September 29th, 2007
The End of McGuintoryism — Andrew Coyne on MMP
By David Pal // 13 Comments
In the National Post last weekend, Andrew Coyne provided a compelling argument for MMP that would please anyone bored and unstimulated by the past weeks of campaigning. Considering the worst points of our current system, he states:
Victory or defeat can turn on the swing of one or two percentage points... the consequences of losing a few points makes [the parties] excessively, almost neurotically cautious, unwilling to take the slightest risk or advocate the mildest change, but each hugging as close as it can to the median voter, the status quo and each other. Hence the dominance of the two brokerage parties, indistinguishable in philosophy -- alike, that is, in the lack of it.
The ultimate result is McGuintoryism -- the mass of focus grouped concerns, manufactured issues, two- or three-percent wedge issues, and insubstantial strategizing that composes the bulk of many campaigns, a search for an extra few percent rather than the proposal of a sincere and substantial political program.
Put the two together, and you have much of Canadian politics -- viciously partisan, yet unspeakably trivial; much ado about nothing much. McGuintoryism, in short.
The occasional emergence of a genuinely ideologically unique alternative -- the Harris conservatives, the Rae years, even the socially liberal stances of the Martin Liberals -- are infrequent blips amidst the strategic playing of the system for slight gains without the risk of large losses. The failure of this election to dramatically engage voters draws root from the fact that minimal differences are being drawn into moral and ideological gulfs -- a confrontation between superficially opposed politicians who actually have few differences underneath the rhetorical frameworks provided by their campaign statements.
For Coyne, MMP presents the possibility of fracturing this arrangement -- bringing in politically committed parties with a genuine concern for enacting unique policies favoured by their members. Despite many of its supporters being concentrated on the left, MMP provides the most room for growth on the right.
By whatever combination of historical circumstances, the left has a party that will advance its ideas, free of the brokerage parties' grip: the NDP. Though not often in government, outside of the West, it has succeeded in dragging the entire political spectrum to the left, its policies adopted by Liberal and Conservative governments alike. Nothing like it exists on the right, federally or provincially, nor has since Reform's demise. Nor is one likely to emerge, so long as "first past the post" remains the rule.
In many ways, Coyne is describing the situation that critics of MMP have focused on -- the breakup of Ontario's centrist parties in favour of smaller, more ideologically dedicated groups, capable of shifting the political spectrum in a direction supported by a small number of voters. Rather than relying on the hope for the occasional appearance of a non-centrist party (like the Rae or Harris governments), such parties could contribute consistently and incrementally, working within a coalition or a more complicated multi-party arrangement to further their agendas.
It's that kind of process that Coyne believes could dent the vapid force of McGuintoryism, rejuvenating the right and bringing in the Greens and others. For anyone waiting for the current campaign to become relevant and interesting, MMP is probably their best hope.
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Reading Coyne's piece, I'm not sure if pragmatism is the word I would use.
Perhaps flexible in their policy trade-offs or their coalition partners, but still less pragmatic than the centrist "brokerage" parties.
Coyne's image of a conservative party to the right of the Tories and in the mold of the NDP doesn't suggest pragmatism to me.
Without stating it outright, Coyne is saying that under "winner-take-all" the actual purpose of political parties is to win elections. Governing is a secondary concern, and conducted to maximize results in the next election.
MMP would force the election "machines" (as they used to be called) to work with small parties who are "policy-oriented."
Now, compromise is seen as weakness and hurts polls. MMP would make pragmatic compromise a necesity.
When David Peterson formed a Minority government in Ontario with the support of the NDP we had a very productive parliament. In fact, the voters appreciated the contribution of the NDP in the process enough to put them in office in the subsequent election. That was with three parties. The same results have been found in the Federal parlaiment but in the current Federal Parliament there is a Minority Government with FOUR Parties and all in all things are rather confusing with Harper able to dicker back and forth.
In the Israeli Knesset one often sees the governing party having to bow to the wishes of a very small ultra-Orthodox group representing very few voters in order to remain in power. I'm not at all sure how good this is in dealing with the Palestinians.
And finally, I don't like the idea of my riding being made larger and the Provincial Parliament having fewer directly elected MPP's in order to accommodate Party appointees.
David M. O'Rourke: we already have Party appointees. Ever heard of "safe seats"? John Tory and other party leaders are given free runs by the main parties often in seats other than their home riding - under a list system a list MPP could resign to accommodate a party leader without need for a by-election until the leader achieved his/her own mandate in his/her own riding next time up.
David, the latest Coyne article focuses on some of your concerns about PR.
http://andrewcoyne.com/columns/2007/09/pr-fearmongers-debunked.php
Divided societies like Israel will create divided governments no matter what the system.
The number of parties in a minority is not as relevant to the productivity of the government as the willingness to cooperate between the parties. FPTP provides no incentives for parties to cooperate with each other. Instead they snipe at each other and attempt to maneuver into a false majority rather than actually govern. And yet despite this we had the Bill Davis and David Peterson minorities in which parties did cooperate for the good of all in Ontario and the Pearson governments which despite never being a majority enacted some of the most lasting, ambitious, and profound legislation in Canadian history.
Will we have bad coalitions in MMP? Sure, no system can ensure good government but how can we ignore the fact that any government that implements unpopular policies at the behest of a junior coalition partner will get royally punished in the next election?
The power to punish and reward those in power for their actions does not mysteriously disappear in MMP but is instead enhanced as every voter from every part of the province has an impact unlike the current system in which only swing voters in swing ridings do.
A lot of the fears of an unaccountable 'Senate within' and 'party hacks coming in off the list' in the proposed system are completely answered by merely observing the system in actual operation.
