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SKLIAS IOANNIS APOSTOLOS

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ESSAY: What are the advantages and disadvantages of majoritarian

systems vs. proportional/consensual? Compare and contrast the UK with
the Netherlands

MODULE: DEMOCRACY, CITIZENSHIP AND CONSTITUTIONS

Module Supervisor: Dr. Lawrence Ezrow

Electoral systems are a mathematical type which decides the proportion of the seats in
the legislatures. Every electoral system has its own concept of governance and
distribution of power. In this essay I am going to focus on proportional and
majoritarian system especially on Netherlands (proportional) and on the United
Kingdom (majoritarian). These two systems are the most representative from the
electoral systems.

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Majoritarian system is an electoral system that requires the winning candidate to have
an absolute majority of votes - that is, more than 50% of the total votes cast. It is used
in countries where the seats of the legislature are divided in regions and the candidate
who was voted by the majority gains the seat (the winner takes it all). The
Majoritarian system is used in the Anglo-American societies. In the most of cases we
observe two leading parties to struggle for the governance and the other parties to be
insignificant.
Parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom mostly refer to the performance of the
current Members of the Parliament, therefore is not actually a poll which decides
party voting weights for the next Parliament. The electoral system affects the degree
to which voters may hold their representatives to account for their actions in the
previous Parliament; changes which would diminish this accountability mechanism
should be resisted.
The UK presently has a legislature whose unelected chamber better reflects the
relative strength of the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and none of the above
parties. Conversely, if Labour and the Conservatives each won 50% of the vote, the
other chamber would have a sizable Labour majority. 51% of the seats in the Lower
House delivers 100% of the power, and this can be captured by Labour on about 40%
of the vote. Nevertheless, whenever Labour runs into opposition from the chamber
which, in any other context, would be described as more "representative" by people
who go in for that kind of thing, it threatens to force its legislation through under the
Parliament Acts, on the grounds that the Lower House is more "democratic".
The basic characteristic of the first-past-the-post system is that makes the electoral
majorities to absolute majorities of the parliament. As Lijphart (1994) argues, every
majoritarian system leads to disproportional results and discourage multiparty
systems. The British electoral system is a classical example of relative majoritarian
electoral region with one seat for a member of a parliament. The electoral map of the
United Kingdom with many small one seat electoral regions has influenced the power
of the parties. Another consequence of the British electoral system is that reinforces
the phenomena like wasted vote and tactical vote. The wasted vote describes the
votes which were in favor of candidates that did not succeed in being elected and the
tactical vote is the phenomenon in which the voter feels that if he/she votes for his/her
first candidate in preference, his/her vote will be wasted. These phenomena lead
Duverger to construct the theorem that every majoritarian system leads to two-party
system.

When discussing electoral reform in the UK, retaining a "constituency link" is often
posited as a requirement. That is to say, it is felt to be necessary that everyone should

have an MP who is in some sense "theirs", normally meaning that people are grouped
into geographical areas and each area gets its own MP. A weaker version of this
permits multiple MPs for each area. This is supposed to be good because it means that
there's automatically someone in Parliament to go to with one's grievances. If we
merely say that everyone must have one or a small number of MPs, that does not
imply that every MP must have his own constituency.

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If your MP decides to go against the wishes of his constituents, they can contact him
and say, "Hi, your majority at the last election was 2000; we, the undersigned 1001
who voted for you last time will vote against your party next time unless you buck the
whip on this issue we care about." The easier it is to do this, the more likely the
behaviour of an MP will reflect the wishes of constituents.
The electoral system can restrain this tactic. It works well under First Past The Post,
and similar systems. Generally, increasing the number of Members of the Parliament
who represent a single constituency has the effect of making this tactic harder, as the
punishment from electors may be spread across several Members of the Parliament,
especially if the electors cannot choose which MPs from a particular party get the
benefit of their vote.
The question is what justifies the majority rule. If the decision is not to be unanimous
it must be made by a majority. In the majority rule the respect of the people is
expressed through voting and in spite of remaining differences a common sense
among the elected must be found. Moreover as I mentioned above in the British
example it allows the person to remain faithful to his/her voters and simultaneously
accepts that a group decision must be made. Another argument in favor of majority
rule is constructed by the Condorcets Jury theorem. We assume that there is right and
wrong as far as political decisions concern. Thus agents choose between two options
which each one has a probability of 50% of being wrong. When increases, the
probability of majority of being right approaches 1.
The result of majoritarian election represents the average voter and thus a compromise
between individual is easier to be achieved (Risse, 2004). Majority rule maximizes the
overall satisfaction with the group choice because the decision is usually in the middle
of the peoples belief. The Anglo-American societies display a high degree of social
stability comparative to the continental Europeans which tend to be unstable. There is
political immobility and the danger of a political breakdown, while the leaders of
heterogeneous social groups tend to find it necessary to adopt moderate positions in
order to be represented in the majoritarian systems.
When a society is divided into huge cleavages and the political culture is fragmented
the pressure for moderate solutions are absent where there is a proportional system,
political stability depends on moderation. Those who are in favor of the majoritarian
rule argue that there is not a problem the exclusion of the minority (Lijphart). If a
minority has a realistic chance of becoming a majority, there is no exclusion and if the
society is homogenous then the problem of the minorities do not differ from the
problems of the majority. It is unlikely to be much overlap between minority and
majoritys interest in such a society. Moreover minority groups can influence policy
makers (Steiner 1971).

