How Europe Makes Constant Coalition Governments Work - TLDR News
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
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Some countries (notably the UK) hate the idea of coalition governments. However, other countries across Europe demonstrate that not only can they be done, but successfully. So in this video, we explain how Europe makes near-constant coalition governments work.
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Next video: how Americans make single party governments fail
lol
Bruh, true
Here comes another person who's obsessed with America
@@thomasxl3975 humourless nurk
@@thomasxl3975 More like another person who likes to makes fun of America ...
Coalitions aren't perfect. But they reflect the idea of compromise that is the fundamental key to a democracy
Perhaps that's why PiS is so uncompromising and tries to corrupt important democratic institutions all the time.
@@davidstern5012 , what has that got to do with anything?
@@davidstern5012 If you want people to seriously consider your point of view, it would be prudent to vocalize it in such a way that those people actually know what you're talking about.
@@davidstern5012 what I read in your comment didn’t make sense, ergo the request for clarification. Apparently you are too thick to formulate a coherent sentence.
They thing for me is the coalition will - together - represent a majority of voters. Voters usually know which parties are likely to work together. They can then affect the policy balance within a likely coalition by deciding which of those parties to support.
It's far better than the one-party dictatorships only a minority voted for that in the UK. A clear majority DIDN'T vote for the Conservatives there.....
TLDR : while Britain favors a strong majority, Europe prefers coalitions.
France : I've mastered the ability of standing so incredibly still, that I become invisible to the eye.
Is France really Europe? I mean cmon; they're French!
@@Myname-cb9ruYou just insulted my entire race of people... But yes !
@@aplanosgc6963 Race? Or ethnicity
@@melvinklark4088 French people are so important, they're considered a race.
@@melvinklark4088 Letting the meme aside, I don't consider French as a race or ethnicity. Just to be clear.
Ah. Deliberative democracy. The idea that you actually need to talk with your political opponents once in a while for the good of the country. :)
I agree
IMO, Brexit really showed why a majority-voting-system only polarizes, rather than leading to "easy" and "quick" decisions:
Living in a European country which for the entirety of its post-WW2-history has had a coalition-government, I was really confused why Theresa May never wanted to talk with Labour, and vice versa, in order to bring her Brexit-deal through. Her being a Remainer; essentially negotiating a Soft Brexit in style of Labour; which meant she could've easily get this deal through the parliament and ditch those rightwing hardcore Brexiteers in her Tory-party - except May didn't negotiate with Labour because "We won't do that, that's bad!" and Labour didn't negotiate with May because "We won't do that, that's bad!".
Well, Great Britain is now stuck with an almost Hard Brexit (except Northern Ireland) after parliament couldn't decide on what it wanted for half a year in 2019. And only because May and Labour didn't want to work together!
Not my problem, I'm still happy to live in the EU with its common market and customs-union without tariffs, lol.
Democracy isnt worth it if Its just "voting for your dictator and they can do whatever they want for an entire term
@@romano-britishmedli7407 Yup, here we're pretty comfortable with government and opposition talking to each other. And the fact that not all on either side vote the same way.
@@romano-britishmedli7407your ignorance of British politics leads to this conclusion. Labour and the conservatives were never gonna agree to a Brexit deal they both liked. Cause they never liked each others deals. You blindly think such opposite cooperation exists in other parts of Europe it doesn’t. Major left wing and right wing party’s rarely if ever work together on this deals and some nations outright isolate political party’s. good lord Sweden is now for the first in years forming a government with their right wing whom both sides refused to work with on meaningful issues like the economy or immigration.
It seems like TLDR and other media from countries with a two party system constantly forgets, that there are multiple countries were you don't need a majority in parlament to govern; you just need to not have a majority against you. Therefor coalitions aren't that difficult in those countries.
How? The opposition could at any moment agree that they don't like the government and so the government would crash. What you suggest is possible in theory but is very unstable at best.
It’s not at all impossible, it’s how Sweden, Denmark and other thriving countries have been run for the last century.
@@castor3020 It happens in Scandinavia, iirc its recent failure in Sweden is more of an anomaly than a norm.
@@castor3020 it is not tho?
The opposition would win if they had majority but if they don’t have majority they won’t win.
