Direct or representative democracy?

[Techno-Soviet]

Direct Democracy is completely unworkable in any nation.

There's already enough bureacracy and ineptness in the political system; can you imagine what it would be like if every decision had to be ratified and voted on by the entire population?

The fact is: the public are, were and always will be a gathering of moronic sheep with the political ability of a quadroplegic shrew.

It's why we have a Government in the first place.

Switzerland.

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

The problem I have with (are you ready for this?) Democracy in general is that when politicians get elected, they assume the public has given them their mandate to act how they see fit, as opposed to actually representing their interests.

My thinking exactly. I would add, that there should at least be a mechanism to, after a given time period in office, directly quantify how many of what they have promised, they actually did. And to have them replaced if most of their promises were broken.

Directly quantify how? And would you sack a government for breaking promises, when circumstances have changed since they were elected?

Perhaps you could inject some direct democracy at that point. When by some judicial or other process a policy is found to break promises, it must be put to a referendum or retracted to how it was before. That would be massively wasteful, but the voters would punish those who implemented it all the more harshly for that.

I'm working up an idea here. It springs from the idea of deux ex machina which would "objectively" judge whether a policy breaks a promise. I had better keep it under my hat for now, 'cos that third cup of tea has me as high as a kite.

[Neu California]

Direct Democracy is completely unworkable in any nation.

There's already enough bureacracy and ineptness in the political system; can you imagine what it would be like if every decision had to be ratified and voted on by the entire population?

The fact is: the public are, were and always will be a gathering of moronic sheep with the political ability of a quadroplegic shrew.

It's why we have a Government in the first place.

Switzerland.

California

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

Direct Democracy is completely unworkable in any nation.

There's already enough bureacracy and ineptness in the political system; can you imagine what it would be like if every decision had to be ratified and voted on by the entire population?

The fact is: the public are, were and always will be a gathering of moronic sheep with the political ability of a quadroplegic shrew.

It's why we have a Government in the first place.

Switzerland.

With respect to Switzerland, I'll quote a poster from near where I'm up to in reading the thread. I nearly quoted it anyway with a QFT ...

The first-past the post system with weak parties creates an inability to make decisions. Look at the US Congress for example.

Also, there are functioning PR systems with a better history than Italy's. Look at Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, ect.

I think one of the things that slowly reveals itself is that the larger the electorate becomes, the more bogged down the system gets. Can you imagine how well the Swiss government form works -- which is "okay" for a nation the size of Switzerland -- for a country the size of the US? You can see how screwed up California is (and I live there); slap that referendum system on the whole damn country and what you get is "quagmire" times 50.

[Natapoc]

You know Washington state and Oregon also have referendums just like California and neither state is having anywhere close to the same problems California is. Both states are ahead of other states by most measures.

So perhaps it has nothing at all to do with direct democracy? Or perhaps the people of California are just insane

[Tunizcha]

You know Washington state and Oregon also have referendums just like California and neither state is having anywhere close to the same problems California is. Both states are ahead of other states by most measures.

So perhaps it has nothing at all to do with direct democracy? Or perhaps the people of California are just insane

Of course we're insane. We elected the Governator twice. But Texas elected Bush, and Louisiana elected Bobby Jindal so I don't think you can really call us the most insane.

[Neu California]

You know Washington state and Oregon also have referendums just like California and neither state is having anywhere close to the same problems California is. Both states are ahead of other states by most measures.

So perhaps it has nothing at all to do with direct democracy? Or perhaps the people of California are just insane

1. Washington and Oregon don't have nearly the population of California
2. What are the rles of the Referendum systems there? Here you get 10% (I think) of the people who voted in the last gubernatorial election to sign on to a referendum and it goes on to the ballot, and if it passes it can only be touched by the CA Supreme Court

[Cameroi]

completely open at the most local (urban neighborhood and rural judicial district) level.
completely open to members of each level to the next.
inotherwords, everyone elected to their respective local levels in a county vote for that one. all the counties in a shire vote for that one. all the shires in a state vote for that one. all the states in a sub national regeon vote for that one. all the subnational regeons vote for their nation. all the nations in a supernational regeon vote for that one, and finally , all the memebers of the supernational regeonal bodies vote for the planetary level council.

some federations even extending byond the planetary level as well.

all of this of the principle of everyone eligible to vote is elegible to be elected, at each and every level.
with no campaigning and no political parties.

so at every level, even the broadest, the choices are made of people the people voting for them stand a really good chance of KNOWING PERSONALLY.

