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by mind-blight 1847 days ago
The two party system is usually a side effect of first past the post voting systems. Since elections only allow voters to choose one candidate, a third party candidate end up splitting the vote and taking votes away from the candidate who is closest to their political stance.

People see that and decide the rational choice is to vote for the candidate that they hate the least with the highest chance of driving, and third parties merge to form coalitions that actually have a chance of winning. Rinse and repeat until you only have two parties. (CPG Grey did a great video on this https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo)

Check out Ireland for how to set up a voting system that doesn't converge to two parties
1 comments
valarauko 1847 days ago
> third parties merge to form coalitions that actually have a chance of winning. Rinse and repeat until you only have two parties.

I would suggest that this probably isn't the case. Since there is no requirement for a majority vote share in first past the post, the same results can be achieved by splitting parties. The parties have more targeted appeal, just enough to squeak past the other parties. This is the case in India, for example.

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dragonwriter 1847 days ago
> I would suggest that this probably isn't the case.

It is; both the theoretical and empirical support for this being the effect of FPTP is overwhelming.

> They can be acheived by splitting other parties, but while Party A can choose to form a superparty eith Party B, it can’t choose to durably split Party C instead. Parties in FPTP will, to the extent that they can get away with it, funnel support to minor party candidates that will split the vote of their major opponent, but that’s a short-term tactical rather than long-term strategic maneuver.

> The parties have more targeted appeal, just enough to squeak past the other parties. This is the case in India, for example.

It’s really not, though India is complicated by being a federal system (which means a bunch of different electoral area with different and interacting party systems) and being in the middle of a long realignment from, at the national level, a dominant-party system under Congress (and looks a lot like at least temporarily to a dominant party system under BJP, again at the national level.)

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