Alternatywne ordynacje wyborcze. Przykład Australii i Irlandii

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-207
Author(s):  
Michał Urbańczyk

The essence of democracy is the rule of the sovereign, that is the nation, today understood as all of the state’s citizens. At present, the most common type of governance is representative democracy, exercised by representatives elected from the citizens themselves. Therefore, for the proper functioning of liberal democracy it is difficult to find a more important issue than the procedure for the election of those who govern us. The article presents two alternative electoral systems: an alternative voting system (AV) and the system of Single Transferable Vote (STV).

1970 ◽  
Vol 23 (301) ◽  
pp. 93-102
Author(s):  
Bartosz Rydliński

The article presents the main ideological and theoretic assumptions of non-representative democracy, having historically strongly left-wing character, not an easy practice of applying this form of democracy in Polish and European conditions. The author tries to indicate a certain dialectic dualism of direct democracy, which more and more often constitutes contemporary crisis of liberal democracy in the contemporary debate on the negative impact of neoliberal globalization on democratic political system.


Author(s):  
Mikitaka Masuyama

By exploring specific incidents and parliamentary practices and reviewing how parliament operates across a typical year, this chapter highlights the significance of the negotiation between parliamentary groups, explaining how the Diet rules and procedures strongly influence parliamentary behavior. Representative democracy functions through the interconnection of the legislative and electoral systems, affecting the fusion and diffusion of powers. The constitutional fusion of power underlies the whole process of lawmaking in the Diet. However, one-party dominance makes the government and opposition relations permanently asymmetrical. Unless elections allow voters to choose a government, the majoritarian control to make the ruling party accountable will not work, and legislative activities will remain mismatched with electoral competitions.


2019 ◽  
pp. 91-96
Author(s):  
Henk Addink

Democracy is about government and governance by the people in different forms. Democracy is direct or by representation. Sovereignty of the people, however, is not the same as democracy. The position of minorities related to majorities, in a democracy, is not always easy to regulate. This situation has made clear that democracy also has qualitative contents and it is even clearer when we speak about democracy in the sense of a liberal democracy or of a social democracy. Two key elements in and topics related to democracy are the participation of the people and the elections by the people and the transparency of the government. There are some restrictions in a representative democracy and, for that reason, participation will be necessary to maintain the connection between the government and the people. But to have an adequate functioning of this participation and of the elections, transparency on behalf of the government is a necessary condition for a democracy.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135406882092085
Author(s):  
Todd Donovan

This article tests if radical right populist (RRP) parties draw support from voters with non-mainstream, illiberal attitudes. This follows from assumptions that these parties have rhetorical, stylistic and practical critiques of liberal democracy that appeal to people with politically authoritarian attitudes. I use Module 5 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data and Wave 7 World Values Survey data to test how authoritarian attitudes, in particular, approval of strong, unchecked leaders, may be associated with support for RRP parties. Of 12 unique cases where RRP parties received at least 5% support in a recent election, in most cases preferences for strong, unchecked leaders differentiated RRP party supporters from supporters of other parties generally, and from supporters of centre-right parties. In some cases, negative views of democracy, and acceptance of army rule, also characterized RRP supporters. Most cases have evidence consistent with the hypotheses, with the strongest evidence from supporters of Austria’s FPÖ and Germany’s AfD.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
LH ◽  
GvdS ◽  
WTE

[Political representation] is the basis of modern representative democracy. Older and less sophisticated forms, such as direct democracy, subsist marginally, even if they keep exerting a certain attraction. But representative democracy does not carry the self-evident authority it once had. Like every modern institution it is under challenge and consequently needs to be defended. In actual politics, the defence often takes the form of discussion of the merits of one system over the other and of proposals for change. The part of this defence appertaining to constitutional scholarship is not concerned primarily with proposals and changes. It is, before all, to brush up the fundamentals underlying representative democracy, on the basis of topical issues.There are three current issues upon which we would like to draw attention. They are: equality in structuring electoral systems, the processes of electoral reform and the rise of non-majoritarian institutions versus parliamentary democracy.


