[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics

[Juho]

On Mar 7, 2008, at 16:40 , Fred Gohlke wrote:

> Good Morning, Juho
>
> re: "... not having parties or other groupings may also cause problems
> to the voters since they have hard time finding out what each  
> individual
> candidate stands for."
>
> The purpose of Active Democracy is to guarantee that individual
> candidates are required to explain their positions to the most  
> critical
> audience possible ... other candidates.

Yes, that is a good source of criticism. But citizens may also feel  
that some of the elected representatives got through without any wide  
support, just based on their capability to explain their way through  
and having good luck in getting appropriate competitors/supporters  
when the election tree was constructed. So, good and bad, critical  
audience but only limited audience.

I also tend to think that having some clear association to a party or  
some named targets that the representative drives is in many cases a  
positive thing.

Btw, what do you think of a somewhat related method of arranging a  
lottery among the citizens. Maybe e.g. so that the elected citizens  
could name someone else if they do not feel like being a  
representative themselves. (This would probably also increase the  
percentage of representatives that are "willing" but not "seeking"  
selection.)

> re: "Some small parties could get together under a common umbrella
> organization."
>
> That is exactly how the major party system works in the U. S., right
> now.  Fringe groups align themselves with major parties to  
> influence the
> party's platform.  The down side is exactly what you described in an
> earlier message:  The large devour the small.

My intention is to arrange the election in this case so that the  
smaller fragments would get their proportional share of the seats.  
They could thus continue driving their own agenda (I assume that  
those parties that got together have relatively similar targets).

The method works also the other way around (breaking monolithic  
blocks to smaller parts). If large parties allow their different  
internal segments to be visible in the election that would lead to  
voters having their say on how strong those different segments are,  
and representatives of the segments would be expected to act in line  
with the targets of that segment.

> A small group can insist that the party install one of their number  
> in a
> position of power, but the effectiveness of that approach depends  
> on (at
> least) two things:  (1) whether the small group is large enough to
> adversely affect the party if the party refuses, and (2) whether the
> party strategists feel the small group's representative will  
> enhance the
> party's prospects.  Since few of the smaller groups have enough  
> strength
> to influence the party, the party usually pays lip service to the  
> small
> group's adherents while ignoring their interest.  From the small  
> group's
> perspective, this is beneficial because the lip service publicizes  
> their
> position and provides a rallying point for adherents ... "much ado  
> about
> nothing".

If one part consists of one large group and few small ones the  
position of the small ones in negotiations is weaker. If different  
subgroups are of more similar size then the negotiation process is  
more balanced. Small groups can also join together (if they are  
ideologically close to each others) and thereby gain more strength in  
negotiations. The whole system is a tree like hierarchy, hopefully  
not too unbalanced.

> re: "Having no parties may be impossible."
>
> It is impossible.  Partisanship is natural for humans.  We seek out  
> and
> align ourselves with others who share our views.  Through them, we  
> hone
> our ideas and gain courage from the knowledge that we are not alone in
> our beliefs.  Partisanship gives breadth, depth and volume to our  
> voice.
>   In and of itself, partisanship is not only inevitable, it is  
> healthy.
>   The fault lies, not in partisanship but in allowing partisans to
> control government.

I hope the process is lively and takes lots of new input while still  
maintaining some widely agreed basic concepts steady (=stability in  
critical areas).

Why is "partisans controlling government" a bad thing? Maybe there  
are two kind of partisans, those that use their position to learn and  
guide more are those that just want power and control???

I tend to think that many regular people have thought a lot how the  
society should be run, but in the political hierarchy while the  
skills and capabilities of people grow when we go towards the upper  
layers the morale and sincerity does not necessarily follow. Often it  
is so that people who want power do work for it and eventually get  
it, while people who are interested in what would be the best way to  
arrange things in the society do not work to achieve power and as a  
result they also will not get power (just a rule of balance and  
statistics that does not necessarily apply in all individual cases).

Juho


> Fred
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