[Natapoc]

You know Washington state and Oregon also have referendums just like California and neither state is having anywhere close to the same problems California is. Both states are ahead of other states by most measures.

So perhaps it has nothing at all to do with direct democracy? Or perhaps the people of California are just insane

1. Washington and Oregon don't have nearly the population of California
2. What are the rles of the Referendum systems there? Here you get 10% (I think) of the people who voted in the last gubernatorial election to sign on to a referendum and it goes on to the ballot, and if it passes it can only be touched by the CA Supreme Court

If size is the issue then splitting the big states up would seem to be a better solution then denying the population as much control don't you think?

And as far as the exact rules I'm really not sure. It would take as long for me to look them up as it would for anyone else in this thread.

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

As to people wanting another choice - let them run. Form your own party. Make your own mark. It is the ability to do this, not voting, that is truly unique to the Democratic process

This is an astounding suggestion given your prior opposition to proportional representation.

How much of a mark do you think the ten percent of Australians who voted Green would make without proportional representation in one house? I'll tell you how much: exactly the mark they make in Parliament. NONE AT ALL.

The two party system which springs from first-past-the-post electoral representation* puts a huge barrier in the way of any such startup party getting even one seat. They must represent a majority in some one electorate to do that, so if you oppose proportional representation what you're really suggesting is that minorities should form a "party" which is nothing more than a thinktank or lobby group.

*qualified by actual regional interests, eg Scottish National Party in the UK Parliament. Such situations where the regional issues serve to distinguish a third party from either of the major parties do deserve consideration, so keeping one house electorate-based makes sense ... but I would make it the less powerful house, the house of review.

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

completely open at the most local (urban neighborhood and rural judicial district) level.

Yes. Direct democracy is THE best way to organize at the "monkeysphere" level, (the number of people who can recognize each other and stay in contact with each other,) and have a common interest like keeping the roads in repair or making sure the grapes are harvested on time.

I'm not sure it works so well above a hundred people or so though. The decisions to be made become more complex, and it is beneficial to have an "office holder" whose job it is to keep track of the details. That's a representative, whether they're called so or not.

Turnover of population (ie, not everyone knows everyone else) reduces the size of a viable direct democracy on the "show of hands for every decision" model. So do social divisions like wealth inequality or systemic divisions like exclusive religion. Or rapid change, eg technology driven, because change is not adopted evenly among people anywhere.

completely open to members of each level to the next.
inotherwords, everyone elected to their respective local levels in a county vote for that one. all the counties in a shire vote for that one. all the shires in a state vote for that one. all the states in a sub national regeon vote for that one. all the subnational regeons vote for their nation. all the nations in a supernational regeon vote for that one, and finally , all the memebers of the supernational regeonal bodies vote for the planetary level council.

I don't agree with that. At no level above the bottom rung is there representation (in a single representative or a party) of widespread minorities. It depends entirely on where people live, whether their minority opinion is recognized -- so the only way a minority can get even one representative, is by all moving to the same area. And even then, their voice is silenced again at the next level up.

Actually, I notice now that you don't say how the voters are represented in each higher level of the pyramid. You just said "council." Make the councils proportionally representative, and I would less strongly object.

some federations even extending byond the planetary level as well.

I most sincerely hope that interaction with extra-terrestrials on a similar level to ourselves would give us some new ideas about government.

Heh, maybe we could do them a deal. We govern them, and they govern us. Or if there are several parties, draw lots for who governs who, or make a "loop." Life would be interesting if we drew the Vogons ...

all of this of the principle of everyone eligible to vote is elegible to be elected, at each and every level.
with no campaigning and no political parties.

Abso-fucking-lutely to the first. Age and national origin should absolutely not disqualify anyone from office, who could vote by those same criteria.

Not sure how you intend to achieve the latter. Parties happen even if they aren't institutionalized as in the States (and isn't that a lousy idea. Registering to vote as one the other or neither is so contrary to the concept of a secret ballot that its ridiculous.)

so at every level, even the broadest, the choices are made of people the people voting for them stand a really good chance of KNOWING PERSONALLY.

Knowing personally is good. Well, it's good at the lowest levels ... looks a bit more like cronyism when so many of the representatives at the higher levels went to school and college together, played football together as younger people, etc ...

[Risottia]

Ahem (from Wikipedia):
"Electoral System

The present electoral system, approved on December 14, 2005, is based on proportional representation (PR) with a series of thresholds to encourage parties to form coalitions. It replaced an Additional Member electoral system which had been introduced in the 1990s.

