[EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
(I have written some replies to certain of MO's posts, but I haven't posted them. I'm currently having my share of "interesting times" and there's lots of conflict around, so I don't feel the need to add to all the complexity I have to manage by engaging in likely confrontational threads. Therefore, let's go for something a little less divisive.) - Here's something I've thought about for a while, that seems to be an interesting combination of majority and consensus reasoning: You have a parliamentary system. Forming a government requires a supermajority (say 60%). However, all motions of no confidence have to be constructive, i.e. they have to propose a new government and thus be subject to the supermajority rule. What kind of behavior would you see under such a system? One would ordinarily consider parliamentary systems that require a supermajority for forming a government to be very unstable, because it may take forever to get the required majority, and in the meantime, a simple majority can tear down the government that already exists. But by insisting that all votes of no confidence are constructive, a simple majority can't remove the government. Only a supermajority can, and then only when it has a proposal for another government. So what we would expect to happen is that the government can stay in office for a much longer time than would otherwise be the case. This, in turn, is offset by the supermajority requirement for getting your particular government proposal into the executive in the first place. Would that configuration weaken the consensus aspect of the system? Perhaps a government that happened to have a supermajority at one point "outstays their welcome" and gets increasingly unpopular until there's a sufficient supermajority in the other direction, then that government gets replaced by its opposite pole, and rinse and repeat. On the other hand, the opposition might try to appeal more broadly so that, as the government gets less popular and the centrists previously aligned with the government starts abandoning it, the opposition almost immediately has a variant of the centrist policy ready to catch them so their alternative can get the required supermajority. Or perhaps the power would move from the government itself, which is subject to supermajority rules, to the bureaucracy, which is not (and is unelected). Or the overlapping center that one needs to have to get 60% in a left-right situation might become kingmakers. What do you think would happen? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
Sorry, hit "reply" instead of - reply All, then move EM to "to" field and delete Kristofer Munsterhjelm Gmail really hates the system EM uses. On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: > Would that configuration weaken the consensus aspect of the system? Perhaps > a government that happened to have a supermajority at one point "outstays > their welcome" and gets increasingly unpopular until there's a sufficient > supermajority in the other direction, then that government gets replaced by > its opposite pole, and rinse and repeat. You could have a rule that the first government after an election just needs a majority of the vote and then the new rule kicks in. That is more democratic. In coalition politics, it would create an incentive for betrayal. For example, if there was one party with 45% of the seats, and one with 20% of the seats, they could form a government. However, once the government is formed, the 20% group could be betrayed. Also, it depends on what you mean by "government". It could mean that the assembly approves a Prime Minister by 60%. The Prime Minister would then have the right to decide cabinet members. You could require approval by 40/50/60 percent of the assembly. If you make it 40%, then he can instantly ditch the 25% party. Even without direct betrayal, the power of the smaller party would collapse. Another thing about confidence is that it can be used as a stick by the government too. If the government wants a policy passed, they can tie it to a motion of no confidence. Wayward members of the party might support it because they don't want to trigger an election. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
On 11/29/2012 01:51 AM, Raph Frank wrote: Sorry, hit "reply" instead of - reply All, then move EM to "to" field and delete Kristofer Munsterhjelm Gmail really hates the system EM uses. You can use gmail with an ordinary mail client, just like I use lavabit, which is also a webmail system, with Thunderbird. Mail clients tend to be well behaved with regards to quoting. See http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77695 for more information. Also, I think that if you do a Reply to All and keep my address in there, EM will automatically not send a second copy to me. Anyway, on to the subject! - On 11/27/2012 01:25 AM, Raph Frank wrote: > On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm > wrote: >> Would that configuration weaken the consensus aspect of the system? >> Perhaps a government that happened to have a supermajority at one >> point "outstays their welcome" and gets increasingly unpopular until >> there's a sufficient supermajority in the other direction, then that >> government gets replaced by its opposite pole, and rinse and repeat. > > You could have a rule that the first government after an election