NationStates Jolt Archive

Well someone's probably already coveredthis but I cannot find it.

In the Upcoming Iraqi Elections there are two main streams of thought on how to conduct them. Some are holding out for proportional representation, voting on a national level for parties and having the parties select the congresspeople being the most likkely form. Some are holding out for the British district model, holding elections in districts with congresspeople being elected directly by the people of their district. Anyone have any preferences or insights into the advantages and disadvantages to either model? Perhaps a viable third model, with justifications, for how to hold the elections?

I favor the district model myself from familiarity, but familiarity does not equal superiority.

dont think proprotional representation is that good, it means every weird party will probably get a seat. Are there any countries whicch actually do practise proportional representation?

If you know your history of the Weimar republic, then you will realise the greatest flaw of proportional representation, the inability for a single party to form a majority. All governments would be coalition and they can be problematic.

Proportional representation is used in many countries in Europe and for most (all? I don't believe it is mandated) EU representatives. Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Scottland, The Netherlands, Israel among others use some form of proportional representation. There are arguments against it, but many of the countries using PR have been able to come up with non-coalition governments, and is the possibility of a very divided nation being forced to have a coalition government such a bad idea? For that matter, while coalition governments are more frequent in PR countries the voting district does not automatically prevent coalition governments either - take a look at the likely results of the next Canadian Federal election.

dont think proprotional representation is that good, it means every weird party will probably get a seat. Are there any countries whicch actually do practise proportional representation?

but then again, those 'weird' parties were techically favored by x% of the electorate. so your argument is that it is too representative then?

some countries using some form of proportional representation to some extent (though not all of them- it is quite popular around the world):

israel, norway, sweden, finland, new zealand, austria, poland, portugal, spain, turkey, germany, italy, venezuela, russia, etc.

*edit* found a bigger list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_voting_systems_by_nation

Anyone have any preferences or insights into the advantages and disadvantages to either model? Perhaps a viable third model, with justifications, for how to hold the elections?

I favor the district model myself from familiarity, but familiarity does not equal superiority.

single member districts always lead to the situation where those who draw the districts draw them to favor themselves. additionally, they lead to there only being two competitive parties in each district - in iraq's case this will probably mean two national parties that will compete against different regional parties.

hang on, wikipedia has a fairly good little page on the arguments.
found it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party_system).

Thinking over Iraq and the regionalism there, even under a districting scheme it is unlikely that a non-coalition government could be formed. There are at least four major geographical regions (depending on how you define them) each with different interests, none large enough to consitute a majority on their own.

Who cares, it'll probably become an opressive theocracy whatever happens.

Who cares, it'll probably become an opressive theocracy whatever happens.

not if you use a system that allows the democratic parties power. some of them are quite militantly democratic - a couple of the kurdish parties, the iraqi communist party, etc. however, these groups are either regional or a minority spread throughout iraq. which means that they might be disproportionately excluded from power in favor of the oppressive theocrat types if iraq uses single member districts.

of course, i would favor local direct democracy and for the us to not have auctioned off (privatized) iraqi national industry to the highest foreign bidder.

Anyone have any preferences or insights into the advantages and disadvantages to either model? Perhaps a viable third model, with justifications, for how to hold the elections?

I favor the district model myself from familiarity, but familiarity does not equal superiority.

single member districts always lead to the situation where those who draw the districts draw them to favor themselves. additionally, they lead to there only being two competitive parties in each district - in iraq's case this will probably mean two national parties that will compete against different regional parties.

