaviour by members who aren't in safe seats. And it's fairly common that when there is a rabble-raiser member, an independent will emerge and turf them out at the next election. The preferential system enables that.
Well, no. In FPTP, you just have to cater to a plurality of the voters in your district. You very specifically do not and should not "govern for all". Out of a U.S. population of 313 million, you should govern for a group of perhaps 50,000 (less, really) people in your district - the only ones capable of voting you out of office. The U.S. has a huge number of extraordinarily radical and pain-in-the-ass representatives - over a quarter of the U.S. House is currently trying to force the country to default on its debts, because those are the views of the pertinent slice of their individual electorates.
You seem basically to be upset at the idea that any politician might exist with any sort of radical-to-you views. You seem to prefer stultifying politics, where a few rich white men meet together over brandy and decide what's going to happen, and everyone follows along nicely. That preference is not shared by everyone, or even most people. PR allows views with wide but shallow representation to get represented in government, and that's considered a good thing by most people.
My point with the posters-on-lampposts is that that it shows that candidates have to fight for thier seats. 'safe seats in Ireland' aren't as safe as 'safe seats in UK'. Which is good thing for democracy!
I don't think it's a good thing to have political debate defined by political extremes flinging mud at each other, and PR tends towards that. And I don't like the constant trend towards politics being run by a distinct, professional political class. PR plays right into that.
Counter-example: The UK. It has FPTP, and it has all those things! It has professional political class! It has politicans who sling mud.
(Ireland, with PR, also has a professional political class, and mudslinging politicans BTW. Neither PR nor FPTP solve that).
That doesn't parse. Party tickets are just as critical in the UK (First Past the Post) as in Germany (Mixed Member Proportional). That campaign contributions are more critical in the US than party membership has other reasons. Note also that MMP systems do allow for the direct election of half the parliament using FPTP rules, so these seats would be immune to such a defect. In practice, it comes down to whoever finances an MP's election campaign.
> It creates a higher proportion of safe seats, which encourages party people to play to their base.
That claim sounds nice in theory, but in practice Angela Merkel has been moving to the left during the election year, while Mitch McConnell seems to be getting primaried for being insufficiently hostile to Obamacare and David Cameron had to promise an EU referendum to fend off defections to UKIP.
> PR makes it easier for groups to get elected who are pursuing sectional interests.
I'm not sure why that would be a bad thing. If a "sectional interest" can gain 5% or more of support from the electorate, then this would be an interest that a very large number of citizens care about and should be represented; FPTP systems tend to shut out even large minorities. In 2010, the Liberal Democrats got 23% of the popular vote, while Labour got 29%, but the LibDems got 57 seats as opposed to Labour's 258.
Traditionally, the Northeast and Northwest tend to vote further left (SPD, Die Linke), while the Southwest and Southeast are more likely to vote further right (CDU/CSU), with the Liberal (FDP) and Green (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) parties generally stronger in the former West-Germany, and here specifically in and around the big(ger) cities.
Die Süddeutsche has a neat little atlas that shows how close a given region has voted to the average, and how each individual party fared last time[1].
The general divide in Germany is that of North/South, where the South has traditionally been the powerhouse of the German economy, especially ever since steel and coal became less important. Except for VW, which are decidedly Northern, most other big German car manufacturers have their headquarters in the South, particularly in Baden-Württemberg or Bayern (Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche), with Opel sitting in Hessen. The north has traditionally been more agricultural, the West has been the traditional place of steel and coal (Ruhrgebiet), with particular cities or areas being particularly classicly left-wing oriented because of a high number of working class people.
[1]: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/wahlkreis-atlas-dem-durch...
Deutscher, eine Frage - warum haben die Piraten so wenig Erfolg? Im Gefolge von NSA, usw., meine ich.
greetings from austria
my personal opinion: people don't really care that much about privacy and like "strong leaders"
So, why is the pirate party not on the top with all the NSA turmoil? Well, basically they let slip any chance to exploit the topic for their benefit slip. They used to have an pretty good start with a not too weak stand at first. But then leadership and politics within the party started and the whole thing basically just started to crumble. They might have gotten over it with their new party lead, though I feel that girl just screams too much; at least their leadership and inner politics have subsided (or thats what you get as a bystander).