Think about it like this party 1 2 and 3 exist. 1 and 3 are hard opposites so they won’t collaborate but 2 are in the middle. So if 1 gets 45% of the vote, 2 gets 15% and 3 gets 40% and 2 decides that they are not that opposed to either 1 or 3 so they don’t vote for them because they don’t really like them that much but don’t vote against the either because they are fine with both. Now a 45% party are the rulers with passive support from a smaller party.
I can’t see why this would be bad?
@@castor3020 What you overlook is the third type of parties. You mention government and opposition, but there are also government-supporting parties who are not themselves in government. These support-parties prevent a majority votes of no confidence against the government, and will vote for government legislation, in exchange for getting their own key agendas passed by the government. But since they aren't in government themselves, they can say no or criticise the government freely.
New Zealand moved to proportional representation in 1996 and has done very well with coalitions ever since. It's actually better. Governments and policies are more stable over time and voters get to vote for - and elect - people they want from a variety of parties. Coalitions generally result in a political culture where people are more prepared to cooperate in order to win policy action for their voters. Lastly, coalitions ARE elected. Usually, voters know who will work with who and vote accordingly. The coalition parties will collectively be elected by a majority of voters. Much better than one party a majority DIDN'T support.....like the UK. No thanks to that.
This may get a little complicated in places where coalitions tend to be extremely fluid and you can never guess which party will form coalition with which.
@@marahbadrian yes it does, but the people you voted for will still be trying to barter the best deal for you
'Usually voters will know who will work with who', yeah unless it NZ First. Then Winston Peter's can arbitrarily decide who's going to rule the country, get no credit for his time in government, and then get voted out the next election.
@Right Wing Sorry. You're wrong. Kiwis have two votes: local and party. The *result* of elections is fully proportional, with nationwide list candidates topping up each party to their share of the party vote. You're thinking of what's called Supplementary member systems. Under NZ's system, a party with 10% of the party vote gets 10% of ALL seats. I know what I'm talking about on this. I've been voting in NZ for 40 years. 84-93 under the old system and 96 to now under the proportional system.
@@ryanm3644 Peters only ever had power because the two major parties refused to cooperate. He only ever had a relatively small number is MPs.
On the other hand single party rule polarizes and can divide a nation.
Exactly , look at the US , where people divide themselfs by dem or rep , and will brand the other one as enemy .
@@AlecsNeo Even UK to a large degree. The politics between two major parties becomes a shooting match and people's inerests are left dead on the battlefield of partisanship. FPTP kills literal democracies.
@markyes FPTP kills literal democracies. FPTP is first past the post. So first past the post kills literal democracies. I hope that helps you out. Democracies die to FPTP, as is the case of US and the UK, where people have the lowest trust in politicians in the Western world and political decisions are furthest from public opinion in the Western world.
@markyes let me reiterate since it was poorly worded on my part, so you'll understand. FPTP kills democracies.
No they don't. Quite the contrary: a healthy rotation between one party governments means that people with different preferences get the things that they want for a while, then yield the ground to other types of people. The rotation usually occurs through moderates and independents.
Polarization happens whenever there's a radical minority of any sorts who don't have the numbers and frankly the arguments to implement their radical ideas so they are attempting to hijack all sorts of people with all sorts of preferences and have them rally around their cause.
Macron is obviously the perfect example in that sense. You get a guy with a radical socialist background suddenly pretend that he's gonna be a unifying figure in his country, propagating the lie of centrism and promising to the people who resonated with Le Pen that he can address their concerns from a moderate perspective, rather than her radical one. The French people got convinced that they rejected a radical figure for a moderate one and they obviously got tricked. Not because Le Pen wasn't radical at the time, at least, but because Macron is a radical himself. The polarization you see in France right now is mostly because of him, rather than Le Pen. Furthermore, now you see Le Pen act like a moderate and she might return the favor.
Macron isn't really an upgrade from Hollande. There is a difference, though: he's probably the most powerful European politician right now. But not through merit, great leadership or great ideas. He's very much the opposite of that. However, he's just filling the void left behind by Merkel as she gradually became more and more passive after her blunders during the migrant crisis and the War in Ukraine. On top of that, the Brits aren't there anymore, so a French leader was pretty much the only one to fill that void.
From the Netherlands, and it is true that a larger amount of parties makes agreeing on issues a lot more difficult. However, the large number of parties is just a representation of the large variety of opinions within the Netherlands.
