Response #1

Arend Lijphart argues that developing countries would fare better under parliamentary and PR systems than in presidential and plurality systems. I do not always agree with this claim, but in the case of the Dominican Republic I must say that I do. Even though the candidature in Dominican elections is individual, most people end up voting for political parties (always keeping the individual candidate in mind, of course). Such an electoral system has always presided in the Dominican Republic and to this day has not failed. What is odd, though, is that, unlike the United States, the Dominican Republic has three major political parties: PRSC, PLD, and PRD. Each has an equal chance of winning every election and though people speculate, there never really is an “under-represented” one amongst them. Sure, there are other small fringe parties, but they do not really count for much.

I believe, however, that a PR system has not done and cannot do much for the Dominican economy. British scholar S.E. Finer concludes that “economic development requires not so much a strong hand as a steady one.” He and other British scholars further argue that what is needed is “‘greater stability and continuity’ and ‘greater moderation in policy’ which could only be provided by a shift to PR … governments.” Unfortunately for the Dominican Republic, such is not the case. I do not think the problem is within the electoral system, but within the electorate itself. One of Andrew Ellis and Richard W. Soudriette’s five key factors in determining how a system can be effectively administered in a country is voter education because “voters may not fully understand that they are electing legislators to represent them and their community.” And that is exactly what is missing in much of the Dominican Republic. Many [especially uneducated and lower-class] citizens keep nominating the dishonest crooks who promise them a bag of rice at their door in exchange for their vote, instead of promising true representation of their important needs and not just their immediate wants. The economy thus goes to the garbage. Not only is the nation’s potential extremely underdeveloped, but the mentality does not advance. If the citizenship were to be better educated, then perhaps the PR system would work to the fullest in aiding the country to advance. With the correct knowledge imparted to its citizens (which does not necessarily have to be too extensive), the Dominican Republic could be one of the most successful countries in Latin America—politically, economically, and socially. But there is a still long way to go to achieve that (and at the risk of sounding totally pessimistic: if it even is achievable!).

Response #2

Representative Government: It's not just vote counting

In the final minutes of class today, Professor King remarked on the differing views of Edmund Burke and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau regarding the nature of representational government. Is it enough, as Burke presented, to elect officials to act as proxies for the views of the nation while using their best judgment and expertise to make decisions in the best interest of their constituency? Or as Mirabeau believed, do elected officials need to mirror their constituency, resembling the body of which they are representative?

This week's study of electoral systems examines how representatives are elected. As Pippa Norris notes, majoritarian systems produce "elected dictatorship[s]." Giving the representatives elected by a majority or pluralistic vote leeway to do whatever they want until the next election cycle when roughly half of the population will choose who next will govern makes it easy for politicians to cater and serve only those constituents who put them in office. Other electoral systems such asSTV and Preferential allow significant minority factions to gain representation in a manner roughly proportionate to their incidence in the population.

It is interesting to see how preferences are reflected in these alternative electoral systems which practice vote transferal or give people the option to record a second choice; rather than the most fervently popular, a candidate with whom most people are happy is elected under these terms. Different countries or regions may go out of their way to give special interests groups representations. In Lebanon, the presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian, while the Prime Minister is required to be a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament aShi'a Muslim. Donald Horowitz (ref in Reilly157) feels that this "defuse[s] the importance of ethnicity" and religion and makes voters think about broader issues.

I think this leads to artificiality in representative government. It may be prudent to see that representatives are actually representative of the views of the constituency as per Mirabeau, but people don't necessarily want to exclude certain qualified candidates from public office simply to meet a quota (ie, male/woman ratio). There should be enough flexibility to reflect true preferences.

Blog #1 - Grayson

After just a cursory glance at this week’s readings regarding electoral systems, it should become strikingly clear that the United States is profoundly less “democratic” than it could be. In this case I don’t mean democratic in the classic political science, sense where political power is in the hands of the people, who exercise that power through election. Rather, I mean democracy as it is used colloquially: a political system where every citizen has a voice and a say in what occurs. The United States is a heavily majoritarian democracy. All national level electoral systems (with the possibly exception of that funky Electoral College) are “first-past-the-post” systems, where the winner is simply the candidate who receives the most votes. At the risk of making an excessively general statement, I would guess the vast majority of American students grow up believing that this electoral system in the most desirable and equitable in the world. Upon ingesting this week’s readings, it’s pretty clear that the latter is false and the former is seriously debatable.

 

            My point, however, has nothing to do with bashing our domestic electoral system. While some form of proportional electoral system, be it Party List, Single Transferable Vote or some other variation on that theme would, as Lijphart put it, “limit, divide, separate, and share power in a variety of ways” (227), our pluralistic/majoritarian system works remarkable well because it doesn’t operate in isolation. The American system, essentially “winner-take-all”, would be dangerously volatile in an extremely divided society that offers little protection for the minority, as that minority’s main method of protection (participating in government) would difficult. Countries in this situation, as Reilly explains, have experimented with proportional systems in order to encourage centrist policies. In contrast, while the US does have a rather politically divided population, there exists a long tradition of legal and executive protection of political minorities. For that reason, and many more, the majoritarian democracy we live in isn’t quite as scary as the authors we read can make it sound.