just > needs a majority of the vote and then the new rule kicks in. That is > more democratic. Yes, but the point of consensus systems is to make a democracy for and by a larger group than just a majority. In isolation, a supermajority vote is aligned with that goal, because it keeps a "mere" majority from dictating over the minority. However, if you need supermajority support for decisions, then you have to have something to put in place when the supermajority support isn't there. So a supermajority requirement upon forming the government and a minority for a vote of no confidence would be a recipe for instability (and probably rule by the bureaucracy). The constructive vote of no confidence idea answers "what should we have in place as long while there is no agreement" with "whatever came before". On the one hand, that keeps the government stable until another consensus can be reached. On the other, it is unfair to new ideas because they suffer a penalty (the supermajority requirement) not borne on the government at the time in question. Each government only has to get in once, then it can stay until the consensus goes somewhere else. Now, you could have a simple majority for the election. That would have changes happen more rapidly... but it would also mean the government loses some of its legitimacy, as it no longer has consensus backing. And if it no longer has consensus backing, why not just use a majority system? So the inherent problem seems to be that consensus is hard. Since consensus is hard, it's not going to happen often. And thus you either have instability if you wait around without a government until there can be consensus, or a bias in one direction or other if you keep something in place until consensus forces a change. I think Simmons had some ideas about this in a voting method context - basically, that the method would default to a lottery if the participants couldn't agree among themselves, and then every party would have an incentive to reach consensus because the lottery is ultimately unbiased, if providing poor results. But that might be a little too radical for parliamentary politics :-) > In coalition politics, it would create an incentive for betrayal. > > For example, if there was one party with 45% of the seats, and one > with 20% of the seats, they could form a government. > > However, once the government is formed, the 20% group could be > betrayed. Well, I'd like the imagined system to represent more than a majority. The betrayal incentives you mention would make it more responsive to change, but at the cost of representing less. > Also, it depends on what you mean by "government". > > It could mean that the assembly approves a Prime Minister by 60%. The > Prime Minister would then have the right to decide cabinet members. > > You could require approval by 40/50/60 percent of the assembly. If > you make it 40%, then he can instantly ditch the 25% party. > > Even without direct betrayal, the power of the smaller party would > collapse. I think parliamentary rules tend to be that the party or coalition that wants to form a government submits a proposal with the composition of the entire government, and then it passes by majority support - and that negotiations happen outside of the assembly among members of the prospective coalition beforehand. I'm not sure about this, though. > Another thing about confidence is that it can be used as a stick by > the government too. If the government wants a policy passed, they can > tie it to a motion of no confidence. Wayward members of the party > might support it because they don't want to trigger an election. Right, that's a good point. Party discipline tends to be very strong here, so I didn't think of that. Election-Method
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:16 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm > However, if you need supermajority support for decisions, then you have to > have something to put in place when the supermajority support isn't there. One option is to select 2 PMs. That is what they do in Northern Ireland. The cabinet is decided by the d'Hondt method (so proportional) and there is 1 PM (actually first minister) from each community. So, the vote would work something like - vote for PM (including cabinet) combination -- if a candidate gets 60%, he is appointed PM, finish - Round 2 -- Anyone with more than 1/3 of the vote gets nominated as joint PM -- Keep voting until 2 get 1/3 or more -- If that fails, then if 1 gets 1/3, he can take office, as half a PM (maybe have previous PM as other one) -- Each PM appoints half of the office --- The PM who got the most votes has to option to go first or second --- Each picks a department alternatively -- Department of finance might be different You could have more departments than cabinet positions. Each PM gets to appoint half the seats to anyone he likes, and then can assign any departments he picked any way he likes. The more departments, the more even the balance of power between the 2 PMs. You could also split them based on the relative support of the 2 PMs, but that would mean constant adjustment as support goes up an down. Each PM would require 1/3 support to stay in office (voting for both would count as 1/2 a vote each) It might also be required that both submit their cabinet member choices and if either can't get 1/3 support, they are considered to have lost confidence. > So