Nice article Fred-Rik. I think it sums up the advantages of proportional representation quite well. And I will concur it should produce a better system of governance than the Westminster system adopted by Canada and the Westminster system adapted by the USA. Winner-take-all contests warp the electoral result.
Ever since I’ve been involved in Canadian politics (1986), there has been lots of discussion of changing our Westminster system to the European PR. Even political parties are calling for this change. For some reason, we Canadians just can’t make this change. But there has been pressure in the past, which will likely continue. But when?
I see less incentive for the system to change in the USA. The two parties have common understanding between them: each will govern 50% of the time. If the system ever opens up to included more contenders, the D and R influence will decrease. They don’t want that. So they unofficially collaborate to maintain the status quo, to keep the two-party structure.
My beef with PR is that citizens in European countries are almost as dissatisfied with their governments as Canada and USA. Apathy, cynicism, distrust, corruption, etc are present in both sides of the Atlantic.
I am looking beyond PR. We need to get rid of all political parties. In Chapter 2 of my book, I outline 12 limitations of western democracy. These limitations are present in PR as well as Westminster.
Are you aware the founding fathers had a disdain for political parties. They tried to build their new society without them, but just couldn’t find the words to make it work. We need to figure out what went wrong.
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When promoting my TDG on MEWE, I ran into a fellow who put up videos of rural councils in New Hampshire making their public decisions. I found these discussions amazing. Civil, seemingly non-partisan, multiple perspectives of the issue, etc. And there were no slick people involved. No suits or fancy clothes. The speakers were less than good, sometimes tongue-tied; no rally-like atmosphere. This what all politics should be like. Kind of boring!
The same thing happens in Canada. Because of our constitution, municipalities have no rights — the provinces can take over any time (but seldom do). For some reason, the political parties have not formed municipal versions of themselves. There is no party affiliation behind the names on the municipal ballots.
Yet the politics at the municipal level is more responsive than at the provincial and federal levels. Not much flash at the lower level, and not many scandals either.
If anything, the municipal politics should be the example the provincial and federal levels should follow.
