I didn't understand your comment about majoritarian rule amongst the electedI was probably being too glib, but what I meant by this is that there's a number of decisions (e.g. selection of a prime minister) where the coalition building is made very difficult by the fact that it's done using first-past-the-post (FPTP) rather than approval, Condorcet, IRV, etc.
representatives. No matter how you build a consensus on any issue, at the end of
the day it will require majority support in the Parliament if it is to become
accepted national policy.
Where is it done so?
Even things that are seemingly simple up/down votes often involve a series of amendments and riders. Moving to proportional representation ensures that there's better representation on issues, but in current practice relegates those representatives to use FPTP for everything.
FPTP is to my knowledge not used in important elections in legislatures, certainly not in selecting prime ministers.
In Britain it's usually clear who will form the government. In other countries that have adopted parliamentary government it is usually the head of state that starts negotiating with the parties and decides who can attempt to form the government, if it's not obvious from the election result.
Here are descriptions from the Netherlands, where governments are usually stable despite the electoral threshold 1/150, smaller than in Israel.
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/an/Qdutch-vote-coalition.RoWr_DJN.html
http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/ned030205.html
Some theory http://www.stanford.edu/group/SITE/Merlo.pdf
In Sweden the overall responsibility has been given to the speaker. http://www.riksdagen.se/english/members/F03_regb_en.asp
In Finland we are using the new constitution for the first time now. The parties have agreed that the leader of the largest party will initiate the negotiations. She was also elected speaker, which other parties didn't quite like, but most parties voted for her, because the speaker is traditionally from the largest party. The speaker is also traditionally not from the same party as the prime minister, so it was thought that there was a conflict of interest.
http://www.om.fi/constitution/3340.htm section 61 http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20030314IE11 http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20030328IE1
In the election of speaker we use a three-round election, where an absolute majority of those present and voting is needed in the first two rounds and a simple majority is enough in the third.
In Finland we do use FPTP in local government for appointments, except elections of town managers which use a runoff. With party cohesion the results are rather predictable and the parties negotiate about all posts, so FPTP is usually not a problem, or, perhaps more accurately, it's problems are remedied by negotiations. Committees and chairmen+deputies are elected by (nearly) unanimous consent or closed list PR.
In Germany the election of the chancellor requires an absolute majority. If it can't be found, a dissolution will follow.
That will apply no matter whether you have majorityIndeed, that seems pretty awful. Is that what Poland is doing?
government of one party or a coalition, or minority government. Of course, you
can improve the stability of the Parliament (and of the government) by avoiding
the stupid rule that any successful vote against the government automatically
means that the government falls.
I'm not sure what sounds awful, the Westminster model? In Britain it is normal that almost any vote against the government leads to new elections, which is an effective way of increasing the power of the Prime Minister. In some countries only an express vote of no confidence will lead to dissolution. One device is the French invention called interpellation.
It's the too easy votes of no confidence, not PR, which I think has lead to instability in some countries. As I've said, the Swiss solution avoids this. Israel has adopted a quasi-presidential type of government where the prime minister is elected directly by the voters, which means they use a single-winner method. It's not guaranteed that the winner is able to work with other parties so I'm not sure how much it will improve stability. I understand some countries in South America have proportional elections and a presidential form of government. Brazil?
The Polish constitution http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/pl00000_.html Articles 154 - 162
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