1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gelman ◽  
Gary King

We demonstrate the surprising benefits of legislative redistricting (including partisan gerrymandering) for American representative democracy. In so doing, our analysis resolves two long-standing controversies in American politics. First, whereas some scholars believe that redistricting reduces electoral responsiveness by protecting incumbents, others, that the relationship is spurious, we demonstrate that both sides are wrong: redistricting increases responsiveness. Second, while some researchers believe that gerrymandering dramatically increases partisan bias and others deny this effect, we show both sides are in a sense correct. Gerrymandering biases electoral systems in favor of the party that controls the redistricting as compared to what would have happened if the other party controlled it, but any type of redistricting reduces partisan bias as compared to an electoral system without redistricting. Incorrect conclusions in both literatures resulted from misjudging the enormous uncertainties present during redistricting periods, making simplified assumptions about the redistricters' goals, and using inferior statistical methods.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tung Manh Ho

The current rise of populism in many democracies all over the world has raised questions about the ability of the “one person, one vote” system to produce the most competent leaders. Though the rise of populism is a recent phenomenon, many philosophers and political scientists in the past have questioned the wisdom of “one person, one vote” and proposed the alternative. In this paper, some of the arguments against liberal democracy’s voting system will be explored, followed by the model of China and Vietnam for choosing political leaders. These two countries, known for the ability to maintain an impressive level of economic growth consistently, can be argued to present an alternative to the liberal democracy's way. Whether the China (Vietnam) model is a viable option is an issue worthwhile of ethical consideration.


Author(s):  
Michael Gallagher

This chapter focuses on the two main opportunities that people have to vote in most societies: elections and referendums. Elections are held to fill seats in parliaments or to choose a president, whereas referendums allow citizens to decide directly on some issue of policy. Elections are the cornerstone of representative democracy, and referendums are sometimes regarded as the equivalent of ‘direct democracy’. In practice, referendums are used only as an option in systems of representative democracy. The chapter first provides an overview of elections and electoral systems, focusing on electoral regulations and the main categories of electoral systems, namely: single-member plurality, alternative vote, two-round system, and proportional representation. It then examines the rules under which elections are held as well as the consequences of this variation. It also considers the use of the referendum and its potential impact on politics.


1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Knopff

AbstractIn Canada as elsewhere, representative democracy is under attack by both populists and rights advocates. The populist challenge comes mainly from Preston Manning's wing of the Reform party. The rights-based challenge is grounded on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These two challenges are different in obvious ways, but from the point of view of representative government—and ultimately of liberal democratic constitutionalism—what they have in common outweighs their differences. What they have in common is the appeal to a mystical being or icon beyond ordinary politics. In effect, the People or Rights become what God was to pre-liberal theocratic politics: a transpolitical trump on ordinary political division, a way of placing opponents “beyond the pale,” a demand for unattainable purity in public life and policy. While bills of rights and populism appear to flow, respectively, from the liberalism and the democracy of liberal democracy, they are, in fact, vehicles for precisely the kind of politics liberal democracy was designed to overcome. Representative government, not populism or entrenched rights, was at the heart of the “new science of politics” designed to make liberal democracy possible. Representative institutions, properly arranged in a system of checks and balances, were a way of blending liberalism with democracy, giving each its due, but indirectly, so that neither would be taken to self-destructive extremes. Populism and the judicialized politics of rights threaten to dissolve this salutary blend, at the cost of liberal democratic constitutionalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 344-380
Author(s):  
Alexey M. Rutkevich

The origins of democracy date back to the Ancient World, and parliamentarism appeared in the Middle Ages. Their fusion to create representative democracy took nearly two centuries with this evolution process resulting in the appearance of present-day liberal democracy, where the latest form of liberalism have little to do with the laissez faire liberalism of the 19-th century or the Keynesian neo-liberalism of the 20-th. It serves the interests of financial oligarchy and imposes its rules upon the whole world. The former right- and left-wing parties are now merged into the same ruling elite. Nor did the former conservatism stand the test of time, resorting to alliance with neo-conservatism. Various opponents of this elite in the West today are called «populists». The most colorful example of this «populism» of the last decade is the movement of «yellow jackets» in France. Its participants unite socialist and anarchist slogans with the conservative ones and demand the «direct democracy». In Russia we have our own tradition of such unity, beginning with the early Slavophils, and supported by A.I. Solzhenitsyn as «democracy from below».


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