WARNING!: This week’s posting is not that interesting! (Unless you care about democracy.) (A lot.)
Voting is an important part of democracy. It is also an important part of pseudo-democracies because it can add a veneer of authenticity. Voting seems simple enough to us. We pop into a community hall on our way to work or home from the store. It takes a few minutes and on we go with our day. Even without paying a great deal of attention most of us know who the parties are and generally what they stand for at the very least.
It isn’t like that everywhere. In some countries voting is dangerous. In some countries voting involves really long lines and takes a great deal of determination. In many new democracies there are no histories of strong political parties, or there are electoral systems that can fracture weak political parties (open list pro-rep and single transferrable vote or STV). Some countries have 60 or more political parties (Jordan and Ukraine to name only 2). That requires paying attention. In some countries they have an election seemingly all the time (two-round systems where there is a run-off election a few weeks after the initial election; in places with staggered terms; and in places with local, regional and two-chamber national elections in addition to presidential elections…) That requires stamina.
There are all kinds of histories and contexts behind the electoral systems of the world. Some of them are quite interesting and worth looking at. They help make the point about the importance of history and context. But not today.
If you are bored already, I suggest you carry on with your day, see you next time.
For those of you still reading, hi! thanks for hearing me out.
Electoral reform is of course required when a country first becomes democratic. For Canada, we crawled there gently from the Westminster tradition we were under as a colony of Britain. I’m not a fan of colonialism, but one benefit was an easy development of democracy. Most countries don’t have it so easy, and it isn’t because we are more enlightened or somehow superior. We got lucky. We’ve never really done electoral reform, but we need to, so we better learn how.
What Can the World Tell Us About Electoral Change?
I refer to a bunch of different electoral systems below. For an explanation of the different systems, see my earlier postings in this series: part 1 describes most, part II describes parallel and hybrid systems. In the last 30 years or so, here are the countries that have changed election systems and how that went:
Of counties that had non-proportional systems like ours, four went to parallel, two went to MMP, seven went to List, and four countries tweaked their non-proportional system from one to another.
Of countries that had mixed systems (partly FPTP and partly proportional, these systems include MMP or Parallel), one switched from parallel to MMP, three from parallel to List, and one from MMP to List.
Of countries with List systems, three switched to MMP and one to Parallel.
Two countries also switched from a semi-proportional system I haven’t mentioned before (single non-transferrable vote, where you have a multi-member constituency with one vote each, and the winners are like in our system – people that get the most votes get the seats, with no attention paid to parties and how many votes went to each party). They switched to parallel.
There are two more countries I need to mention: Sierra Leone and Italy. Sierra Leone is listed by the UN ACE project as switching to FPTP from List PR, but their List PR system was under colonial rule and was very rudimentary and I frankly don’t quite understand how it worked. At independence in 1961, it did like most of us former colonies and took on the FPTP system. I don’t really think this qualifies as a pro-rep country assessing its options and choosing FPTP. But if you want to count it, they are the only one to go that direction.
Italy has had 61 governments in 74 years since the end of World War II. It started out as List PR, but changed to MMP, then back to List, and now to a Parallel system. This is because it has had problems with a fractured electorate and with corruption. Bulgaria also went from List to MMP and back to List.
Did you Glaze Over There? It’s Okay. So Did I.
Why am I boring you with these details? To show no one system is the shining light – countries are going in various directions for their own unique reasons. If you want to see trends though, here are some totals: 9 countries went to parallel, but 4 left it (+5). 13 countries left non-proportional systems like ours, and 2 went to it (-11). Eight went to MMP, while three left it (Including Bulgaria and Italy on both sides) (+5). Ten went to List, and 5 left it (+5).
That brings us to the overall numbers (approximate): List – 86 countries, including most of Europe and South America. FPTP – 78 (I’m including related non-proportional systems here for simplicity). Most of these are formerly British or French colonies, so that’s North America and Africa. Parallel – 35. MMP – 10. STV – 2.
There are several messages here:
One: FPTP is being left behind. It was a fine system when the mail went by horse. We are more connected and can do better, so we should.
Two: Once countries are proportional or partly proportional, it is not such a big deal to adjust the system. We see countries going in all kinds of directions: MMP to parallel, parallel to MMP, to list, away from list, etc. What does that tell us? It tells us there is no magic best system. Context matters. It also tells us that once we get our foot in the proportional door, things will work out. That first hump is the big one, and we don’t really need to sweat the details as there is lots of time for making further adjustments later.
