[EM] Majority Rule

[Blake Cretney]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2001 09:31:14 +1000
LAYTON Craig <Craig.LAYTON at add.nsw.gov.au> wrote:

> >I think people have just come to associate majorities with
> >democracy, through the simple case of two alternatives, where
> >majority rule makes a kind of sense, but only as a special
> >case.
> 
> Unfortunately, the Westminster(ish) systems of Government; UK,
Australia,
> Canada; depend on the concept of parliamentary majority to operate. 
In
> order to make a government/appoint a cabinet, you need to
demonstrate that
> you have the backing of the majority of the lower house.  Where this
isn't
> possible, the parliament gets dissolved and goes back to the polls. 
While
> minority governments are possible, they are rare - parties are
normally
> forced into coalitions to create a two-party system.  It should be
noted
> that much of this system is based on traditions and motions and
regulations
> passed by parliament, rather than on the constitution or common law,
so
> there is no easy way to change it.  If it is desirable to change it,
that
> is.

I'm not sure I follow you.  If it's just a regulation passed by
parliament, it can be amended by parliament.  You seem to view normal
laws as being harder to change than the constitution.

I agree, however, that you shouldn't just take First Past the Post out
of the Westminster system and plonk in PR with everything else
unchanged.  Although, many countries have done essentially that, with
varying degrees of success.  The result is that parties have to work a
lot to form majority coalitions, in order to create a Westminster-like
situation of a majority government.

I don't think you need to do it that way, though.  I notice that in
the States, they have two houses of congress.  Each house acts very
much like a parliament, except that although there are only two
parties, members vote quite independently.  This results in a
situation of shifting majorities, where house leadership cannot count
on its bills always being passed.  In the Westminster system, whenever
a house vote went against the majority leader, we would expect that a
new election would result.  But the US constitution sets fixed terms,
so no extra elections result.

I think the premise of the Westminster system is that if the house
votes against cabinet, a disaster has occurred.  Chaos reigns, and it
is necessary to have a new election to straighten the mess out.  I
don't agree with that assessment, however.  There doesn't seem to be
any chaos in the US as a result of the house leaders being defeated. 
There is gridlock as a result of having 3 bodies that need to agree,
but that's a different issue.  Parties will naturally form different
majorities on different issues, it is no cause for alarm.

The Westminster system also makes it rather difficult to select and
maintain a cabinet.  In theory, a cabinet is only formed by the
consent of a majority of the house.  But as we all know, in any
election, a majority won't necessarily favour any one candidate, let
alone a particular combination of candidates in a cabinet.  So, rather
than requiring majority consent, cabinet members should just be chosen
by elections in the parliament.  And there should be no automatic
trigger for a cabinet member's removal, short of a vote of
non-confidence, followed by the selection of someone else as a
replacement.

---
Blake Cretney