But there is a strong correlation between the number of parties and the issues that are
mentioned in the legislature.

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On the simple proportional system the number of the seats that the parties take,
depend only on the national percentage of the party. It is the only fair electoral
system because it represents exactly the peoples choice. Those who criticize the
proportional system argue that this system does not produce powerful governments
and the experience indicates that it is rare a party to have more than 50% of the votes
in order to have an autonomous governance. That is why it is used in only few
countries. In the simple proportional system the seats for every party are counted by
multiplying the national percentage and the total number of seat. For example if a
parliament in a country has 300 seats and a party 15% of the votes, then 15/100 *
300= 45 seats.
The legislature body of Netherlands is consisted of two bodies. 150 members are
elected every four years. This parliament is actually the representation of the people in
governance. The first body is consisted of seventy five representatives of all the local
parliaments who are also elected every four years. The responsibility of the Senate is
to observe and valuate the laws that have been conducted by the parliament. In the last
elections the extreme right wing party became the third political force of the
parliament with twenty four seats, the liberals made a coalition with the socialdemocrats in order the country to be governed. The rise of the extreme right wing
party was a negative surprise for the most Europeans but in a proportional system can
happen, especially in times of economic crisis. In the Netherlands, where it is
considered as the most liberal society, the whole political spectrum is being
represented. The political parties try to press the government to mention their issues
through the power that they possess in the Parliament.
On the contrary to the majoritarian system there is a separation of the political power
and we can argue about the equality of the votes as well. Every vote counts equally
with any other. Moreover every minority can be represented in the legislature which
can integrate them politically, socially and economically. Thus there is pluralism of
options and different opinions can be heard. The proportional system prevents the
tyranny of the majority where in society with big social or ethnic cleavages can be
crucial for the prosperity of the people. Sometimes (Italy, Belgium) though there are
problems in creating a viable government and this can lead to continuous immobility
and dead end. There has to be a strong public administration from the state and there
is always the danger of populistic right/left wing parties to set the agenda
(immigration, islamophobia). However the voter votes for the candidate that he/she
wants without thinking tactical or that his/her vote is going to be wasted and this
affects the turnout which is usually higher than in a Majoritarian system and therefore
the social capital is much bigger.
Decentralization of the power is also observed where the legislature is much more
important and different than the administrative power. This system in order to be
viable must be supported by mutual understanding and a political culture of coalitions
and to omit populistic views of democracy.

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DISCUSSION

Every electoral system has advantages and disadvantages and every society in a
country is different to another. There were special needs that lead a society to adopt a
system. On the contrary to Lijphart, I believe that in heterogeneous societies where
big social and ethnic cleavages exist a proportional system is more suitable because
there is a possible danger of exclusion of the minority. These exclusions can lead to
social unrest, rise of criminality etc. In a homogeneous society a majoritarian system
could solve immobility and support the continuity of the state. There is always the
question about what kind of democracy we want. Is Majoritarian representation a lack
of democracy? Is actually a threat when a radical party possesses power in the
legislature? In the UK we observe a government of a coalition which relatively stable,
is this an argument counter the pro- majoritarian system intellectuals?

REFERNCES

A Lijphart, Consociational Democracy World Politics 21, 2 (1969), pp. 207-225

A Lijphart, Consociational Theory: Problems and Prospects Comparative

Politics 13, 3 (1981): 355-60.

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M Risse, Arguing for Majority Rule, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 12

(2004), pp. 21-64

J Steiner, `The Principles of Majority and Proportionality, British Journal of

Political Science, 1 (1971) pp. 63-70.