The whole NSA stuff has come up over the recent weeks and basically intensified--but that might be my biased reading as well--and the pirate party has not made any visible attempt to get hold of the issue, make statements, propose solution, ... nothing.
So what does the pirate party stand for? I'm not quite sure. At least I don't feel like they are the ones who would ensure that the NSA spying would get thoroughly investigated as well as the general surveillance that is happening all over the place.
Neither seems any other party to be particularly interested in handling that topic. The two big parties CDU/CSU and SPD have their focus on other things. FDP seems to see a popular interest in the NSA/spying/surveillance, and tries to position itself. Though with the FDP this is always a gamble. Maybe they /really/ /really/ want to do something, but just can't because they are always forces in a coalition? Or maybe they didn't want to fix that in the first place, but pay lip service? DIE LINKE, well I don't really know what to say about them. One thing though, their Gregor Gysi is a hell of a skilled speaker.
EDIT: Completely forgot about the Green party; they do seem to be interested in tackling the problem, though it's just not their core competence.
Bottom line, I find it hard to single out a party that would truly attack the privacy issue.
EDIT: Thinking about it, it's probably the imperative form leading into the sentence. If we reword it a little, it gets a lot better: Eine Frage an die Deutschen: warum haben die Piraten so wenig Erfolg? In Bezug auf die NSA Affäre, usw., meine ich.
Hahaha. Vor 3-4 Jahren könnte ich etwas besseres produzieren, aber jetzt nicht. Es gab wirklich eine Zeit, wann ich Aufsätze über der Schriften des Heinrich Bölls schriebe. Heute könnte ich nicht nur etwas zum Mittagssen bestellen. Und das schmerzt mich.
>Thinking about it, it's probably the imperative form leading into the sentence. If we reword it a little, it gets a lot better: Eine Frage an die Deutschen: warum haben die Piraten so wenig Erfolg? In Bezug auf die NSA Affäre, usw., meine ich.
Danke sehr :D
I've got friends involved in the Piratenpartei and i shudder thinking about their internal discussions. At least their mailinglists and recordings are public... Which is good in one way, but doesnt really help them win votes.
Edit: This is what I hear from tech folks. Other people just don't get what Piraten stand for. You can see that from the other replies as well. They appear very contradictory publicly. It can be argued that this is part of their concept, but people do not seem to get that.
They basicly did suicide.
It is a fallacy that 'safety in (representative) numbers' is a way to organize a movement; big social movements need leaders who are able to demonstrate the cause, and Liquid Democracy dilutes this fact as much as it can - not because its proponents want to be successful, but because the idea of a benign leadership is abhorrent to those who want 'no leaders'.
Like it or not, we live in a world where nothing gets done if it depends on a committee to do it. This is a very difficult thing for the Pirate Party to deal with; since almost everything the Party tries to do must conform to the rules of consensus implied by the Liquid Democracy policies.
The Pirate Party's leadership is hamstrung by the requirement to get approval for everything, from their masses. Everything.
Eventually, the same thing will happen to the Pirate Party that happened to Socialism: its proponents will learn that capitalisation is very important to getting new ideas propagated among the masses. So far, the PP does not represent much of great value to the individual, and it has a very difficult time even agreeing, internally, on how to create any such value to sell to the people..
Ever now and then somebody will pop up in the Pirate Party UK and suggest that we adopt Liquid Feedback like the German party does, and this is one of the most important reasons why we don't.
The UK party has a much more centralised leadership, while still facilitating membership decision-making over policy.
When the Green Party emerged in the early 1980s, they made it into the Bundestag pretty quickly because they could draw votes from a large base of young voters (the babyboomers). Nowadays young voters are a tiny fringe group so their votes hardly make a dent. That makes it more difficult than it used to be for a party representing (more or a less) their generation to cross the 5% hurdle.
The U18 vote which was carried out yesterday resulted in 12% for the Pirate Party: http://www.u18.org/das-projekt-u18/
Cynically speaking, the situation may look brighter for the Pirate Party in 4 years when more pensioners are dead.