In Chapter 4 (Nazi Germany), we learnt that a system of proportional representation caused Weimar government in Germany to be weak. What is proportional representation?
In most countries, there is an organization called Parliament. This organization decides all the major policies of the country. Each country's parliament will have a certain number of people (e.g. 200). The people vote at elections to decide who will make up Parliament.
In proportional representation, the number of people each party send to Parliament is decided by the percentage of vote each party has in elections.
For example if:
Party A gets 70% of the votes from the people, it gets 70% of the power in Parliament.
Party B gets 20% of the votes from the people, it gets 20% of the power in Parliament.
Party C gets 10% of the votes from the people, it gets 10% of the power in Parliament.
Party A gets the most power in Parliament and it can decide the country's policies.
However in Weimar Germany this is what would happen:
Party A gets 30% of the votes from the people, it gets 30% of the power in Parliament.
Party B gets 40% of the votes from the people, it gets 40% of the power in Parliament.
Party C gets 30% of the votes from the people, it gets 30% of the power in Parliament.
No party gets over 50% of the power, so no party can decide the country's policies. As a result, there is a lot of fighting to decide the the country's policies. This fighting was not good for the country.
Proportional representation is not bad in itself, but in the case of Weimar Germany it led to weak governments.
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Germany has had proportional representation since 1949. Is Germany weak? Where is the new Hitler?
ReplyDeleteProportional representation and coalition/minority government are the normal way of doing politics in most developed countries, and have been for most of the last century.
Fair voting doesn't cause Nazis.