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Political parties are the enshittification of democracy.
Cases in point?
Party whips.
Bribery.
Croneyism.
Voting against good legislation because another party introduced it.
Gerrymandering.
Attack ads.
Regulatory capture.
Doug Ford.
I’m not sure if political parties are the cause. I think it’s a combination of winner-take-all electoral systems (e.g., FPTP, IRV), along with weak protections.
Democracy Watch is taking on a lot of these.
I live in a country with proportional representation.
It’s not the best, and stuff takes longer to get done.
But there’s no single asshole that gets to play boss, and that’s the only thing that’s really important.
I voted trudeau that one time because he said it would be the last FPTP election…
Only Greens/NDP consistently support proportional representation!
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I wonder if this is really true. It feels true, and I can certainly see proportional representation being more resistant. Certainly more than FPTP. However I’ve grown up in a country with PR that’s pretty well captured by the owner class. Maybe the specific conditions in that country made that easier to happen. Perhaps the economic shock therapy helped that.
I can certainly see proportional representation being more resistant [to authoritarian takeover?]. Certainly more than FPTP.
A country that is governed by its people, and truly so with proportional representation, is the strongest force there can be against an authoritarian takeover. It provides true and uncompromising democratic legitimacy to the government – as a healthy democracy demands.
In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada said:
A state whose government represents the whole of the people or peoples resident within its territory, on a basis of equality and without discrimination, and respects the principles of self-determination in its own internal arrangements, is entitled to the protection under international law of its territorial integrity.
Reference Question: Secession of Quebec [from Canada].
However I’ve grown up in a country with PR that’s pretty well captured by the owner class.
Hmm, I’d be interested to hear which country! However, I’m not going to give you a fairytale and tell you that proportional representation will solve all our problems – it won’t. But to have every vote count is a real good start.
Perhaps Canada is unique in that in spite of having a non-PR electoral system, we still defy expectations.
With PR, Bernier would have had a seat, so would the conservative party in Quebec… The only reason they don’t have seats is because of FPTP.
Look at Germany, the fascists now have a pretty big presence at 152 seats out of 630 and the Conservatives could just add well have made an alliance with them if they felt like it.
Sure, but it would still be a coalition and the afd would still be held in check to a large degree. With FPTP one majority will end your democracy if an afd like party gets in.
With PR, Bernier would have had a seat, so would the conservative party in Quebec
You mean democracy would be working how it should be? That people are entitled and deserving to representation in government?
The only reason they don’t have seats is because of FPTP.
You need to establish what unique characteristic of FPTP excludes the candidates you don’t like. There are plenty of “extreme” candidates that have seats that FPTP allowed in. I can think of at least 1 current representative that would vote to reverse marriage equality.
Look at Germany, the fascists now have a pretty big presence at 152 seats out of 630 and the Conservatives could just add well have made an alliance with them if they felt like it.
The task of the electoral system is not to make political decisions, but to ensure effective and proportionate representation. The legislature is the appropriate domain to handle those whose ideology you disagree with.
You’ve been mislead to believe that FPTP “limits” extremism, yet the most extreme, anti-democratic ideology is already omnipresent: that us citizens are not entitled nor deserving of having every vote count to the outcome of an election. Why hasn’t FPTP excluded this extreme ideology?
The article is about authoritarian takeover, I’m showing that PR doesn’t prevent that and might even give them more space than with FPTP, that’s all. You’re going off on a tangent that wasn’t part of the original discussion.
It increases accountability and political party competition. Why force moderate conservatives to stay with PP instead of providing them with better alternatives through a fairer electoral system.
If all far right parties end up getting a couple of seats through PR or FPTP, it’s only a matter of time before they unite in order to have more seats under the same brand to increase their visibility. PR doesn’t protect us from authoritarianism if most of the population votes for it or for parties that might work with the authoritarians.
PR is just that, more proportional and more representative of the population’s will, but if the right is what the population wants (no matter how they were convinced to vote for it), that’s what the whole country gets. The only consolation is that “Welp, that’s what people wanted 🤷”
You’re going off on a tangent that wasn’t part of the original discussion.
I’m literally just responding to you, lol
I’m showing that PR doesn’t prevent [authoritarian takeover]
Nobody said PR prevents authoritarian takeover, we just said it protects. And ensuring our democracy is actually representative of its people, does protect us against authoritarianism – precisely because the power is vested in the people.
I think you need to do a lot of thinking about the functions of electoral systems. I’ve seen this kind of argument before – FPTP limits extremism … but that is far from the truth. And PR simply gets us closer to a better democracy, and yes your argument that “right” wingers get representation – is a “flaw” with democracy not with PR.
France’s far right party would have 214 seats instead of 142 with PR, but sure, PR protects countries from extremism!
Any links to back that up? Seems suspect.
Who said PR protects from extremism? Not even a direct democracy would protect from extremism.
FPTP can actually protect us from authoritarianism if the parties closest to center work together instead of dividing the vote…
Yeah right the moderate conservative party the bc liberals shut down in favour of the extremist bc conservatives to avoid splitting the right vote in bc.
I’m talking about both parties existing but the one that gets the least votes in a riding gets out of the way so the other one gets the seat instead of the fringe alternative.
