Comments

1. Bingo. Two party systems are the work of the devil.

   I think I could talk alot of about parliamentarism vs. the two party system, but instead, I'll bring up a Simpson quote :)

   From the episode where the two aliens switch places with the two presidential candidates, and thus are sure of winning the election:

   Homer: I think I'll vote for a third party!
   Aliens: Go ahead, throw your vote away!

   And thus, the aliens win.

   Atleast I'm safe in good old Denmark, where parliamentarism works its wonders with about 10 different parties.

   Comment by Brian Andersen at 22:59, 18 Jul, 2004 #

2. No other parties have existed before in US history only to have their positions/ideas to be integrated by the two main parties. This generally leads to the death of the third party or being reduced to a minor role.

   Also does a parliament necessarily mean that there is a likelyhood of more than two options? Yes you have more than two choices, but are they really options (as in getting elected or securing a majority and forming a govt)?

   Also, I have to say that in American politics, both the parties are almost indistinguishable from each other. They are more inclined to the center (just like most Americans). What they really need is good leaders with ideas. Its not the party that is the concern here but the politicians and their quality (or the lack therof).

   Comment by Sunny at 02:46, 19 Jul, 2004 #

3. Actually, there have been a number of major parties in US history -- Federalists, Democratic Republicans, Whigs, etc. The two that are currently in existance have been the main ones since the American Civil War, but they have swapped ideologies a couple of times (in a process called realignment). The Republicans of today are not the Republicans of Lincoln, for example. There have, however, never been more than two at one time (except sort of when the Whigs were rising to power, but not really).

   The American two-party system is a function of the election system, which requires only a simple majority (known as 'first past the post' in Britain and the rest of Europe, I believe) to win. Proportional voting (and hybrid systems like the German one) allow minor parties to gain enough seats to force a coalition government.

   For instance, the current German government (forgive me for all the German references, but it's the only PR-based system that I am familiar enough with to use as an example) is a coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens. While the Greens have far less seats, if they were to pull out of the coalition the government would collapse, meaning that if the SPD wants to stay in power (and like all governments they do) then they've got to listen to and respect the Green platform.

   In a system like this one (which, I'm guessing here, is at least broadly similiar to the Swedish one) you don't have to get a majority to have sway over the government.

   There is nothing fundamentally good about the two-party system. It squashes a lot of people who don't align well with either major party (like non-religious conservatives or fiscally conservative social liberals). But (in the US, at least) it's propped up by the enormous cost of campaigning for a Federal seat, since very few organizations can afford the expend enough money for enough races to make a difference.

   Comment by John B at 06:52, 19 Jul, 2004 #

4. John B: Thank you.

   Sunny: "Also does a parliament necessarily mean that there is a likelyhood of more than two options? Yes you have more than two choices, but are they really options (as in getting elected or securing a majority and forming a govt)?"

   Yes, see John B's answer, specifically the part about the Greens and the Social Democrats in Germany.

   Comment by Tomas at 09:40, 19 Jul, 2004 #

5. While the Greens have far less seats, if they were to pull out of the coalition the government would collapse, meaning that if the SPD wants to stay in power (and like all governments they do) then they've got to listen to and respect the Green platform.

   Yeah but when a coalition involves several different parties with conflicting agendas, little gets accomplished. Case in point - the largest democracy in the world - India. Over the past few elections, no single party has secured a majority and has to opt for alliances by gifting crucial cabinet positions and portfolios. Surely a plurality of opinions is being voiced but at a certain level, it is just noise.

   I have to say that I appreciate the way a Prime Minister has to answer the opposition week in, week out in a Parliament. It really exposes the breadth and depth of the leader. Just imagine Bush feeling the same heat in the US Congress!

   Comment by Sunny at 10:44, 19 Jul, 2004 #

6. Sunny: "Yeah but when a coalition involves several different parties with conflicting agendas, little gets accomplished."

   Well that's not entirely accurate. It's a possibility, yes, but not necessarily true in all cases, or even most cases. Several countries which do "get things done" have governments of this kind, Germany and Sweden to name two.

   Comment by Tomas at 11:42, 19 Jul, 2004 #

7. Tomas, I agree that my example is not the norm. What I was suggesting is that coalitions (an inherent part of a parliamentary system) are prone to some side effects (just like any other democratic political system).

   
   

   Comment by Sunny at 14:10, 19 Jul, 2004 #

8. One small point: the U.S. system isn't really even a simple majority system so much as a plurality system.

   As happened in 2000, 1992, and on plenty of other occasions, no party's candidate for President won a simple majority. Instead, the party with the largest plurality of votes won the Presidency.

   In fact, the winner only really needs a plurality of electoral votes (which are given out by each state to the candidate who wins a plurality of votes in that state). This means that the party whose candidate wins fewer than a simple majority of actual votes, and even fewer than a plurality, but who wins a plurality of electoral votes, could win the Presidency and claim a mandate over 100% of the country, states, and voters. This is what happened in 2000.

   Not much of a system if you ask me.

   Comment by Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg at 06:16, 20 Jul, 2004 #

9. Jesse, the American electoral votes system works perfectly well given what the founding fathers intended. The idea was that smaller states are not wiped out entirely by larger states. So a state such as California with its 54 electoral votes can be matched on an equal foot by Wisconsin with its 3 votes.