hang on, wikipedia has a fairly good little page on the arguments.
found it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party_system). But the Wikpedia article is more concentrated on the concept of the two-party system versus the multiple party system. While a two-party system might very well evolve in Iraq it isn't there now. Parties are actually where I see the greatest problem with PR in Iraq, there really is only one organized party (the Ba'athists) and they aren't a majority party. To have party based PR in Iraq those parties are pretty much going to have to be arbitraily imposed upon the voters. Parties are begining to form, but they haven't even had time to decide what they stand for and it will take a while for them to do so, instead of voters looking for a party which matches their ideology we have "parties" still working out how their ideologies work - what exactly is the Iraqi ommunist parties position on Iraq oil for instance? Sure they want it to benefit the Iraqi people, but does this mean state insustry, state controled industry, industry under strict state supervision and what about exports? Do they favor exporting oil or not? If so do they favor export the minimum to meet the needs of Iraq's people or as much as they can so that the money can used to build up the rest of Iraq? The Iraqi Communist Party is still working out the answers to these questions themselves. So let's say you're Joe Iraqi and you're hot button issues are all in oil, you think the industry is too enviromentally unfriendly and needs more enviromental safeguards, you think the workers need more safety regulations and you think the oil workers are the most important part of the economy and should be paid more (so you work in the oil fields) - is the Communist Party, your party? Who knows?

Who cares, it'll probably become an opressive theocracy whatever happens.

not if you use a system that allows the democratic parties power. some of them are quite militantly democratic - a couple of the kurdish parties, the iraqi communist party, etc. however, these groups are either regional or a minority spread throughout iraq. which means that they might be disproportionately excluded from power in favor of the oppressive theocrat types if iraq uses single member districts.

of course, i would favor local direct democracy and for the us to not have auctioned off (privatized) iraqi national industry to the highest foreign bidder.A good reason to go with PR in Iraq. I am not however certain the US could sell the UN that direct democracy is a legitimate form of government if they proposed it.

Parties are actually where I see the greatest problem with PR in Iraq, there really is only one organized party (the Ba'athists) and they aren't a majority party. To have party based PR in Iraq those parties are pretty much going to have to be arbitraily imposed upon the voters. Parties are begining to form, but they haven't even had time to decide what they stand for and it will take a while for them to do so, instead of voters looking for a party which matches their ideology we have "parties" still working out how their ideologies work

that's true, but i'm not sure if it is any more of a problem for parties than it would be for elected officials without a party affiliation. how is joe iraqi to know if some particular person running for office is worth voting for, especially in the first election? what would probably happen in the case of individuals without parties is that the most recognizable names would be the ones elected, unless people firm up their politics enough so that people can figure out where they stand. hell, it happens even when there are parties with single member districts.


really, the idea that countries should jump right in and start electing national leaders seems wrong to me - even when i turn down my anarchist bias a bit. since the mythology of democracy is that power flows from the bottom up and these people are really just the elected representatives of the people, it seems like there should be a lot more work going into local democracy. and then the local groupings can decide if they even want to be part of a larger system. otherwise what we have is more like a token ratification of decisions made by elites, without direct input from the people suposedly being represented. if they are going to have a state in iraq, it should at least be made democratically instead of by decree.

Admittedly the canidates are at a loss for a history of positioning themselves, but if they are elected from districts then there is a least a sense that they are beholden to their constituants and might hopefully represent the interests of those who elected them, (the jacksonian ideal of Representative democracy). Conversely, in the PR system they are indebted to the party for thier position, not any group of voters.

As for whether or not Iraq should have a democracy (general usage not technical) imposed upon them, well that's another question, a rather moot one also since they WILL have a democratic system. At this point the concern is what type of democracy. I cannot say I am enarmoured of either of the two proposals out there, I just hope someone has given the matter serious thought.

completely turning off my anarchism, they would probably do ok with a mixed system - maybe one house of legislature with a party list system of proportional representation and another based around several multi-member districts or single member districts with instant run-off voting. or else maybe a single house mixed system, where you vote for both a person and a party. there are a lot of options.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system

i hope the us doesn't just straight up impose it's structure onto iraq.

No one in any position of power would ever consider that. The US system is far too much the result of compromise and evolution to be sutable for any other country. The US system can provide a good model for various regimes establishing democracy to look at and follow parts of, but the way the federal system has evolved in the US is not applicable to any other country. Likewise the EU would have been better served if their consitutional committee had taken a closer look at US federalism instead of automatically rejecting anything from the US (they didn't have to follow it, but that should have looked at it and the way it developed and it's problems).

But Iraq's election process is more in the hands of the UN than the US. The US might veto any too outrageous plan, but the UN "government" experts are the ones with the plans.