I know I'm at least happy I do not have a two party system where I need to vote for the least bad party, but actually can pick out of a variety of parties the one I agree with most.
It also enables slow shifts, that are impossible in other systems.
I agree and remember we don’t vote for a government, we vote for our parliament.
The big advantages we have with a many-party system is that the parties are actually forced to focus on their policies comparably to how much the people care about that.
In a two-party system where you must get an absolute majority, nobody is likely to switch their votes over the core of your policies, but only over what I'll call "drama". The fact you only have two options means that the only meaningful choice you have is "are you right or are you left?" Well that's something only very few people are likely to change their mind on, but people who aren't interested in policies so much as the identity and image of the people on the ballot will be just as likely to switch their vote. Thus you're left with election cycles that are absolutely dominated by image, reputation and scandal, with policy at best serving as a platform for those aspects.
However with a many-party system the ideological "distance" between parties is relatively much smaller. You can viably switch your vote to a party that better represents your interests if your previous party let you down, without it being a complete one-eighty on all your values. As such, a certain section of the vote can (and can *only*) actually be won over by focus on sensible and transparent policies. The scandal and reputation aspect still plays a part in the election cycle. Let's face it, it always will be for as long as there are some people who guide their vote that way. But the point is it's not the whole of it, like with for example the British or American election cycles.
As somebody with both UK and Dutch ties, I can assure everyone out there that the Dutch election cycles are much MUCH saner, cleaner and more respectful than the UK's. The politicians in the Netherlands can't get away with outright lies, incessantly dodging questions or deflecting questions on policy to defamation of their opponents (at least, not only these things). This is because the voters who are interested in the answers to those questions need not look far to find a preferable candidate if you can't answer the question satisfactorily rather than avoid it.
For the Dutchies reading this, I know you're chomping at the bit to complain about your favourite failure of a Dutch politician. Let me assure you that the politician you are picturing right now is actually a saint on this matter compared to even the best British politician to make it anywhere near the top of UK politics at all recently. YES EVEN THAT ONE. I know, I know, I hate them too, but we are absolutely spoiled for the class of our opponents in the Netherlands.
It also seems to me like a more democratic system. It works slower witch can result in problems during crisis’s but that seems like a sacrifice worth making. When you're voting in a two party system, you're voting on a giant bundle of polities you don't necessarily agree with as you pointed out. Many smaller party's also make the creation of new party's easier which prevents a mock democracy like in the US from forming. (Since anything that both parties agree on is easily passed whether voters want it or not.)
I Germany we put a 5%/3 direct seats barrier in place to prevent dozens of small parties to show up. There are exceptions, the most significant the single seat by the SSW (the representation of the danish minority in the north. As national minority they are excluded from the barrier) Or a couple years ago when they had the deciding seat in the northernmost state. (on the border to Denmark, where their voters are)
Besides that, in the 50s, 60s and 70s we had exactly 3 parties in parliament, now we have 6. And that is federal parliament, state parliaments are a whole different thing with regional parties coming into play.
Basically, if you have enough traction and get enough voters, every party has a chance to be represented. And if MPs leave their party, they stay in parliament, because at the time of election, they had the necessary requirements to get their seat. But it happens quite rarely that MPs leave or move parties. The most notable events in recent history was between the 2017 and 2021 elections when in total 4 members of the AfD (a right-wing populist party) left their party.
Me who comes from Singapore and has never seen another party other than the PAP in power: Interesting
@Right Wing like the USA
@@PabloTBrave How did Trump manage to get elected then? The entire establishment was against him. You can claim that the USA's election system is deeply flawed, to the point that it can be manipulated to "fortify" a result, but it's proven to allow for anti-establishment upsets to occur when the people get behind someone. Singapore has one choice on their ballots, and returns 100% votes for the party members.
@@LordBilliam didn't say it was flawed I said it isn't a democracy it's a republic and indirect democracy.
Don't insult the lives lost in nationalist Singaporean fascism for the sake of cheap points against your actual democratic society.
@@PabloTBrave that's self contradictory, and that's not what republic means.