   If this was just decided my the majority of votes, a candidate could win the presidency by just winning a few states (which have a larger population such as California and New York) and ignore the smaller states. So the electoral college is quite effective.

   You are right, this is what exactly happened in the 2000 election as Al Gore who won the most votes in history by any Democrat lost to Bush, who had a plurality in the Electoral College.

   You have to realize that the Founding fathers were greatly concerned with few states securing more power and influence than smaller states. Therefore such checks and balances are inherently built it. That is also the reason why seats in the House of Representatives are determined by population while the Senate has only two seats for each state. This in American history is referred to as the Great Compromise.

   So the Electoral college is quite an effective system given the concerns of the founding fathers of America.

   As for the folks who feel that it was unfair for Al Gore (and given the Florida fiasco, it was unfair) all he had to do was win his home state and he would have been President.

   Comment by Sunny at 09:01, 20 Jul, 2004 #

10. America today, and the role that states play, is very different from how things were when the electoral college was instituted, or even from how things were 50 years ago. States' authority has steadily diminished, and federal sovereignty has risen. It strikes me that the electoral college, which offered important protections for small states when it was instituted, now is more of an impediment to than a safeguard for democracy.

    Comment by Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg at 07:47, 21 Jul, 2004 #

11. Jesse, can you point to certain instances where state powers have been reduced as far as elections are concerned? I would like to see specific examples, if you please.

    As far as I can tell, smaller states are well protected. Wisconsin's 3 electoral votes means, that no presidential candidate can ignore that state, even if its population is minuscale compared to that of say New York and California. The fact that the electoral college determines the victor shows that all states are in a equal footing. Population is taken out of the equation and the bigger states do not have undue advantage. How is this an impediment to democracy? Given the circumstances and reality, they are fairly democratic and egalitarian.

    Comment by Sunny at 11:36, 21 Jul, 2004 #

12. I think that instant runoffs are the solution. You rank the candidates and your first place vote goes to the second candidate that you selected in the event that they aren't in the top 2. Here are details:

    http://www.instantrunoff.com/

    Comment by Uedauhes at 02:02, 23 Jul, 2004 #

13. Jesse, can you point to certain instances where state powers have been reduced as far as elections are concerned?

    Elections in a representative democracy are about determining who represents the voters' interests when it comes to lawmaking. My point was that the role of states in passing laws, and in effecting the lives of people in America has diminished as federal programs increase. A recent example of this would be the creation of a whole new federal department, the Department of Homeland Security. Another example would be the increase in federal responsiblity for public education over the past fifty years. Yet another example would be the increased federal role in health care law and public health care funding.

    There is a general consensus that the federal government has grown and grown as the years have gone by, and this growth is in evidence in just about every arena of public policy. I'm not arguing that the country's shift toward federalism is a good or bad thing, I'm just suggesting that since the laws are determined increasingly at a nationwide level, and less so at a state-wide level, then maybe it makes mores sense to structure our election laws around giving each person an equal vote, rather than ensuring that each state retains a certain key threshold of representation.

    Comment by Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg at 04:01, 23 Jul, 2004 #

14. Sorry Tomas, but I have to disagree with you; Sweden doesn't have that many options either. Sure, you can vote for several parties, but what you're really voting for is a left-wing block and a right-wing one to rule. All other options are mostly superficial, since neither party gains the majority (except the Social Democrats back in their golden age) to rule by itself. However, the difference between the two Swedish blocks are greater than the difference between the american two-party system (or rather, one-party system with two heads).

    Comment by talisyn at 10:03, 04 Aug, 2004 #

15. Talisyn: Guess we'll just disagree on that part then. In my opinion the popular parties are all approaching the center; left/right tendencies are no longer as significant nor prominent as they once were.

    Comment by Tomas at 10:29, 04 Aug, 2004 #

16. Tomas: Really? How come the current Swedish administration (I know this is the wrong word, but I can't remember the right one) only consists of the three left-wing parties then? However, it's true that all parties are closing in on the center, leaving the periphery that once distinguished them from one another. Maybe in a few years you just have to vote for one big, centralised party? After all, Sweden does love its centralization progress doesn't it? =)

    Comment by talisyn at 09:50, 06 Aug, 2004 #

17. Process. Not progress. Sorry.

    Comment by talisyn at 09:51, 06 Aug, 2004 #

18. Talisyn: Of course the different parties are going to cooperate with parties which share similar values. That doesn't mean that left/right tendencies aren't getting less prominent though. Consider the Social Democrats' stances on the EU, the EMU, and their proposed Health Insurances. And consider the People's Party's skepticism towards lower taxation (as opposed to the Moderate Party).

    It wouldn't surprise me if the Social Democrats were to cooperate more with the People's Party in the future (which I remember seeing the former People's Party leader hoping for during the EMU campaign).

    Comment by Tomas Jogin at 11:01, 06 Aug, 2004 #

19. Tomas: But the Social Democrats and the People's Party have already cooperated before in a coalition. However, I think it's more the Social Democrats that are prepared to work with the "other side" rather than vice versa. Social Democrats in general doesn't seem to have their ideology firmly in place; their old values don't really exist anymore within the ruling elite (maybe on the grassroot-level, but how often do they have any power to make changes?).

    Comment by talisyn at 11:16, 08 Aug, 2004 #