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“to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous” do you really agree with this? It is a terrible idea. We want the “mean” opinion, not the opinion of 51%. We really need mechanisms of policy integration, and that is what vote trading does. And that is why all winners takes all politics is bad. Presidentialism is simply the most extreme application of that bad principle.

In fact for me a past the post parliament with really disciplined parties is like 80% as bad as presidentialism.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zzr8Pgf7pMf6tTpbM/democracy-beyond-majoritarianism

By the way, this quarter is being the “told you so” quarter for parliamentarianists. The US and South Korea…

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I don't like supermajority requirements, and I don't like sabotage to the established process. I think the quote is mostly addressing those problems, and I agree with that.

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Well, supermajorities are a natural requirement for constitutional and electoral Law reform. On the other hand, yes: vetocracy is a red flag of lazy constitutional design.

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>In fact for me a past the post parliament with really disciplined parties is like 80% as bad as presidentialism

All parliaments have 'really disciplined parties', and ones that use PR are even more disciplined than a FPTP one. This is a problem with Tiago's theory about the virtues of parliamentarism that we've discussed before. The downside to a parliamentary system is that you must keep the present government in power, which requires highly disciplined parties. If you want representatives free to vote their mind, their district, or their conscience, they need to be on fixed terms

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Of course parties are more disciplined with PR! But there are many! So there is far more transactional politics, more “vote trading”, less winner takes all, more “consociational democracy”

Thiago’s book summarizes the case for parlamentarianism, and I always came to underline that is part of a bigger case for consociational vs majoritarian democracy.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uW77FSphM6yiMZTGg/why-not-parliamentarianism-book-by-tiago-ribeiro-dos-santos

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zzr8Pgf7pMf6tTpbM/democracy-beyond-majoritarianism

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I simply don't agree with this. There are not more transactional politics or vote trading in any parliament that requires a coalition. Once the coalition is formed, parties can't take free votes outside of it. Once the SDP, Greens, and the FDP formed a coalition, they're not going to break it up and have the FDP maybe join forces with the CDU on some issues. Or the SDP and Greens vote with The Left and against the FDP on some issue, but then later on something else they vote against The Left and rejoin the FDP. Coalitions are highly rigid affairs.

I think your model would be true if you had a separately elected President, and a legislature on fixed terms. Then all of the parties could be free to join together on 1 issue and not another as they choose. Then you'd have true transactional politics & vote trading. But this is just untrue of coalition PR

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Well, but if you have a coalition that is massively transactional in itself. In the Netherlands all two consecutive governments have had a party in common.

And from the perspective of the risk for democracy, self coups are imposible if there is a coalition government. On the other hand, of course, you have special interests, as the Israeli ultra orthodox that are permanently privileged. It is permanently uncomfortable instead of occasionally dangerous.

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But a large party in FPTP or another majoritarian system *is* a coalition. The coalition is internal to the party and is formed before the election, not after. So you still have the same amount of 'transactions' going on.

The track record of the Westminster system in ruthlessly removing PMs, in both the UK & Australia, gives me a lot of confidence that they're handling the self coup risk well

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Yes, that is precisely what I comment in the post: that party discipline has increased because of the decline of local politics and the National primaries. PR and FPTP were not so diferent. In PR you had many disciplined parties, in FPTP, two undisciplined parties.

Now, with disciplined parties, PR>>FPTP

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I don't think that there is really a 'popular mandate' in democracy, except for maybe a few key issues that were campaigned upon heavily by the winner. Voters do not have clear policy views or knowledge. Example, according to polling US voters don't like tariffs, wanted Trump to be President, and trust him on the economy. This is a cycle of A doesn't logically follow B doesn't logically follow C. Voters want lower taxes but more government services, and so on.

Also, governments can get so much more done than what any voter can realistically track or have an opinion about. George W. Bush had a popular mandate to fight terrorism, not to privatize Social Security, etc. Politicians can & do lie about what their policies are going to be. The whole concept is a very 1950s overly simple 'median voter theorem' kind of idea. I wouldn't worry that either presidentialism or parliamentarism is carrying it out

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The point of the post is exactly that people make the argument that presidents specifically have a popular mandate which congress supposedly lacks. So we are in agreement that this is a bad argument.

I argue further that, since parliaments are composed of much more variety than the office of the president, they are more reflective of whatever it is what the "real public will" is than the president. I take that as the utilitarian optimal. I don't see how your point goes against this.

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>I argue further that, since parliaments are composed of much more variety

Not to be the guy who shows up and makes the same argument here every week :) But I disagree. A parliament that must support a government necessitates a much higher level of party discipline, so the supposed variety is ultimately lessened. It is certainly true that a legislature on fixed terms, unbothered by supporting the government or early elections, can exhibit much more ideological variety. But then that's not a parliament

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