You didn‘t mentioned the arguments for a coalition:
-first of all it’s more democratic when an election isn‘t just win or lose, with a coalition the „loser“ still has influence (which is important, because when a party elected by 45% of the voters don‘t have to say a word how the country should be run, I wouldn’t call it democracy and more an dictatorship of the mayority)
-by finding a compromise the party’s are less likely to do something from a populist agenda, because they have to agree with the other coalition partners on the topic, so the most of the decisions are more reasonable
He did mention the second point.
And then you have coalition governments like in Sweden when the minority is ruling over the majority. Also if a party within a coalition has considerable size over the others then it leads to the reality that so much as 30% can be dictating the political direction of the 100%. Wow, sure sounds swell!
@@WhatIsYourCard Nope, that is not how things work. For parliament to pass a bill, a majority of MPs need to vote in favor, so democracy is not in danger under a minority government, it is just harder to find majorities for new legislation. And if we are talking about small groups dictating political direction, how about the power the ERG has held over the Tories for the last couple of years? Make no mistake, FPTP creates a system with parties within parties: Tories, Labour, Democrats and Republicans.
Where on Earth is any party getting 45% of the voters? Oo
In my country the biggest party can hope for twenty something percent of the voters in a election, a good year being one when they get close to 30%...
@@WhatIsYourCard There's many different factions in all countries.
In FTFP systems etc those factions are *within* the parties and their relative power are not subject to a vote.
In proportional systems where coalitions are the norm you instead give these factions relative power based on their *own* actual number of votes since they're separate parties and then each party picks and chooses what other parties they're willing to cooperate with based on negotiations.
If what you said was true and parties supported by a minority of voters ended up with a excessive amount of power then the larger party of the coalition will start looking for potential alternatives soon enough if they're not fundamentally happy with the policies in question.
Having so many and so powerful small parties means that there's more then one path towards a majority.
Germany: Where a centre coalition always works because they want to avoid having to deal with extremists and hardliners.
Pretty much.
Doesn't it make it harder to tackle a major crisis like the financial crisis or the climate crisis? Don't solutions become too watered down when bold action is required? That too much needs to be compromised?
@@crosstraffic187 it "worked" during the pandemic (at least the government didn't brake down and people still could enjoy decent living conditions, tho our ministry for health has to be criticized!)
@@crosstraffic187 Too watered down, is one way to look at it. On the other hand, the coalition is more likely to find a solution that brings as many voters as possible on board, so support for the government's policy remains stable.
"Bold action" according to one ideological side can easily go entirely wrong; a compromise tries to take more than one point of view into account. So yes, in times of crisis, the reaction may be slower. Although loyalty to the party line is really high among German parliamentarians, so once the government has decided on a course of action, they can often enact their policy without too much resistance in the short term, with details and repercussions being ironed out later.
It also helps that in a coalition, the parties often have somewhat similar views. During the financial crisis, both large parties (Union and SPD) were in a coalition and worked together rather smoothly, so government policy had broad support. As for climate change, that's probably a crisis where not relying on only one party to enforce their particular view but trying to find a compromise between various interests may be the better course of action.
It is concerning when parties start saying they won't work with another party they don't like. Negotiation is fine--if you don't want to compromise on issues, then don't. Put your foot down. At least you would have tried.
Parties that get absolute majorities are hidden coalitions anyway. Like theres no way that the labour left and labour center-right would be in the same party if they had a choice.
Majority systems though, make it very easy for the larger group within a party to silence the rest
Bernie and other left wing democrats in the US is another example and I'm certain this is also the case for right wing parties
Big parties fracturing into smaller ones is actually really healthy imo and helps voters vote for what they actually want; proportional representation is the way to do that.
Good point
Yep and like how Trump Republicains all but kicked out the Bush and Regan ones... now we are less than 20%... Now the centrists in the democrats and the Republicans are fighting for control with the far Left/Right ones...
They used to have the independent labour and the social democrats...
That's a great point, in a European voting system, Bernie would be in his own party, not in a wing of a big party, where only members of this party can vote on the leader. Instead, all American people can decide which party to vote on.