Ehm, Additional Member what? I thought it was a First-Past etc. Majoritarian anyway.

The proportional system is district-based, rather than nationwide as in some smaller countries. Italy is divided into a certain number of districts for the Chamber of Deputies, and a certain number of districts for the Senate. Each district is assigned a number of seats proportionate to its total of the population of Italy. Within each district, voters choose between lists of candidates which parties or coalitions have registered in advance, and each list is awarded seats based on its percentage of the vote in the district. Candidates on the lists are ranked in order of priority, so if a party wins for example ten seats, the first ten candidates on its list receive seats in parliament.

Quite NOT.
Because: for the Camera Dei Deputati, before anything else, parties and coalitions that didn't make into the threshold at a national level are taken off the calculations.
Then, 54% of the seats are awarded to the coalition that has got a plurality of popular votes nationwide (yet below 54%): these seats are then distributed proportionally between the winning coalition's parties.
Then, the other seats are given to the opposition coalitions that exceeded the threshold: these seats are distributed proportionally, first between the losing coalitions and parties without coalition, then eventually between the parties that formed coalitions.

Same for the Senate, with the difference that threshold and the 54% share are given according to the popular vote in each region: so (last elections) the right-wing coalition took 54% of the Senate seats for Lombardy, and the PD-IdV coalition took 54% of the Senate seats for Tuscany.

The law officially recognizes coalitions of parties: to be part of a coalition, a party must sign its official program and indicate its support for the coalition's candidate to the prime-ministership."

Also wrong. There is no "support for candidate to PMship" as the President of the Council of Ministers is nominated sua sponte by the President of the Republic. Afterwards, the PM forms the cabinet, the ministers swear their oath, and then they ask confidence from the Parliament.
The only thing that parties have to do is to declare, at the moment they officially give symbols and electoral lists to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, that they want to form a declaration. Electoral programs and PM-ship candidacies are totally unofficial and unbinding.

Whomever wrote that wiki about Italy's electoral law clearly doesn't have a clue.

[Risottia]

I believe the term "mob rule" originated with Plato.

You're evading the point, I believe.

The problem with Civil Mob or majority rule, is the majority doesn't always realize when it is behaving in a thug like manner.

True, that's why there are Constitutions.

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

Define" actually representing their interests?" Are representatives supposed to vote for what most of their constituents want? Do they use their best judgement even though that may conflict with the views of the majority of their constituents? Is voting for all the pork barrel money for one's district representing their interests?

I would define "representing their interests" to mean voting for legislation that would help their constituents, and against legislation that hinders or marginalizes them. I know that it's not always that cut-and-dry, and that some discretion will certainly be required in politics. I just tend to think that they get a little carried away with it. I don't think they should elevate their own district/state/whatever over the needs of the rest of the electorate, but in many cases they could do a better job of standing up for them.

Case in point: agriculture is a very powerful force in Congress, and its status/entrenchment has led to the perpetuation of subsidies that we don't particularly need anymore. They control a shocking minority of House districts, but have clout wildly disproportionate to their actual, physical control over Congress.

It's a very apt example, because I would describe the "interest group" of agriculture (those who personally or through their community benefit from subsidies) as an excellent example of a "regional interest." People of similar interests are geographically clustered, so are better represented in the House (pro rata to how many there are) than say gays, who are only clustered by choice in so far as they're clustered at all.

The ideal example of such a "clustering" NOT happening is men and women. Women and men are fairly evenly distributed,* and almost equal in number over-all. If most women lived on one side of the country, and most men lived on the other, we would expect "women's issues" or "men's issues" to be a huge political divide, with rhetoric to match. Their representatives could much more actively pursue policies which favour one over the other.

And yes, I know there are representatives who are known for being strong champions of abortion rights, or whatever. But they cannot afford to lose all of the male vote, because even as champions of women they will not win all the female vote.

Anyway, that's a point I am making in support of the idea that geographical location is a bad way to represent all the people. I'm probably starting to bore posters with that, since it isn't exactly the subject.

As to why the Senate should exhibit the same behaviour, I would suggest that (a) it is not fairly representative: voters in smaller states (by population) are over-represented, and those in larger states under-represented. (By a factor of 60 times! Lopping off the outliers, particularly the smallest states, makes the figure less egregious, but it's still there for any two states differing in population.) As such, we would expect the smallest states to get an unfairly high proportion of subsidy, and I thumbnail that below, (b) it's not fairly representative (again) except of states, so many voters don't care what their Senators do so long as they represent the interests of their state, which is to say it is easily corrupted, and (c) both houses are somewhat bound by practicality, there isn't much point in passing anything the other house won't, so it is influenced by the districted-unfair advantage present in the House for agriculture interests.

