Comment by ipnon

5 years ago

>Back in 1917 Switzerland used to use majority system in the parliamentary elections. This led to a situation where the Liberal Democrats got only 40.8% of the vote, but 54.5% of the seats in parliament. The absolute majority allowed them to pass the laws, regardless of the will of the 59.2% who voted for other parties.

>Needless to say, Liberal Democrats torpedoed every attempt to replace the majority voting system by a proportional one. If the instrument of popular initiatives was not available, it would be a dead end. The voters would have to wait until Liberal Democrats lose some of their voter support. But even then, thanks to the majority system, an absolute majority in parliament could be won by another party, who would again find it difficult to abolish the system that brought it to power.

>General dissatisfaction with the state of affairs led to the launch of the popular initiative "For a proportional system of elections to the National Council" in 1918 which succeeded with 66.8% votes in favor.

>In 1919, elections were finally held using the new, proportional system and Liberal Democrats lost the absolute majority.

My theory is that the success of radical political change (peaceful or revolutionary) decreases with population size. The population of Switzerland was around 3 million in the late 1910s. The population of America was less than 3 million during the entirety of its revolutionary war.

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ipnon

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rumcajz  5 years ago

Not being able to scale is one of the arguments that are often being use to dismiss Swiss political system, without much further explanation. However, where is the bar? I mean, I would understand if there was a limit somewhere around the Dunbar's number, but why would something that scales to 8 millions not scale to 20 or 50 millions?

  • ipnon  5 years ago

    The decomposition of the federation into appropriately sized cantons, which are decomposed into appropriately sized municipalities seems key here. At some point, the community level must be reached for all parties to feel they are being treated fairly. The Jurassic example shows this.

    Implementing popular and legislative referendums at the federal level of the United States is a pipe dream. The powers that be have too tight a grip to relax it any. What is feasible in America today, especially in the more progressive cities like New York, is for the local city council to modify the constitution of the city and cede some its power to the people through the referendum mechanism. This would be popular and politically feasible.