And even if there are small parties, wing-forming is still very common, in Germany, with have the Fundis (Fundamentalist) and the realos (realist) in the green Party, which only makes the 6st largest party
Indeed, the liberty caucus is strong but extremely hidden by MAGA republicnas
Coalition is actually a good thing. Even though it is not perfect, it moderates government agenda to prevent any extreme policies or forcing some party’s ideologies into a law. It also means that check and balances is not only done by the opposition, it also done by the coalition member. In other sense, it pretty much represents what democracy means: moderation and teamwork
No moderation and compromise just supports centrist parties and prevents change in America our system like one does the same thing and that means popular position like universal healthcare has not been an acted for 30 years the people should be able to vote a party to power to do whatever they want and complete their promises before the next election
Exactly! In a two-party system and/or Presidential system you end up with parties having to present a broad basket of policies that end up polarising those in society that are against those policies. On the other hand, with coalitions the individual parties have a smaller policy basket. The policies that the coalitions end up delivering, tend to be negotiated meaning more members of society end up appreciating compromises between policies.
@@empireepic92 In a multiparty system there would already be a separate small party which can campaign openly on healthcare reform, for instance, and get votes specifically for that. Either they might eventually win, they might make it their priority in a coalition, or the establishment would begin to support it out of fear of losing votes. Real consensus-seeking politics is also fairly capable of reform, since you still only need majority agreement, and compromise tends to happen more on the minute details, with a general direction of reform supported by all.
This definitely helped democracy in new Zealand. Since it eliminated the upper house that acted as a check on the pm, the pm could think of an idea and have it passed into law by evening. That is, until MMP voting was introduced. Now, coalitions are the norm which places more checks and balances in the system.
@@empireepic92
It is almost like the majority of the population doesn't agree with extreme opinions. If you want a form of government that appeals only to your interests and no one else's, then you aren't really in favour of democracy. The goal is to get a government with the consent to govern from the population. Not enforce the will of an extreme minority.
Countries with systems that encourage absolute majorities tend to be highly polarized and its people distrusting, even hating the 'other side' even to the point of completely ignoring any fault within their own ranks for the purpose of not letting the 'other' gain any ground. This is simply destructive.
Coalitions encourage working together to find solutions most find acceptable. The average person may not like the parties they don't support, but won't alienate people who ascribe to their platform so quickly if they think the parties can work together. And might even have begrudging respect for a party they strongly disagree with, but which still proves reliable and flexible.
He should make a video about Latin America, governments are like the US model but with more parties, also the left and right hate each other but agree in many other things.
Coalitions are just compromises for parites to get to power not for democracy
Better than a FPTP system where you can easily get stuck with a ruling party that most people don't want in power
No FPTP is better
@@gusgrow9768how?
As a Swiss this is so weird. We don't have coalition governments, because our government of 7 people is split between the historically biggest parties( some parties have 2). Now with the recent "green wave" the distribution might change though. We always compromise and build coalitions for every topic, because a public vote could get forced on basically anything, so any law needs at least reasonable public support across the political spectrum.
Switzerland is something of a gold standard of how democratic government should work.
As a German I favor most of the time the swiss system. My party is always in opposition to the government and can't contribute anything. I don't expect that my political views get through all the time but a little more participation would be nice and would surely increase the appreciation of democracy. The only major issue would be the indecisive decision progress. One steady government is far more predictable. Maybe we need more courage for at least a minority government from time to time.
@@laettaextrafit5607 yes it definitely is slow. One single aspect, disliked by a minority, can force a public vote, which loses time and if some law gets toppled by public vote, because of some small differences, it will likely take multiple years, till a changed version is finalized( again with the possibility of a forced vote).
@@laettaextrafit5607 'My party is always in opposition'- Die Linke?
@@lw3705 Yeah, definitely not AfD.
As a Scot, I feel like I should mention that non-Coalition minority governments can also work well.
Expecially true if they don't try to rule like a majority, but look for a majority of votes on a per-policy basis. This is how belgium's current collapsed coalition runs.
I agree, we had one in the Netherlands a while back as well and it means the government must look for support in parliament on a case to case basis. Not just that but Parliament had more power to pass laws on their own because they won't face a majority coalition to block them. So if all parties outside of the coalition unite in a vote the majority of the voters still win even though their parties didn't win the election outright.
Nicole sturgeon is based on her ability , she is just a woke queen that's whyy she gets elected
Yeah, our electoral system is designed to get that. The SNP a still get a lot done even if they haven’t had a majority since 2016 (it is very close tbf)
@@shadeblackwolf1508 Belgium's coalition crashed 🙄
A coalition government has a very important feature which single party governments lack: The Coalition Contract or Agreement. This is a written public document outlining what the current coalition government will actually do during its time in government, as opposed to the vague promises from a single party government. If you actually sign a contract to (say) abolish university fees inside of 4 years, that commits you in a completely different way to just having a paragraph in a political party manifesto to that effect.