a supermajority requirement upon forming the government and a minority > for a vote of no confidence would be a recipe for instability (and probably > rule by the bureaucracy). I was thinking 50% to form after an election and 60% to vote no confidence. Another option is that if no government is formed by 60%, the old one stays in power and a new election is automatically triggered within 30 days. After that election, if nobody has 60%, then 50% is sufficient, but maybe if that happens the term is reduced by 50%. No matter how the government is picked, 60% would be required to replace it with a different one. > And if it no > longer has consensus backing, why not just use a majority system? It would be more stable. > I think Simmons had some ideas about this in a voting method context - > basically, that the method would default to a lottery if the participants > couldn't agree among themselves, and then every party would have an > incentive to reach consensus because the lottery is ultimately unbiased, if > providing poor results. But that might be a little too radical for > parliamentary politics :-) Right that is an option. For example, 1/3: new election 2/3: Each legislator nominates a candidate and then a random legislator is picked and his choice wins[*] [*] could use something like IRV to eliminate very small options (say < 20%) > Well, I'd like the imagined system to represent more than a majority. The > betrayal incentives you mention would make it more responsive to change, but > at the cost of representing less. I guess it depends on the rules for motions of no confidence. If the government has to maintain 60%, then you can't betray, but it is potentially less stable. > I think parliamentary rules tend to be that the party or coalition that > wants to form a government submits a proposal with the composition of the > entire government, and then it passes by majority support - and that > negotiations happen outside of the assembly among members of the prospective > coalition beforehand. I'm not sure about this, though. That is effectively what happens. In Ireland, it is 2 stage though. The PM (Taoiseach), is nominated by majority vote. Once appointed by the President, he proposes a cabinet to the Dail and needs a majority vote to get them approved. > Right, that's a good point. Party discipline tends to be very strong here, > so I didn't think of that. The problem with requiring 60% to take down the government, means you have to swing 20% of the house to cause a collapse. That is a shift of power to the executive. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
On 11/29/2012 09:02 PM, Raph Frank wrote: On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:16 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm However, if you need supermajority support for decisions, then you have to have something to put in place when the supermajority support isn't there. One option is to select 2 PMs. That is what they do in Northern Ireland. The cabinet is decided by the d'Hondt method (so proportional) and there is 1 PM (actually first minister) from each community. So, the vote would work something like - vote for PM (including cabinet) combination -- if a candidate gets 60%, he is appointed PM, finish - Round 2 -- Anyone with more than 1/3 of the vote gets nominated as joint PM -- Keep voting until 2 get 1/3 or more -- If that fails, then if 1 gets 1/3, he can take office, as half a PM (maybe have previous PM as other one) -- Each PM appoints half of the office --- The PM who got the most votes has to option to go first or second --- Each picks a department alternatively -- Department of finance might be different You could have more departments than cabinet positions. Each PM gets to appoint half the seats to anyone he likes, and then can assign any departments he picked any way he likes. The more departments, the more even the balance of power between the 2 PMs. You could also split them based on the relative support of the 2 PMs, but that would mean constant adjustment as support goes up an down. Each PM would require 1/3 support to stay in office (voting for both would count as 1/2 a vote each) It might also be required that both submit their cabinet member choices and if either can't get 1/3 support, they are considered to have lost confidence. I see. That's a third option, then: you distill, to use such a term, the lines of disagreement or representation blocs into the executive, so that the executive has to find consensus rather than having to wait on the legislature to do so. That might work in combination with the idea of Simmons. You could have a vote where you ask the members of the assembly for their favorite as well as their consensus choice. If the consensus candidate gets more than the threshold (say 60%), he gets the task of appointing the other ministers, otherwise some PR method is used to elect a small number (perhaps only two) "joint PMs". That sounds better than having a PM chosen by random ballot when the consensus choice fails; but the PR method would have to be probabilistic to be strategy-proof, I think. So a supermajority requirement upon forming the government and a minority for a vote of no confidence would be a recipe for instability (and probably rule by the bureaucracy). I was thinking 50% to form after an election and 60% to vote no confidence. Yes. I'm just saying that 60% to form and <=50% for no confidence would definitely not work. Another option is that if no government is formed by 60%, the old one stays in power and a new election is automatically triggered within 30 days. After that election, if nobody has 60%, then 50% is sufficient, but maybe if that happens the term is reduced by 50%. No matter how the government is picked, 60% would be required to replace it with a different one. That would provide an incentive for the slight majority to hold out for an election, so that they can reaffirm their slight majority and then get through on a 50%. I do see the point, though, because a very slight majority couldn't be sure they would stay a majority after the election. 