With the political turmoil in the US and UK this year, there has been a lot of discussion of the relative merits of democratic forms of government and alternatives (e.g. here and here). Many of the proposed changes seem to me to be unworkable, but others, like a move away from first past the post (FPP) systems, look to be politically possible in some places.
For those who aren’t familiar with the terminology, an FPP system is one in which the candidate with the most votes wins, no matter what. Such systems are fairly common, but not universal.
One possible result of doing away with FPP elections is a proliferation of political parties, and it is on this subject that I have something specific to say (today). One of the major problems I see in the current systems in both the US and UK is that both are effectively two party systems.* Two-party systems, by their nature, shut down certain policy options that might otherwise be viable. This has been made painfully clear by the rise of politicians like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the US, and the furor around Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership in the UK.
As I see it (and these are purely the opinions of an informed amateur) there need to be at least four, and probably more, competitive political parties in any large, indirect democracy. For example, in terms of purely internal policy it should be possible to vote for viable candidates that: 1.) are socially liberal, and neo-liberal or conservative economically (certain sorts of libertarian, maybe new Labour and mainstream Democrats?), 2.) socially liberal and economically `socialist’ or social-democratic (roughly Sanders and Corbyn) 3.) socially conservative and neo-liberal or conservative economically (Rebublicans?, Conservatives?) 4.) socially conservative, and economically `socialist’ or social-democratic (Not sure there’s much of this in reality, but why not?).
Obviously this is pretty simplistic, and especially so if international policy is included – for example, Trump and Sanders both came out strongly against free trade agreements; the biggest complaint Labour MPs seem to have about Corbyn was his apparently lukewarm support for Remain (Bremain?). Surely you should be able to be liberal but vote for Brexit for non-racist reasons, or against free trade agreements without having to vote for Trump (if you’re a single-issue voter).
Other than ditching FPP politics, I see no straightforward solution to the two party problem, but I do have a suggestion for a more radical solution, with apologies to anyone who thought of this first. Again, I haven’t done any significant research in the area.
Why must the buck stop with one, single President or PM, who then gets to make cabinet appointments in all areas? What if we elected instead, say 6 ministers, presidents, VPs, executive officers or whatever? The thought is simply this: if the person in charge of each general policy area were elected separately, voters would be free to decouple their personal view in various areas. For example, one could vote for a trade minister who is anti-free trade, an interventionist minister for war and diplomacy, a pro-legalisation minister of morals (not really what it would be, but kinda), and so on.
Now, obviously on some issues, more than one minister would have to collaborate, but, they’re politicians, surely that what they’re supposed to be dong – collaborating to get things done in the interest of voters.
Perhaps the biggest worry with this sort of system would be disagreement amount the executives, but I can’t imagine it being much worse the the eternal gridlock of our two-party systems.
*I recognise that the Liberal Democrats and UKIP in the UK have non-negligible power, but it is also extremely unlikely that either party will form a government in the foreseeable future.
NB: Please keep comments civil, reasoned, and on topic.
A Philosopher's Take 
Justin Caouette
August 22, 2016
Isn’t this the model that banks and Universities adopted as well? That’s not working out so well for them, just sayin’.
Also, wasn’t the house/senate/president system in the states put forward for *some* of the same reasons you hint at here?
LikeLike
Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
August 24, 2016
-I think there are two relevant differences here. First, the goals and purposes of universities/banks are very different from government. Second, although I may be wrong about this, I don’t think in most cases, cxos are directly elected by stakeholders.
-In part, but those divisions are more to do with demographic and geographic issues, rather than separating different areas of policy.
LikeLike
philosotroll
August 22, 2016
I’m not super familiar with parliamentary politics, but this sort of approach doesn’t seem to address the problem. After all, simply having more members and a greater diversity of views in a given political body or branch does nothing to assure either the efficacy or otherwise goodness of said body; see: the US House of Representatives, inter alia. Having six executives making various appointments won’t somehow make those appointments less politically motivated, divisive, etc.
Similarly, non-FPP balloting alternatives, like rank-choice voting, cause similar problems one can observe by looking at local elections that use them. (My hometown of Oakland uses rank-choice voting for local elections, and it winds up creating a lot of additional awful political gamesmanship.)
LikeLike
Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
August 24, 2016
I agree that nothing I said is likely to be a `perfect’ solution. The point I was trying to make was less about diversity of views, than better representation of views. The dis-analogy w/ the House, is that there tends to be a lot of pressure to take the party line on divisive issues.
LikeLike
Brandon Beasley
August 27, 2016
Could you provide some examples of “awful political gamesmanship” which you take to be caused by the use of ranked ballots in municipal elections?
I ask because one of the often touted benefits of preferential ballots over first-past-the-post is that it is supposed to ensure that the elected representative of the district is the preferred choice of >50% of voters. This is preferable to a candidate who wins with, say, 31%, in a race with several candidates who do somewhat well. Another frequently mentioned benefit is that it forces candidates to be nicer to each other and/or appeal to a more diverse group of voters, since they’ll want to be the 2nd choice of voters who have another first preference besides them.
I mention these things, which you probably already know, because I take them to make a very strong case for ranked ballots, not just in local elections but really in any election which elects a single individual to represent a single geographic district. So I’m keen to know what sorts of bad things you take to be occurring in Oakland to see how the system is working in practice (in one location, anyway).
LikeLike
Clare Flourish
August 22, 2016
(I can’t remember where I read recently that) politically engaged people imagine that they have consistent views across a range of political issues, because parties have created platforms with those views. In the 1980s Labour was a coalition of working class trade unionists, who were often socially conservative, with socially liberal middle class metropolitan types.
It might be straying a little from topic to say the problem with Brexit was unscrupulous politicians channelling anger at globalisation against the scapegoat of the EU, to the detriment of their voters’ true interests. Former prime minister John Major said of the “spend £350m on our NHS instead” pledge that the NHS was as safe with these people as your pet gerbil with a hungry python.
LikeLiked by 1 person
nannus
August 23, 2016
To see that the two-party system is blurring political positions, just look at the political compas: https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016. In that approach, the simple left-right dimension is replaced by two: an economic left-right dimension and a second libertarian-authoritarian dimension. The results are quite interesting.
LikeLike
nannus
August 23, 2016
Multi-Party systems have their problems too (I am a German living in Germany, so I have first-hand experience), but Generally, I think a multip-party-system is much better than a two-party system. However, it does not help agains racist, authoritarian people like Trump. Such people also appear in systems with many parties. The real problem, I think, is not the kind of voting system you the increasing economic inequality.
LikeLike
Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
August 24, 2016
I agree, but I was trying to stick to talking only about electoral reform and not the (I think more pressing) issues of inequality of various dimensions, graft, etc
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mikael
August 23, 2016
In practice, I guess there would mostly be negotiations among coalition parties about the posts in the cabinet. So in reality the different ministers/secretaries would have somewhat different political leanings.
LikeLike
nannus
August 23, 2016
I guess the same is true in the two party systems of the US and UK. There should be a lot of different factions within those parties. If the voting system favours multiple parties, you will have more parties with less internal difference.
LikeLike
Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
August 24, 2016
The thought would then be that since the ministers or whatever are directly elected there would be less horse-trading for powerful positions at the expense of actual represetation of voters’ views.
LikeLike