Patterns of democracy
by Arend Lijphart · first published 2012
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I’ve frequently suggested Patterns of Democracy and it doesn't seem to have picked it up, despite apparently picking up books with only a single mention.
on “Show HN: 40k HN comments mentioning books, extracted using deep learning” ↗…greater proportionality in representation also tend to have higher public opinion of how well the local government works, which is probably not coincidental; for a good general survey, see Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy.
on “Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"” ↗…distribution of representation disproportionately to population (obviously in the Senate, but granularity results in significant variance in district size for House seats, as well.) Arend Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy provides pretty good coverage of both the degree to which various modern democracies have representative government, the structural features that are associated with effective representation, and the…
on “I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views” ↗Compared with other established democracies. It may not be easy to see superficially, again, if refer you to Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy.
on “I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views” ↗…non-PR methods, so it's still very much an open question. Comparisons in actual government satisfaction between countries do exist and show that proportionality of outcomes is key. See, e.g., Lijphart’s Patterns of Democracy. The absence of flawed, limited, abstract mathematical comparisons that ignore key features of the real world is not particularly a problem. > And you may have to get Score Voting or Approval Voting…
on “The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers” ↗…multiple parties, it's also the established democracy that has empirically nearly as bad a problem with ineffective representation and dissatisfaction with government as the US (see, Arend Lijphart’s Patterns of Democracy), so while it manages to paper over the partisan duopoly symptom, it doesn't actually deal with the representational problem. > And some of us have actually lived under the electoral process and politics…
on “Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election” ↗…it reveals that empirically, it produces a narrower political dialogue, poor participation, and low satisfaction with government compared to systems that produce better proportionality. See Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy.
on “Arrow's Theorem (2014)” ↗…They don't empower the people. Since there are empirically measurable difference in how well different electoral systems work in empowering the people in nation-scale polities (see, e.g., Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy), I don't think it is at all the case that they don't work or are an illusion in general. Its true that the electoral systems in certain large polities (the US among them, but not the only of them) work…
on “A message from Lawrence Lessig [video]” ↗…districts does that, and the best way to get laws which represents e people effectively is by assuring better proportionality. This had, in fact, been studied quite a bit, see, e.g., Arend Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy. Mucking around with variations on how our by whom lines are drawn for single-member, plurality or majority runoff districts and thinking that that had some how of meaningful improvement is self-delusion.…
on “Gerrymandering and a cure for it – the shortest splitline algorithm” ↗…democracies), show that proportionality is fairly strongly correlated with experienced utility of government. So, this may be incompatible with your claimed preference for utility. (see, e.g., Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy.) > I think I'd prefer the rich to have more political power, they seem to be the least insane. Maybe they just have more power to shape perceptions through media, image management, etc.
on “Vanguard's Low Blow” ↗…representation. But I think a good single winner method should be sufficient to elect good representatives. Comparative empirical studies of modern democracies that I've seen (e.g., as detailed in Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy) suggest that this is simply not correct. > And most positions are required to be single winner What elected positions need to be single winner is a matter of choice, but, yes there are some, and for…
on “Maine Ranked Choice Voting Initiative Approved” ↗>Comparative empirical studies of modern democracies that I've seen (e.g., as detailed in Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy) suggest that this is simply not correct. What do you mean? How many countries use approval voting or condorcet methods to select parliaments? Because that's what I'm referring to. These systems tend…
on “Maine Ranked Choice Voting Initiative Approved” ↗…where splits align well with that axis, marginalizing all other issues. This has been somewhat extensively studied in comparative study of modern representative democratic systems, see, e.g., Lijphart’s Patterns of Democracy.
on “California Right to Repair Bill Dies in Senate Committee” ↗What makes me think it hinders democracy are the studies (as highlighted in, for instance, Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy) showing that democratic sustained with fewer viable parties and less proportional representation in the national legislature, which the US system is a notable example of in both cases, produce governments…
on “Who'll be the next president – Google Search” ↗…as representative democracies, from very poorly in systems like the US's which feature a strong duopoly, to very well in many modern multiparty systems. (More detail in, among other places, Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy.)
on “Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad” ↗