Three: As Italy shows, pro-rep doesn’t solve all problems. One important factor is the state and culture of political parties when the system is adopted. In places that had weak or fractured political parties, proportional representation can be a mess, depending on the system. On the other hand, STV, which should fracture parties since voters have no party vote so candidates from the same party are running against each other, has proved very stable in Ireland and Malta, two places with a long history of 2 or 2 1/2 party systems. So history and political culture matter a lot. Our history and political culture matters, then, too.
Sounds Easy To Change. Why is it so hard for us?
Electoral reform has been tried in Canada a number of times, and always fails. Why is that. What is wrong with us?
Nothing is wrong with us. Electoral reform usually only happens in a couple of dramatic ways. We are not a dramatic country. That’s a good thing, but it means we don’t have a lot driving us into democratic change, which involves some risk of turmoil and must overcome the fear inherent in change.
Let’s look at countries that have left FPTP for proportional systems (including parallel, which is not fully proportional).
Three were driven by repeated strange election results that were clearly not fair and led to voter unrest, which drove change: Lesotho, New Zealand, Mongolia. Two of them had two consecutive elections where the party with the most votes didn’t win the most seats. The other one had an election where the winning party won all the seats with 60% of the vote.
Five came out of dictatorship or civil war: Iraq, Rwanda, South Africa, Moldova, Tunisia. Fiji was a post-colonial transition from a tribal system.
Japan used to have multi-seat constituencies, but each vote was for an individual with no sharing within parties to get proportionality. After corruption issues they added list seats in a parallel system. This was easy enough since they already had large constituencies, so they could simply elect less seats in each to add List seats.
Thailand similarly had a corruption problem, but also had too many parties under their old block vote system (where you get a bunch of votes for individual candidates, like most of Canada uses for municipal elections where there are no wards).
A bit like Japan’s case, in the Philippines there used to be seats (20%) that were appointed to represent marginalized or underrepresented groups. They changed to make these elected using a list system.
That makes 12 countries that left due to electoral crisis of some kind or had a unique element to their old system that made change to a Parallel system a small step. Are their any examples where this wasn’t the case? One.
Monaco changed to a Parallel system in 2003 from FPTP. No corruption or turmoil that I’m aware of. The only driving factor I can see is having lots of exposure to List systems as part of the European Union and with neighbours using List and Parallel systems (though not France, their immediate neighbour).
Lessons from this: One, we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for having trouble making the change to a more proportional system. Two, like Monaco shows, a Parallel system is perhaps an attainable goal without manufacturing an electoral crisis (which would be a dangerous way to drive change). Why? A parallel system involves a smaller hump.
If you made it through this highly analytical posting, you are either stubborn or interested in electoral reform. Most people interested in electoral reform are hoping for proportional representation. You can jump against the hump keeping the electorate from agreeing to your preferred system, or you can consider the kind of Parallel system I proposed in part II: A Hybrid system called Ridings’ Choice. It makes that first scary step a small step, and in fact a reversible step. It lowers the hump. Because of that, it wouldn’t need a referendum if it could get legislative support (though I’m not against a referendum). If you don’t like it as an end result, that’s fine – know from history around the world that once we make that first step, further change is very possible.
We need change. Change is exciting for some, but creates fear and resistance in most. We need to think about how to make change actually happen. Most people are content to pop in and vote on the way by. I’m not sure most people want to dig in to this topic or have the stamina for a big change debate involving myriad electoral systems, but that is only avoidable one way. We have our own history, our own context, and perhaps most importantly our own geography that necessitates our own version of change. Let’s not wait for a crisis. Canada glided into democracy 1.0 out of colonial rule. It is time to glide into democracy 2.0 with Riding’s Choice. It is the right way and the easy way.
There are a lot of paths toward change that end in failure. The international context and our own history show why. There are some paths that may eventually lead to success with a thin majority pressing their will on everyone else, or a thin majority holding back change wanted by everyone else. These paths may work for some, but are less than ideal. There is one path that Canada can take to get over the hump. Let’s agree on a hybrid system for now, and we can happily disagree later on the final destination.
Sources:
The UN’s Ace project (again): www.aceproject.org
www.wikipedia.org. In particular, searching for “elections in [country name]”