Now, I just picked a few states and compared their population to their level of subsidies. This is just a 'thumbnail' of a proper statistical study, to see if there might be anything in my idea. The figures are old (2005) and a real relationship between bargaining power in the Senate (by the disproportionate representation I mentioned) and level of subsidies would only be demonstrated after eliminating other important factors, like just how much agriculture there is TO subsidize in each state, or what crops etc are grown there, or whether their Senator has some other important role in the Senate.

With a huge pinch of salt, I offer my results:


[tr]

State	Subsidies	Population	Subsidies/Population
California	$649 mill	36 mill	$18.0
Arizona	$116 mill	6.5 mill	$17.8
Oklahoma	$295 mill	3.6 mill	$81
Nebraska	$1.4 bill	1.7 mill	$823
Vermont	$17 mill	0.6 mill	$28.3
Wyoming	$63 mill	0.5 mill	$126

Nebraska clearly shows that other factors besides population are significant. So I won't hang too much off this. Someone out there has no doubt done a proper study, but I like to bodge it up for myself sometimes. Also, I got to make my first table.

An obvious objection would be "but each state has the same number of senators! How is any one of them at an advantage, you raving nutbag?" But I wouldn't have spent as long as I did looking for signs of disproportionate advantage without considering that.

It's like this. A Senator from a small state only has to bring home a relatively small amount (in absolute terms) of pork, to make a positive impression on their district as a good representative. That gives them cover to vote on other matters in a way their electorate doesn't necessarily approve. So they bargain their vote on these other matters for the votes of Senators (or the relevant committee) to get their subsidies, and bingo. Term after term either voting however they want, or just enjoying the perks of office.

And that advantage would play for all kinds of pork, not just agricultural subsidies.

"That Unrepresentative Swill over there in the Senate!" An improvement on the House of Lords, but not by much.

Btw, I regret that unpleasant incident yesterday. It was very clumsy of me, and I would feel bad that anyone would think I had flamed them that way. I wasn't angry, and it's hard to imagine how angry I would have to be to cut loose a flame like that one at anyone, let alone a Mod. Though the warning was retracted, I still bear it in mind and will only do the fire-eating trick at a safe distance from the audience in future. Sorry for any annoyance it might have caused you at the time, and I hope there are no hard feelings.

*I didn't even check that. It seems a fair assumption. However, there might be some interesting trends to be seen from examining the marginal differences in distribution of genders. Does a change in gender balance in one area show up in changes of local government policy? Or even, do changes in local government policy cause more women or men to enter or leave it's jurisdiction? Whole thread's worth there!

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

The only way this discussion could be more interesting is if we got a New Zealander in here to try to explain what the bloody hell is going on over there.

NZ has a record of doing what Australia does, a few years in advance (actually, ASIO runs NZ and we use their country as a political lab rat ... mwwahhahaha) but somehow I don't think we'll be copying their current system.

[Dododecapod]

Ahem (from Wikipedia):
"Electoral System

The present electoral system, approved on December 14, 2005, is based on proportional representation (PR) with a series of thresholds to encourage parties to form coalitions. It replaced an Additional Member electoral system which had been introduced in the 1990s.

Ehm, Additional Member what? I thought it was a First-Past etc. Majoritarian anyway.

The proportional system is district-based, rather than nationwide as in some smaller countries. Italy is divided into a certain number of districts for the Chamber of Deputies, and a certain number of districts for the Senate. Each district is assigned a number of seats proportionate to its total of the population of Italy. Within each district, voters choose between lists of candidates which parties or coalitions have registered in advance, and each list is awarded seats based on its percentage of the vote in the district. Candidates on the lists are ranked in order of priority, so if a party wins for example ten seats, the first ten candidates on its list receive seats in parliament.

Quite NOT.
Because: for the Camera Dei Deputati, before anything else, parties and coalitions that didn't make into the threshold at a national level are taken off the calculations.
Then, 54% of the seats are awarded to the coalition that has got a plurality of popular votes nationwide (yet below 54%): these seats are then distributed proportionally between the winning coalition's parties.
Then, the other seats are given to the opposition coalitions that exceeded the threshold: these seats are distributed proportionally, first between the losing coalitions and parties without coalition, then eventually between the parties that formed coalitions.

