2024-19 Politics, the art of compromise

POLITICS, THE ART OF COMPROMISE

IN FRANCE, THE USA AND ELSEWHERE, DEMOCRACY IS IN DANGER OF GIVING POWER TO THOSE

WHO DO NOT COMPROMISE, (AS HAPPENED IN GERMANY WITH THE ENABLING ACT* OF 1933).

If our voting systems catered for compromise,

POLITICS COULD BECOME A GAME OF NO TRUMPS.

CHANGE

THE VOTERS’ ELECTORAL SYSTEM

and

THE MPs' DECISION-MAKING

THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM

First-past-the-post forces voters to be divisive, and parties to be adversarial.

The alternative vote AV allows voters to compromise, and parties to cooperate; some do, but the result does not: AV is not PR.

While single-preference PR may give lots of choice, it offers no opportunity to compromise; this PR-list, however, is fairer to the parties.

Preferential PR,  (a) as in PR-STV, allows voters to compromise (but most DUP and SF voters do not) and, like AV, prompts some parties to cooperate; 

    and     (b) as in QBS§, encourages (but does not force) all voters and parties to compromise.

There are over 300 electoral systems.  In 1996, with a choice of three systems, Slovenians used majority voting, all three options lost, so they took the least unpopular.  Four years earlier, with  a choice of two extreme and three compromise options, New Zealanders used the two-round system TRS on five options… and chose a compromise, half-PR and half-FPTP, as in Germany.  In 2011, in contrast, the UK had a choice of just two systems, FPTP or AV and no compromise; for many a PR supporter, it was like asking a vegetarian, “Beef or lamb?”  And if that 2011 referendum had been multi-optional, maybe the outcome, as in NZ, would have been different.

DECISION-MAKING

This binary voting is ancient, exclusive, very adversarial and frequently inaccurate.  But pluralism is possible.  Plurality voting is often used in the Danish Folketing; TRS (as in French elections) was used in Norway’s decision-making, once; and serial voting is often seen in Sweden and Finland.  TRS has also been used in some referendums, like NZ's in 1992 and Britain’s for Newfoundland in 1948.  

Preferential voting offers the most inclusive decision-making.  As in the MBC‡ it encourages all to state their compromise option(s).  At best, from a ballot of about five options (as would befit a five-party parliament), it can identify the option with the highest average preference.  And an average includes every MP.  The MBC is inclusive, literally!  And far more accurate than any binary ballot.  It could be the basis of an all-party power-sharing polity, as Climate Change might demand.  

THE MBC  -  THE SCIENCE OF COMPROMISE

* A weighted majority vote.

§ The Quota Borda System of 1984 was the brainchild of the late Professor Sir Michael Dummett; it is based on a quota and the MBC.

‡  The Borda Count of 1433 was the prototype of the Modified Borda Count MBC of 1770.   It is a points system: in a five-option poll, he who votes for one option gets his favourite 1 point; she who casts two preferences and thereby states a compromise gets her 1st choice 2 and her 2nd choice 1 point; while those who cast all five options  -  those who recognise the democratic validity of all the (Speaker’s approved) options  -  get 5 points for a 1st, 4 for a 2nd… and 1 point for their 5th preference.  The winner is the option with the most points, and if every MP or voter does cast a full ballot, the result is indeed the option with the highest average preference.  So cooperation can replace confrontation, as (I repeat) Climate Change would demand.