Israel, which turns 60 this May, is a pure representative democracy. Virtually every social group has its own political party, if not several. This means that none of the country’s many ethnic and religious subsets is disenfranchised. But as a result all governments are unstable multi-party coalitions subject to perverse incentives that have more to do with politicians’ careers than with the wishes of the electorate at large.
The crippling nature of Israel’s proportional representation system are very rarely discussed. Yet it is responsible for much of the state behavior that is counter to the long term interests of Israelis. First-past-the-post systems [e.g., U.K., U.S.] tend to produce strong majority governments that are able to take bold action [e.g., Thatcher, Reagan]. Proportional representation systems tend to produce weak coalition governments that can be levered into truly stupid policies by tiny special interests [e.g., Israeli settlers]. Israel has been cursed with this system since its birth in 1948. Having evidently learned nothing, the U.N. has “blessed” the Iraqis with a similar electoral design.
My reluctant turkey caption refers to the unfortunate fact that most of the Israeli politicians benefit from the current electoral system. Most fear that they would have no office in a reformed system. But they are the people who must do the reform. More on the current state of Israeli parties here.
The Economist takes a hard look at the Israeli system in its April special report [see sidebar for links to the report sections]. Here’s an excerpt from The dysfunctional Jewish state:
As our special report this week explains, political deadlock or the capture of the political system by special-interest groups add to many of Israel’s other woes, such as the botching of the war against Hizbullah in Lebanon in 2006, the decline of the education system and the dwindling pool of army conscripts due to religious exemptions. In other democracies a rebellion by members of the government is rare and extreme. In Israel it is the norm. This makes it hard to take bold decisions and almost entirely banishes considerations of the greater good and the longer term—all things that making peace requires.
…Israel has achieved some remarkable things during its 60 years. But for the sake of its security and domestic well-being, it now needs a system that makes politicians answerable to voters, not to other politicians. What shape it should take—whether a mixture of proportional representation with electoral districts, higher thresholds to keep small parties out of the parliament, or just rules to make it harder to topple governments—is up to Israelis. Unfortunately, since their politicians will design and vote on it, it is unlikely to be optimal; but almost anything would be better than what there is now.
I see this situation as somewhat analogous to proposals to reform (or remove) the Electoral College system in US Presidential elections. Because the E.C. system compensates for smaller states’ low populations by giving them each three E.C. votes regardless of their size, it would be difficult to get them to give up that greater per capita voting clout.
Similarly minor parties in proportional-representation systems like Israel’s aren’t going to just give away their power.
Similarly minor parties in proportional-representation systems like Israel’s aren’t going to just give away their power.
Exactly - thus the “turkeys voting” caption :-) where both the citizens and the pols are “turkeys”. It seems to me that once proportional representation grants power to small interests it is nearly impossible to reform. Hopefully Israel’s constitution-writing body will think of something brilliant.