Same for the Senate, with the difference that threshold and the 54% share are given according to the popular vote in each region: so (last elections) the right-wing coalition took 54% of the Senate seats for Lombardy, and the PD-IdV coalition took 54% of the Senate seats for Tuscany.

The law officially recognizes coalitions of parties: to be part of a coalition, a party must sign its official program and indicate its support for the coalition's candidate to the prime-ministership."

Also wrong. There is no "support for candidate to PMship" as the President of the Council of Ministers is nominated sua sponte by the President of the Republic. Afterwards, the PM forms the cabinet, the ministers swear their oath, and then they ask confidence from the Parliament.
The only thing that parties have to do is to declare, at the moment they officially give symbols and electoral lists to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, that they want to form a declaration. Electoral programs and PM-ship candidacies are totally unofficial and unbinding.

Whomever wrote that wiki about Italy's electoral law clearly doesn't have a clue.

I'll accept that, since I suspect you have more direct experience with the system.

[Pritisakiah]

I'm all for an oligarchy until I encounter the average voter. Perhaps there should be more referenda, but generally (and this is a dangerous and controversial statement) the public doesn't know what's best for itself. If we were ruled by mob law, we might still have capital punishment and various other brutal measures...

[Dododecapod]

As to people wanting another choice - let them run. Form your own party. Make your own mark. It is the ability to do this, not voting, that is truly unique to the Democratic process

This is an astounding suggestion given your prior opposition to proportional representation.

How much of a mark do you think the ten percent of Australians who voted Green would make without proportional representation in one house? I'll tell you how much: exactly the mark they make in Parliament. NONE AT ALL.

The two party system which springs from first-past-the-post electoral representation* puts a huge barrier in the way of any such startup party getting even one seat. They must represent a majority in some one electorate to do that, so if you oppose proportional representation what you're really suggesting is that minorities should form a "party" which is nothing more than a thinktank or lobby group.

*qualified by actual regional interests, eg Scottish National Party in the UK Parliament. Such situations where the regional issues serve to distinguish a third party from either of the major parties do deserve consideration, so keeping one house electorate-based makes sense ... but I would make it the less powerful house, the house of review.

Australia does not use "first past the post". Australia uses a preferential voting system with compulsory voting. I view this as even LESS desirable then proportional representation, since it guarantees a two-party system and makes actual change a near impossibility.

My preferred system is the simplest and fairest one - he who gets the most votes wins the seat. And in THAT system, independents can be very important indeed.

[New Acardia]

Democracy is an utter failure as a system, and is unworkable in any nation, I prefer a Republic.

I agree.

So what is the difference between a republic and a liberal representative democracy?[/quote I though that the conversation was about direct democracy.Not representive democracy.Representive democracy and republic.basicly are the same.

[Dododecapod]

Democracy is an utter failure as a system, and is unworkable in any nation, I prefer a Republic.

I agree.

So what is the difference between a republic and a liberal representative democracy?[/quote I though that the conversation was about direct democracy.Not representive democracy.Representive democracy and republic.basicly are the same.

No, they aren't. See my post earlier in the thread.

[The Romulan Republic]

Prove it ? Sure, Athens 399 BC.

Meh. One example doesn't prove a system will always fail. Besides, a lot of things have changed in over 2,000 years. Somehow, I doubt society in, say, America today is all that comparabel to Athens back then.

Even you wish to have restrictions on your direct democracy model.
Who will put this restrictions in place ? Are these restrictions little more then rules passed by the majority in times before?

Good question. But you have that problem with any system of government (who writes the Constitution, who sets the system in place to begin with). Once there is a strong Constitution in place that garuntees individual rights, then it should be safe to try some form of Direct Democracy from their on out.

Who will determine exactly where the line of majority rule and minority right stand? Judges ? are they elected ? who determines the educational requirements to be a judge ?

I'll try to get back to you with an answer on this later. I can't really answer your questions fully without almost inventing a system of government.

[New Acardia]

Democracy is an utter failure as a system, and is unworkable in any nation, I prefer a Republic.

I agree.

So what is the difference between a republic and a liberal representative democracy?[/quote I though that the conversation was about direct democracy.Not representive democracy.Representive democracy and republic.basicly are the same.

No, they aren't. See my post earlier in the thread.

I am useing the modern understanding.Of republic and representive democracy.

[Tsa-la-gi Nation]

I think the question should be "A Democracy or A Republic?" and my vote would be democracy.