1/3: new election 2/3: Each legislator nominates a candidate and then a random legislator is picked and his choice wins[*] [*] could use something like IRV to eliminate very small options (say< 20%) Perhaps something like multistage Hay voting ( http://www.panix.com/~tehom/essays/hay-extended.html ) could be used to remove clones while keeping the method strategy-proof, also. The mathematics is a little too tough for me, so I don't know if one could remove very small options in multistage Hay without upsetting the resistance to strategy. The problem with requiring 60% to take down the government, means you have to swing 20% of the house to cause a collapse. That is a shift of power to the executive. And secondarily, to the faction that managed to get their government through, yes. In more general terms: a 60% barrier to no-confidence favors the status quo because the status quo can survive on less (40%) than any of the alternatives. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
On 26.11.2012, at 0.03, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: > You have a parliamentary system. > Forming a government requires a supermajority (say 60%). That says to me that the policy of the governmnet will be on average more centrist (averaged) than e.g. with 51% governmnets. Since the governments will be a combination of multiple interest groups, each party probably has to commit to supporting few topics that they actually don't like. And this means that the parties should have strict party discipline. I'll use FInland as an example. In the recent years there have been three major parties. Any two of them can form the core of the government. In order to make the government stronger they invite also some smaller parties in the government. Those governments have been very stable (regularly from one election to the next election). It is normal that all parties in the government at least stay silent and vote as agreed when the government was formed, even if they disagree on the content in some questions. One reason is that the politicians love being ministers. Also the small parties tend to be loyal. One reason is that they want to be included in the next governments too (as loyal members of the government, with one or two own requirements that they want the government to support). The Finnish system does not require 60% support, but in practice the "three party system" has thus led to a quite similar situation. > However, all motions of no confidence have to be constructive, i.e. they have > to propose a new government and thus be subject to the supermajority rule. In FInland the government usually has no problem making (practically) all their MPs support the government when the parliament votes on confidence in the government (and in other questions too). > > What kind of behavior would you see under such a system? One would ordinarily > consider parliamentary systems that require a supermajority for forming a > government to be very unstable, because it may take forever to get the > required majority, and in the meantime, a simple majority can tear down the > government that already exists. In Finland the policy does not change very much between governments. It may be even so that the policy (or rhetorics) of that major party that move from government to opposition (or in the other direction) is the part that changes. There is thus no alternating government policy style behavour e.g. between the left and right wings. Nowadays there are also other factors in the political fiels than the traditional left vs. right battle. Also coopertion of the leftmost and rightmost large parties is no problem. They have other things in common (e.g. som more salary worker, industry and city orientation than the centre party has). > > But by insisting that all votes of no confidence are constructive, a simple > majority can't remove the government. Only a supermajority can, and then only > when it has a proposal for another government. > > So what we would expect to happen is that the government can stay in office > for a much longer time than would otherwise be the case. This, in turn, is > offset by the supermajority requirement for getting your particular > government proposal into the executive in the first place. In Finland the political system has resembled this approach in the recent years although there are no specific supermajority requirements to form or to break governmnets. Having such rules could strengthen similar behaviour even more. Looking at the rules from a Finnish perspective, the supermajority rule to replace the current government could be too strong since it could make the "maybe too stable" system even more stable. > > Would that configuration weaken the consensus aspect of