The number of list seats any party gets is completely defendant on how well it does locally (the better it does locally the less list seats it gets).
Firstly this means that the number of list seats a party gets is completely different from election to election. Completely unlike the senate any list only hacks in MMP have a very uncertain life span.
Second this means that from a candidates perspective the list is a gamble and the only safe way to get into parliament is through the local seats. This leads to list members of parliament in places as diverse as Scotland, Wales, Germany, and New Zealand opening up constituency offices where they plan to run locally and actually compete with local members to provide representation and service.
Not only are list members accountable, but their presence leads to enhanced accountability of local members is enhanced through competition.
This is a well documented phenomenon in systems similar to the one proposed for Ontario.
Please also see my website http://www.wastedvotes.ca I created it to show just how many people vote in Canadian elections yet make no difference to result of those elections.
Will there be a balkanization of Ontario politics under MMP? This is an important question. What if we fragment into parties like the Fundamentalist Christian Party, the White Power Party, the extreme right/left party, etc. This or something like it has happened in Austria and Israel. A 3% threshold for gaining about 3 seats in the Legislature can lose us some of the moderacy that comes from brokerage. What is wrong with brokerage in a democracy? Is immoderacy a good thing? Does that produce reasoned discourse or effective government?
Incidentally, since when is Canadian politics any more viciously partisan that politics in any other country? I think the opposite is generally true. Anyway, if Ontario politics were unusually partisan (not the case--this is one province that eschews populism and extremism) I think that would feed into my point on the fragmentation problem.
Also, I find the claim that McGuinty and Tory are essentially alike ridiculous. The platforms say otherwise in my view.
That said, I am a somewhat likely voter for MMP. I just want someone to allay my concerns!
AamirHussain: There is scholarship to show that party leaders, at least inpure PR systems, are less accountable and that there is more corruption. There are few simple answers I fear.
Ron,
Can you cite your sources for the claims that pure (I assume you mean list) PR systems "are less accountable and that there is more corruption"?
Thanks.
Ron:
As Coyne pointed out taking the examples of extremely splintered socities and applying them to Ontario doesn't make much sense. Especially since more than 80 countries in the world use proprotional systems and balkanisation doesn't happen in the overwhelming majority of them.
The idea that FPTP is the only thing keeping Ontario from flying apart is kinda odd. Most nations that use PR systems have around 6-7 political parites, provinces/states that do so have fewer. Ontario already has 3 parties and the Greens make 4 so there just isn't much space for a multitude of extra parties that you fear.
The discourse in PR systems is actually much more mature than the vicious petty screaming that we see in Question Period in Canadidan democracy, that's what Coyne was talking about when speaking of partisanship and if you've seen Question Period then you will agree with me that it is an ugly ugly sight.
The reason PR systems have better discourse is because parties have to cooperate to get anything done. There's a good discussion of that here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVO_umCQNaA
MMP is not a pure PR system and in fact works very differently from pure PR systems.
And Ron you have read this right?:
http://andrewcoyne.com/columns/2007/09/pr-fearmongers-debunked.php
Furthere here's an interesting link.
http://www.economist.com/markets/rankings/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8908438
PR systems dominate the 'democratic index' of the Economist. There really is nothing to fear.
Mark, I am afraid I can't with a bit of research. I'll tell you where I heard this though. I attended a lecture by Susan-Rose Ackerman, a Yale political scientist. She made the point I made, citing other people's work. I can imagine flaws in those works, though (as with any works), specifically PR systems, I think, tend to pop up in relatively new democracies, where corruption and partisanship may be worse from the outset.
Amir, I hope you are right that MMP will work well in Ontario, which is not "extremely splintered." But there are two obvious rejoinders that, I think, make this sort of certainty questionable. First, we are not designing an electoral system for Ontario in 2007, but for Ontario in the indefinite future. It is hard to say that we will not splinter 20 years from now, 100 years from now. Also, is Ontario's political culture relatively unsplintered, and therefore a good candidate for MMP, or on the other hand is it unsplintered because of the FPTP electoral system we have had for the past 140 years plus? You say "there is nothing to fear" but I don't think such certainty is credible. We can deal only with probabilities. There is longstanding recognition among political scientists that no single design model can fulfil all the values and goals we want for a democracy.
Hi Ron,
The thing is that a splintered society is a splintered society no matter what electoral system may be used or not. The political culture of a place remains it's political culture. We are not going to turn into Germans if we adopt their electoral system we will remain Ontarians.
Plus even Israel and Italy remain in the end successful nations despite the divisions in their societies.
We can't design a system for 100 years in the future. But we can design a system for the here and now, and here and now there is really no fear of balkanization in Ontario. Stable societies such as German and Scandinavian socities remain stable in PR while splintered socities like India are splintered even under FPTP.
PR offers empowerment for all voters, even those who live in Dalton McGuinty's riding and don't wish to vote for the Liberals.
Current regimes in Canada
UNEQUAL votes for each winner.
UNEQUAL total votes in each district.
Result - About 25 (or less) percent MINORITY RULE -- half the votes (or less) in a bare majority of the gerrymander districts for 1 party control.
Remedy ---
Party Seats = Party Votes x Total Seats / Total Votes
Much too difficult for the armies of New Age ignorant math MORONS.
I think pragmatic and policy-oriented would be a more apt description. The current parties spend too much time sniping at each other because it's an all-or-nothing proposition. Under MMP, they would have to form practical coalitions and work together to accomplish what they agree on.
Comment by Leo Petr
September 29, 2007 | 5:18 pm