It's a plus for the Germany political system that voters are offered a choice between conservative, liberal, social democrat, green and harder left options, and it is no harm to have those views represented formally in parliament rather than through "extra-parliamentary" means as often happens else where.
Give me proportional representation over binary choice single vote simple majority systems anytime.(US/UK -to a large extent). They promote a much more inclusive and pluralist political culture. Obviously the political landscape can become so splintered that coherent Government becomes difficult (Italy?), but so far the German move from 2 and a half parties to 5 hasn't been debilitating, and can reinforce the re-unification process by making similar choices available across all states.
Having said that, any association with (never mind legitimation of) Stalinist Stasi/Berlin Wall type politics can only be extremely damaging for any progressive political movement and the Left Party badly needs to distance itself firmly from such "hold-outs" and old guard communists if it is ever to exceed 10% of the vote nationally.
The promotion of a more egalitarian society must not be tainted with a more authoritarian or totalitarian one - in Germany of all places - and providing greater opportunities for all need not involve restricting the development of an enterprise and innovation culture which Europe badly needs in order to compete more effectively in a globalising economy. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
no such difference. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
Also, I harbour no categoric rejection of hard-core commies. I do think that anyone looking for an ideal society in the past is a conservative at heart, and think that those who waste time defending a past system lost sight of the ideals even before looking at the details. However, people change, even Moscow-loyal commies, and I think the Italian, French, Swedish, East German commies showed that they can cooperate rationally if the situation arises.
Also, there is the Austrian example: the KPÖ was a poster example of a hardcore pro-Soviet party, they rejected Eurocommunism and repeatedly purged members who'd favour it, with the result that by the late nineties, their voters were hardly more than the party members. But one guy in the city of Graz thought, all this ideological debate is boring, let's do something for workers! The result was double-digits support in elections for the local parliament. (Though on the last elections this past 20 January, they lost heavily -- with the Greens gaining most --, they still got 11.2%, and the media linked losses to the popular local leader's switch to the regional parliament.) *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
I think in any coalition, if the parties negotiated right, everyone can implement part of the promises. This of course is more difficult if the coalitioners come from opposite sides of the spectrum, or if there are several dwarf parties that can blackmail a narrow coalition (see Italy).
On the other hand, if there is a narrower party spectrum, the voter's choice may not be between partial implementation of election promises and opposition, but voting for a party with mere hints of one's preferred policies or not vote at all. (For the record, this is my current "choice" at home.) *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
Do people vote for parties on a single issue?
Well those people who vote for extremist right wing parties that have policies of deporting Asians/Turks/A.random.foreigner aren't voting for them because they have a good, rounded, transport policy. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
Silly me, and here I am thinking this whole time that they just wanted the trains to run on time.
Do people vote for parties on a single issue? No, but nowadays the parties compromise on most issues and as I said, I already don't agree with the parties before the compromises. Probably its me, but I guess I'm not alone. Most conservative voters will tell you the same as the CDU has given up conservatism on nearly every field apart from immigration and foreign policy, which are the only two, where I'm left of the center. I prefer a party to go to oppostion than to change its entire soul. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg
In particular, from what I cauht from your comments in other threads, it appears your concept of economy is not the 'the freeer the market, the better' dogma of today, and doesn't exactly map to the views of our industrial-capitalist Swedish conservative, Starvid, either. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
I think if you want decisions to match the political will of the majority, in the end Swiss style referendums are better then vesting the power with representatives.
I disagree that 5 parties are better than 4. The more parties the more the parties have to compromise.
They will have to compromise more publicly, but I am not sure that they will have to compromise more in absolute terms. If the new party represents a genuine interest group that is sufficiently distinct from the core voters of the existing parties, then the existing parties would have to compromise with that group anyway (or attempt to exclude them from political influence altogether and bet that they will hold their noses and vote for them anyway because the alternative is worse).
The difference is that with a separate party, those compromises get more out in the open and the interest group that the new party represents is at least represented by people they actually agree with, rather than people who have already made the compromises before the election.
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
That's true. But I would like to know which compromises they are willing to accept before I vote.
There is, of course, a tradeoff between the variety of positions that candidates can take before the election and the ability of candidates to stick to those positions after the election.
And while I can in principle sympathise with the notion that a few big parties will mean that the deals that are brokered before the election will have a better chance of being implemented, this can be both an asset and a liability in terms of representation. It's cool when you happen to largely agree with the compromises that are made. It's a lot less cool when you are effectively presented with a fait accompli that you don't much care for.
More importantly, unless you are prepared to invest a not inconsiderable time in semi-professional politics, you really have only two ways to influence a political party: You can join a party you support (and leave it if they sell out on an issue you find to be of overriding importance), or you can stop voting for them.
The problem with having only a few big parties thus becomes that it effectively prevents voters from punishing their party for making compromises they don't like. After all, if you can only choose between CDU and SPD, you can't very well vote for someone else because SPD sold one of your ideals down the river in a compromise with the CDU - since that someone else would be CDU, who are even worse. So you hold your nose and vote for the SPD while they continue to sell you down the river.
If, on the other hand, you have a continuum of parties, you can shuffle your vote around within the bloc to reflect your support for the stances the different parties take in the internal compromises of the bloc, without giving the other bloc (who are presumably even worse than your own, or you would have switched) an advantage.
Roughly speaking, in the short term the same compromises are going to get made, whether there are more parties or fewer (unless you propose to use the few, big parties model to effectively disenfranchise a large part of the population - the way they do it on the other side of the Pond). So having fewer parties just means that the voters have a harder time booting out the leadership of their bloc. I'm not sure that's desirable. To put it mildly.
Regarding the FDP sell-out, I can't say I'm surprised. Neoliberalism isn't so much an ideology as it's an excuse to further narrow special interests - a scam, in other words - so one should not be surprised when neoliberal politicians cater to special interests. That's a feature, not a bug.
From the above, it appears to me that Martin's real problem as a conservative is lack of diversification on the Right, he can't punish the CDU for compromising with the SPD :-) *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
In the FDP's case, I wouldn't call it sell-out, because I think the special interests came before neoliberalism
It's my impression that it always does. That was kinda my point: Neoliberalism is a political cover for catering to special interests. Thus, one should not be surprised when neoliberals cater to special interests. And if those special interests aren't your own, well it's not like you didn't know in advance that they are motivated more by expediency than principle.
Then I will always lose, but will have the impression it was fair ;-) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg
