1) The problem of extremist parties can be tackled by having a higher threshold (10% or above). This would also largely take care of caste-based parties that might cater to a single caste or sub-caste.
2) In his work on criminalisation of politics, Milan Vaishnav stressed the criticality of cleaning up electoral finance. This is one major reason for crony capitalism and all kinds of bad incentives for politicians in power to go bad. PR system kills the incentive for a voter to vote for parties that give him money. In the FPTP system, a voter knows his vote is mostly worthless, since even parties with 20-30% vote share tend to lose. So parties and voters are incentivized to engage in cash-for-votes setup. Due to our FPTP setup, many voters tend to vote not for their most favored parties but ones they think are most likely to win or most likely to challenge the winner. With PR system, the entire cash-for-votes setup might be gone. In PR system, the voter knows that his vote is much more valuable. He can still take the money and vote for his most favored party, instead of his 2nd least favored party. This in turn disincentivises the rich parties to give out money in vain. Jayaprakash Narayan dwelt at length on his efforts to change our setup to PR system in 2008-09 in his podcast convo with Amit Varma (Episode 149).
3) Rather than a pure FPTP system, maybe Germany's mixed system is worth a look. This could also give rise to city-based parties that are crucial for voicing India's increasing urbanisation demands.
4) That Ambedkar quote has become a cliche. I'd like to turn your own wise dictum against the great man's cliche - that a good policy isn't one that's well-thought out but one that accounts for how well it can be implemented with existing state capacity and social incentives. To hell with our good or bad constitution, we need a workable constitution.
1) the threshold will itself be an outcome of the political economy. A 10% threshold is not an exogenous input, and hence unlikely.
2) I didn't quite understand the logic. Why wouldn't the PR system lead to a situation where the voter takes money from many parties instead of two?
3) possibly, yes. It is worth a look but I still don't see the benefits > costs.
4) sure, ignore the quote. That was me trying to finish with a flourish. :)
Also, in a PR system, there will be more governments not completing full terms, and post-election coalition building will be a feature. So, I don't see how incentives for corruption decline in any significant way.
Could you also check if there's any research on stability of elected regimes in PR systems? I saw Germany, South Africa, and Indonesia having elections mostly at the end of terms but this could just be cherry-picking. And it also feels a bit cruel to talk about stability in our FPTP systems, given how electoral mandates are bulldozed or bought wholesale in the past decade among our states, whether immediately or years into the term.
Could you explain the first point please? I also understand that such a threshold is easily susceptible to juridical or political pressures to lower it, but I figured entrenched parties would not want more competitors. Regarding my 2nd point, consider the current scenario. Voters take money from all parties that give them money. And research shows that parties need to give money just to enter the competition in voter consciousness, kind of like entering a poker game. In the recent Munugode bypoll in Telangana, a video went around of an old woman lamenting that the Congress didn't distribute any money unlike TRS and BJP. Not surprisingly, Congress got only 10% voteshare.
Once they get the money, voters are most likely to vote for either the party they identify with or vote against the party they hate. If the latter case, they vote for the party they think is most likely to beat it. All too frequently, voters never vote for a party they identify with or like, if they feel this party has low chances of winning. This is also because they don't want to waste their vote; what's the point of voting for a party that you know will lose and can never represent you, even if you know it might garner some 20% vote share. Overall, there's a 'sale' of my vote since its not as useful to represent my voice in FPTP than in PR.
This is the logic that Jayaprakash Narayan says why his own urbane party lost; though he commanded widespread respect, nobody thought his party would win power or be a king-maker so he lost badly. You can see here the issue of high entry barriers for political novices - they simply can't spend that much. And voters dont vote for them, even if they like them, since their vote must not go waste. Here, as you know, the money-giving works on two levels - monetary and psychological. The inducement to the voter to vote for that party, and also a signal that this party has the ability to win the elections. I am positing this based on Vaishnav's book on criminalisation of politics.
Now, imagine the PR setup. Maybe the parties still give money. But the voter is no longer incentivised to vote for one of the money-givers because his vote will not be wasted if he votes for a smaller party of his liking. He can take the money and still vote for Jayaprakash Narayan's party or some specific ideal-minded party like the one in 'Humble Politician Nogaraj'. The crux of my argument lies upon the voter's perception of the worth of his vote. It is much more valuable in a PR setup than FPTP as even 10% of vote share is enough to get you seats. Once the voters start doing this, I think the established will also stop distributing money and there might be less money power and criminalisation.
Sure, there might still be corruption post-elections but the pool of public representatives itself could be less criminalised due to above logic of diluting one high barrier in organised politics. A PR system could thus also attract a diverse crop of candidates who think they stand a chance if their party won 10% alone instead of spending money they dont have across a region they can never fully cover.
Regarding the PR system:
1) The problem of extremist parties can be tackled by having a higher threshold (10% or above). This would also largely take care of caste-based parties that might cater to a single caste or sub-caste.
2) In his work on criminalisation of politics, Milan Vaishnav stressed the criticality of cleaning up electoral finance. This is one major reason for crony capitalism and all kinds of bad incentives for politicians in power to go bad. PR system kills the incentive for a voter to vote for parties that give him money. In the FPTP system, a voter knows his vote is mostly worthless, since even parties with 20-30% vote share tend to lose. So parties and voters are incentivized to engage in cash-for-votes setup. Due to our FPTP setup, many voters tend to vote not for their most favored parties but ones they think are most likely to win or most likely to challenge the winner. With PR system, the entire cash-for-votes setup might be gone. In PR system, the voter knows that his vote is much more valuable. He can still take the money and vote for his most favored party, instead of his 2nd least favored party. This in turn disincentivises the rich parties to give out money in vain. Jayaprakash Narayan dwelt at length on his efforts to change our setup to PR system in 2008-09 in his podcast convo with Amit Varma (Episode 149).
3) Rather than a pure FPTP system, maybe Germany's mixed system is worth a look. This could also give rise to city-based parties that are crucial for voicing India's increasing urbanisation demands.
4) That Ambedkar quote has become a cliche. I'd like to turn your own wise dictum against the great man's cliche - that a good policy isn't one that's well-thought out but one that accounts for how well it can be implemented with existing state capacity and social incentives. To hell with our good or bad constitution, we need a workable constitution.
Thanks for engaging. Some comments.
1) the threshold will itself be an outcome of the political economy. A 10% threshold is not an exogenous input, and hence unlikely.
2) I didn't quite understand the logic. Why wouldn't the PR system lead to a situation where the voter takes money from many parties instead of two?
3) possibly, yes. It is worth a look but I still don't see the benefits > costs.
4) sure, ignore the quote. That was me trying to finish with a flourish. :)
Also, in a PR system, there will be more governments not completing full terms, and post-election coalition building will be a feature. So, I don't see how incentives for corruption decline in any significant way.
Could you also check if there's any research on stability of elected regimes in PR systems? I saw Germany, South Africa, and Indonesia having elections mostly at the end of terms but this could just be cherry-picking. And it also feels a bit cruel to talk about stability in our FPTP systems, given how electoral mandates are bulldozed or bought wholesale in the past decade among our states, whether immediately or years into the term.
Could you explain the first point please? I also understand that such a threshold is easily susceptible to juridical or political pressures to lower it, but I figured entrenched parties would not want more competitors. Regarding my 2nd point, consider the current scenario. Voters take money from all parties that give them money. And research shows that parties need to give money just to enter the competition in voter consciousness, kind of like entering a poker game. In the recent Munugode bypoll in Telangana, a video went around of an old woman lamenting that the Congress didn't distribute any money unlike TRS and BJP. Not surprisingly, Congress got only 10% voteshare.
Once they get the money, voters are most likely to vote for either the party they identify with or vote against the party they hate. If the latter case, they vote for the party they think is most likely to beat it. All too frequently, voters never vote for a party they identify with or like, if they feel this party has low chances of winning. This is also because they don't want to waste their vote; what's the point of voting for a party that you know will lose and can never represent you, even if you know it might garner some 20% vote share. Overall, there's a 'sale' of my vote since its not as useful to represent my voice in FPTP than in PR.
This is the logic that Jayaprakash Narayan says why his own urbane party lost; though he commanded widespread respect, nobody thought his party would win power or be a king-maker so he lost badly. You can see here the issue of high entry barriers for political novices - they simply can't spend that much. And voters dont vote for them, even if they like them, since their vote must not go waste. Here, as you know, the money-giving works on two levels - monetary and psychological. The inducement to the voter to vote for that party, and also a signal that this party has the ability to win the elections. I am positing this based on Vaishnav's book on criminalisation of politics.
Now, imagine the PR setup. Maybe the parties still give money. But the voter is no longer incentivised to vote for one of the money-givers because his vote will not be wasted if he votes for a smaller party of his liking. He can take the money and still vote for Jayaprakash Narayan's party or some specific ideal-minded party like the one in 'Humble Politician Nogaraj'. The crux of my argument lies upon the voter's perception of the worth of his vote. It is much more valuable in a PR setup than FPTP as even 10% of vote share is enough to get you seats. Once the voters start doing this, I think the established will also stop distributing money and there might be less money power and criminalisation.
Sure, there might still be corruption post-elections but the pool of public representatives itself could be less criminalised due to above logic of diluting one high barrier in organised politics. A PR system could thus also attract a diverse crop of candidates who think they stand a chance if their party won 10% alone instead of spending money they dont have across a region they can never fully cover.