the system? That doesn't seem to be the case in Finland. One problem that I see is that the consensus may not be a true consensus of the voters. Sometimes it appears to be more a consensus of the professional politicians themselves, including their interest to stay in the government (higher salary, more power, more visibility). Sometimes it appears that the politicians agree what to do between themselves an tell to the media and voters only the official planned story (as agreed by the government parties). > Perhaps a government that happened to have a supermajority at one point > "outstays their welcome" and gets increasingly unpopular until there's a > sufficient supermajority in the other direction, then that government gets > replaced by its opposite pole, and rinse and repeat. Maybe in some other countries, but in Finland the party discipline or "governmnet discipline" tends to be quite strong. > On the other hand, the opposition might try to appeal more broadly so that, > as the government gets less popular and the centrists previously aligned with > the government starts abandoning it, the opposition almost immediately has a > variant of the centrist policy
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Juho Laatu wrote: > In Finland the political system has resembled this approach in the recent > years although there are no specific supermajority requirements to form or to > break governmnets. Having such rules could strengthen similar behaviour even > more. Looking at the rules from a Finnish perspective, the supermajority rule > to replace the current government could be too strong since it could make the > "maybe too stable" system even more stable. Fundamentally, consensus by rules is different than consensus voluntarily. In the case you have, the lager parties benefit from having the smaller parties involved, but it isn't mandatory. Making the smaller parties required would boost their negotiating power. This may lead to fragmentation of the larger parties. > Maybe in some other countries, but in Finland the party discipline or > "governmnet discipline" tends to be quite strong. I think the parliamentary system, where being a minister requires loyalty to the party, discipline is easier. If you changed it so that members of the legislature couldn't be appointed to cabinet (or better couldn't stand for election to the legislature for the next election), then discipline would probably fall. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
On 4.12.2012, at 15.35, Raph Frank wrote: > On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Juho Laatu wrote: >> In Finland the political system has resembled this approach in the recent >> years although there are no specific supermajority requirements to form or >> to break governmnets. Having such rules could strengthen similar behaviour >> even more. Looking at the rules from a Finnish perspective, the >> supermajority rule to replace the current government could be too strong >> since it could make the "maybe too stable" system even more stable. > > Fundamentally, consensus by rules is different than consensus voluntarily. Yes, e.g. in a country with two alternating 51% government alternatives these rules would make a dramatical difference. > > In the case you have, the lager parties benefit from having the > smaller parties involved, but it isn't mandatory. Making the smaller > parties required would boost their negotiating power. In Finland the governments typically have more than one small party. That means that no single small party is critical when forming the new government, nor after the government has been formed. If there is a supermajority requirement for breaking the government, that could reduce the power of the small parties (inside the already formed government). > > This may lead to fragmentation of the larger parties. I'm not sure since a large party would still have more power than its fragments. At least in Finland I'd expect large parties to agree and form the core of the government also if the supermajority rules would be in place. > >> Maybe in some other countries, but in Finland the party discipline or >> "governmnet discipline" tends to be quite strong. > > I think the parliamentary system, where being a minister requires > loyalty to the party, discipline is easier. > > If you changed it so that members of the legislature couldn't be > appointed to cabinet (or better couldn't stand for election to the > legislature for the next election), then discipline would probably > fall. Such rules would seem to expand Montesquieu's separation of powers rules to new areas. In the current political system in Finland (and probably also in most other places) the politicians are very interested in becoming and staying as ministers. In the politics of the EU countries politics also ablity to influence in the EU machinery is a possible career target for the politicians. If those interests are too high, the political targets may become secondary targets. Even before proposing separation of the parliament and the government I might propose separation of political roles and business roles, separation from administration (e.g. reward jobs for the politicians), and setting stricter rules on how the political parties re funded. I believe most political systems would probably benefit of various additional separations of power. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
