[kome]

Bad political science + virtuoso use of methodology but unsubstantiated + underlying US centrism

Polarization is a problem when you let a political system polarize. In other words, while in Europe multiple parties represented in parliament are the norm; in the US - a two-party state, naturally exacerbate the risk of polarization.

So, paradoxically, polarization is a problem of not enough variety in the political spectrum. Not too much difference.

Looking from abroad, democrats and republicans are almost the same. And this is the core of the problem, and the deeper root of polarization.

[nopenopenopeno]

Yes, this is absolutely the root of the problem. First-past-the-post voting has been well known as a flawed system for over a century now and voters use every chance they get to express their distaste for both parties, but we keep acting like it’s some fleeting mystery.

[shrimpx]

> Looking from abroad, democrats and republicans are almost the same. And this is the core of the problem, and the deeper root of polarization.

Can you elaborate on this? How does similarity between the parties cause polarization?

[vidarh]

Because when the points of meaningful disagreements are few, people often have a need to emphasise those points in order to justify their choice.

I don't think this is by any means universal and it doesn't need to get hostile.

Proportional systems often force parties to be prepared to cooperate or be left with no influence so even with starkly polarised views on certain issues it doesn't pay to get too hostile about it. To take a concrete example, in Norway the two centre-right centrist parties are classical liberals (Left/Venstre) and Christian democrats (KrF/Christian Peoples Party). The Christian democrats are hardline on abortion by Norwegian standards. It's of course genuinely important to them, but it's also clear that it's gained extra importance to them as one of the few areas where they clearly stand out to their potential voters. Yet they remain on "friendly terms" with the liberals who are one of the most firmly pro choice parties. I'm guessing part of this is that in addition to being aligned on a number of policy areas they're also not competing for the same voter base, so letting the polarisation escalate to hostility serves no purpose for either of them.

But when you have two parties fighting over control in a non-proportional system and you care about power in the short term, it pays for them to both seek towards the other to fight over voters near the centre and to exaggerate the importance of the remaining differences.

[Taniwha]

Yes, NZ had 2 parties trading off power for decades until we got rid of the FPP system (like the US/UK), we now use MMP (the same as Germany) and we haven't had a government that wasn't a coalition since (even this time when one party did get more than 50% of the votes).

What it means is that to form a government parties have to form a coalition and that means compromise, done in public - compromise is a good thing, a mediating thing, if you're a party that can't compromise you'll never be part of a government - and voters understand this, they understand that it takes time to compromise, we might not have a government for 3 months and all of a party's promises might not be able to be kept as part of a compromise.

It's not perfect, but I do think it's far better and far fairer that the governments we elected under FPP (when sometimes the party with the most votes didn't get the most seats, and smaller parties could never realistically get a look in)

[shrimpx]

Thanks that makes sense.

[denton-scratch]

> in Europe multiple parties represented in parliament are the norm;

Not in the UK. There are multiple parties, but one party is the party of government, and another is the Official Opposition. Third parties are just third parties. This is the same in the USA, I believe.

[vidarh]

Yes, but it is the norm. As far as I can tell, the UK, France and Belarus are the only countries in Europe without some form of proportional representation in elections for parliament. France tends to have a more fragmented result partly because of a tradition for a lot of electoral alliances etc. between the main parties to counter the effects of the electoral system and partly because it doesn't use First Past the Post. The UK and Belarus are the only two countries in Europe to use FPTP exclusively (Poland uses it for its senate but not for its lower house)

[ZeroGravitas]

UK uses PR for the Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland elections, but not the national UK wide ones.

[denton-scratch]

Point taken.

I'm not that happy to have the UK voting system compared to Belarus.

[ZeroGravitas]

They tried to change this in the UK.

It eventually went to a public vote.

The same guy that ran the Brexit campaign successfully convinced people that 'wasting' money on more democracy would lead to more dead babies and soldiers. Too many ironies there to list.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56435341.amp

[vidarh]

Another reason why it lost was because a lot of proponents of PR saw it as a trap to get electoral reform off the agenda. Most people in the UK I know who supported PR voted against the change for that reason, and considered accepting it as part of the coalition agreements as a total betrayal by the Liberal Democrats.

[ZeroGravitas]

I doubt this subset of a subset of voters had any meaningful impact on the result. The only political parties to espouse this view were the (very small and fringe) BNP and Respect parties.

I can imagine a large chunk of people were in the "would have preferred to vote for PR, but still voted Yes to AV" camp though.

[vidarh]

None of the people I discussed this with would ever consider either Respect or the BNP. They were Labour or Lib Dem voter. It was a widespread sentiment in my circles.

I think you're massively underestimating just how many people were angry about it. I know people who voted Lib Dem over their promise of PR who have woved never ever to vote for them again.

[ZeroGravitas]

There are valid reasons to be angry with the Lib Dems and vow never to vote for them again, but vowing to not vote for them again over AV is illogical. They have always wanted PR, they got a vote on AV as a conpromise which is the closest anyone ever got to achieving it, and there's no other party that is pro-PR that has any chance of getting power under the current system (except maybe some regional parties and they're actually working against their own interests by supporting PR). The current system also makes it a requirement to vote tactically so ruling out voting for any party is an extreme position.

On the other hand, the current system also means many votes are wasted and maybe your friends know thier vote wasn't going to matter anyway, bit they prpbably sgouldnt encourage others who moght be on different circumsrances.

[denton-scratch]

> Polarization is a problem when you let a political system polarize.

Aha. So that's the cause of polarization. Now I get it.

[atoav]

The UK (and the US) do have a hyperpolarization in their political system. This polarization is result of the way the system has been designed. While a democratic system this lasting is impressive, it is clear that those systems have been devised before mass media was a thing, which is filled by particularily bad actors both in the UK and the US (maybe because it is much easier to do populism if to every issue there are two sides).

Having two clear sides has also certain advantages, e.g. it is more comfortable to think about a world where the complexity is reduced to two factions. This is why Hollywood traditionally made clear division into good and evil, until they started to experiment with more complex representations of reality.

Not that polarization isn't an issue in Europe as well, but it is nowhere near as backed in as it is in the US (and quite frankly I am not sure the US doesn't play a involuntary role in this polarization at least since the cold war).

[atoav]

This point is not totally unfounded. The US (and the UK for that matter) have a two party system that heavily supports polarization. One side is for certain things only because the other side is against it, or against something because the other side is for it (same for the other side). I wonder however if this actually that bad in absolute numbers (if I understood US politics correctly the political representation is wildly lopsided towards the party with the rural voters, when compared to actual numbers of people).

Polarization is also an issue in Europe e.g. on certain topics like the pandemic response where the typical 25% of misinformed start to matter for everybody. Words like "polarized" or "divided" always suggest there is a split through the middle of the society, but quite often it is a loud minority who seeks to force their minority opinion onto the majority.