Re: The Two Party System

Posted by Eric Charles on Nov 08, 2012; 7:57pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-Two-Party-System-tp7580966p7580975.html

Owen,
A math prof here gives good "election year" math club talk and covers Arrow's work. While Arrow is quite correct that: "democracy is mathematically arbitrary." It is also pretty easy to demonstrate that "vote for one person and the plurality wins everything" is the worst option. If you take any of the other systems, you can create scenarios in which someone wins who seems like they shouldn't, but those problems occur in a small and specifiable set of possible outcomes.  The example on the website is well-crafted to make each system pick a different candidate, but usually there would be good agreement between the methods. (Hey, that sounds like a simulation project!)

Eric

P.S. Having watched from afar, I really like some of the effects of the British multi-party system. I like that coalitions must be formed between different sides, which requires finding common ground, and allowing multiple sets of priorities to influence legislation. Of course, it still usually seems like some party is getting screwed and treated unfairly, but at least it is a smaller percentage of the people.

On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 11:36 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

The 1 & 2 party systems are the only ones avoiding the pitfalls of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.

<a href="http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/frec444/444voting.html" onclick="window.open('http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/frec444/444voting.html');return false;">http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/frec444/444voting.html

But what about 2.5 parties?  By this I mean guys running but with no possibility of winning .. the so called third party candidates in the US?

They are often seen as spoilers, by taking away votes from the two possible candidates in a 2 party system.

But to the point, No I don't think China's system is the future.  The world appears to like multiparty systems, increasingly with "fair voting" tossed in with some sort of recursive run-off schemes.

So I wonder what's it like in a true multi-party system like most of Europe has?  Is it effective? interesting? confusing? fun? Are the populations aware of Arrow?  Does it avoid grid-lock?

   -- Owen

On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 1:54 AM, Jochen Fromm <jofr@...> wrote:

I watched the party congress in China today and thought what a difference to the US election. In the US there was a year long multi billion dollar campaign for each party, in China none at all. In the US we have a simple two party system, in China a single party system. What do you think? Is China's model the future?

-J.

Sent from Android

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------------

Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

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