Exactly like the left did in France.
In one riding the Liberals would get the seat, in another it would be the NDP and in another it would be the Greens and in another it would be the Bloc, in the end the goal is to block the Conservatives. Make it a habit for the parties that are closer to the center and I’m sure most people here won’t care about PR anymore.
Merging parties compromises their values. Instead they should work together to pass proportional representation. We need to shift away from the 2-party system as that creates stagnation.
Again, I’m not talking about parties merging.
Or… more likely, you’ll end up with a two-party system as well. America had more than two parties in the past, but FPTP made sure that once a party dissolved, it would be impossible to create a new one with any sliver of a chance.
We have four major one, one small one and another small one without a seat. The Bloc was created in the 90s, green in the 80s, PPC in 2018…
Doesn’t seem too worrisome.
With Duverger’s Law (i.e., in non-PR electoral systems, a trend towards a two-parties), we are running out of time to act. Canada’s 2021 effective number of parties is 2.76 - this number will decrease over time, and will eventually end Canadian democracy as we know it today.
This trend is very concerning in our country. We need to have more regional parties and to pressure all our elected mps that electoral reform is an important issue.
If the parties closest to centre work together, FPTP can actually protect us from authoritarianism?
But winner-take-all systems like FPTP incentivize parties to work at the very least non-cooperatively. So the premise of your statement never happens.
Even if the parties closest to the centre work together, what characteristic unique to FPTP protects us from authoritarianism?
Look at what the left did in France, they got out of each other’s way and managed to block the far right. With PR it wouldn’t have changed anything to the far right’s result.
Right now they have 142 seats, with PR they would have 214.
I would argue that FPTP should push parties in the center to work together to prevent the extremes from taking over, it’s just not part of Canada’s political culture, that’s all.
That example doesn’t work because France uses a two-round electoral system.
Still not proportional and relies on FPTP to determine who takes power, they just eliminate some of the smaller parties during the electoral process.
Look at what the left did in France, they got out of each other’s way and managed to block the far right.
That’s not a democracy that is healthy. Electoral systems are not supposed to exclude representation that is us citizens are deserving of and are entitled to. If you want to block individuals, do that in the legislature.
I would argue that FPTP should push parties in the center to work together
This doesn’t happen in theory nor practice – it’s usually a race to the bottom and very adversarial (hence party over country politics). We already have extremists from FPTP, and we will continue to have extremists in PR. But at the very least, in PR, we don’t find ourselves locked into fewer and fewer viable options. You’re mistaken in trying to get the electoral system to make political decisions. I have also seen this argument before.
it’s just not part of Canada’s political culture, that’s all.
Is Canada not supposed to be a democracy? And unless it’s written in law, it’s fair game – that’s how democracy works. Even if it’s not part of Canada’s political culture … is that a reason to exclude a particular idea? It was once “part” of Canada’s political culture to send indigenous person to residential schools…
At the very least, shouldn’t ensuring every vote counting to the election outcome be a part of Canada’s political culture? That’s not too much to ask, considering it’s a fundamental tenet of democracy.
The post is about protecting ourselves from authoritarianism, I’m just showing that PR doesn’t necessarily do that, if the majority of people vote right and far right (like in Germany) then you can say “it’s more democratic!” all you want, in the end you’re one handshake away from authoritarianism.
I’m just showing that PR doesn’t necessarily do that
Yes, we already had this discussion. Nobody is disputing that PR doesn’t necessarily prevent authoritarianism. This isn’t new information.
in the end you’re one handshake away from authoritarianism.
But you keep bringing up this separate, and unsubstantiated point. That FPTP is better than PR in terms of preventing authoritarianism? Neither electoral system are intended to prevent authoritarianism.
The closest you’ve gotten is that, under a specific scenario, PR would raise the seat count of an authoritarian party. But this same exact argument could be made against a direct democracy, therefore your argument isn’t actually against PR, it’s against democracy itself. And so I will reject your argument given that we must prioritize democracy (or what you think is a stone’s throw from authoritarianism), over this unsubstantiated claim that FPTP limits extremism/authoritarianism.
You also have not demonstrated that FPTP limits authoritarianism any better than PR (not that either are really intended to). You keep conflating extremism and authoritarianism, but don’t consider the nuances. Under FPTP, we already have this omnipresent extreme ideology: that not all votes should count to the outcome of an election.
Overall, PR is closer to a perfect democracy than FPTP. If you don’t like everyone having the representation they are entitled to, that’s more of a you problem. If you don’t like people espousing specific ideologies, you should speak with them to change their minds - as you should in a healthy democracy. But trying to contort the electoral system to make political decisions (not that any electoral system are actually intended to do so), that fundamentally anti democratic.
Then why post about PR protecting us from authoritarianism if you agree that it doesn’t?
Not fully preventing authoritarianism is not the same as the best way of protecting ourselves against authoritarianism.
This is an analogy: it’s like saying, well, why did you get sick with a disease when you’ve already got vaccinated for it? Well, vaccines don’t entirely limit disease, but it is the best way to protect oneself from disease.
PR doesn’t entirely protect from authoritarianism, but PR (and by proxy democracy) is the best way to protect ourselves against an authoritarian takeover.