And more importantly, it is not just the opposition that can call you out, but also your coalition members. This incentivizes actually fulfilling your promises.
Is the contract enforceable by the courts? Because if not then it's not really a contract, just another (joint) manifesto.
It's not enforceable by the court, but it is enforceable by the coalition partners, who can break the coalition if nothing is happening.
@@no_rubbernecking Well, it is usually a real contract, and as such theoretically enforceable by the courts, but they usually have "best effort" clauses and such like. There is usually also a method of conflict resolution, for example if one party is unhappy with the non-fullfillment of a particular issue, they both agree to a committee to get the conflict solved. The whole thing is very much done in the public eye, so they have to "stay real" and try to get a solution. If they don't then the coalition agreement is broken and the government is out of power and they all lose their jobs, so the incentive is certainly there!
@@martinstent5339 Interesting... thanks Martin
Isn't compromise a key part of politics
Nah, it is the most annoying part (by slowing down nearly all actions) of democracy. Outside of Democracies it doesn't exist
And a fundemental idea behind democracy
@@theultimatefreak666 It might be annoying but it is a cornerstone of democracy. Democracy trades efficiency in exchange for stability and equal representation. Compromise it to make sure every party of a coalition (thus over 50% of the voters) find something on which they agree with in the new government. It creates stability in exchange for efficiency.
@@theultimatefreak666 except if you want a dictatorship you can't really criticise it
@@cameroonemperor755 I didn't claim that you could also monarchy and anarchy are possible systems both of which don't utilize compromise (well except for parliamentary and constitutional monarchies but those are de-facto Democracies)
In Finland we literally have a five party coalition and it works well.
💪🇫🇮
Coalition is the only way a country works for the benefit of the people in general, not just the winners. Furthermore, corruption is curbed by coalitions.
The American and British systems create only 2 opposing parties. There is no variation that can better represent you.
As in the United States, the first thing a president does is undo everything the previous president did.
I prefer different coalitions that do not create such divisive policies.
@@niklasmolen4753 Actually, it was Trump who started to undo whatever Obama did. Before him, it was quite rare and in some cases, even cabinet ministers were reconfirmed, though they were nominated by the opposing party. Bitter divisiveness started with Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party within the GOP.
@@koantao8321 I did not know. Good to know. But I do not think any party wants to back down now.
@@niklasmolen4753 one thing to keep in mind is that until FDR came around, the more progressive party used to be the Republican one. It was only in the 1960s, with LBJ signing the VRA, that democrats of the South started to become Republican in order to remain racist.
TLDR show Belgium when saying coalitions can break.
Belgium with 541 days without a government.
Belgians are just not made for politics. There's all this chocolate, beer and waffles to be made man!
My country didn't have a government for 900 days, not that it's a competition.
@@nathangraham2895 What country?
@@snowmanscz1011 northern Ireland, we got out government back when the UK government took over and started doing things our government wouldn't want, so they quickly tried to create the government before the new laws were implemented by the UK government, they didn't form it on time, and the laws passed (which I'm actually glad of, as did the majority, it was only 1 party who prevented a coalition from forming, which is legally necessary for our government) while they didn't get it formed before then we have the government running since shortly since then. Sorry for information overload.
Yet a fully functioning parliament that's been handling the crisis remarkably well through interim governments
Meanwhile, in good old MURICA, two parties and only two parties. No coalitions, no power-sharing, no proportional representations, politicians choose voters.
A system of choosing between pest or cholera
@@gimlifan12 Actually it's more. Stabbed in the back or stabbed in the front.
Ironically, in Murcia, Spain, there was a coalition in government until recently, when one party cannibilized the other.
Actually, it is more of just a single party masquerading as two, the corporate party.
@@matteste Yes, there is virtually no ideological difference between the two except some voices on the far fringes of the parties.
You’ve equated europe with “the continent”. Ireland, a European country also has long experience with coalitions.
An odd omission indeed, given how broadly similar the Irish system of government is to that of the UK, for obvious historical reasons. IIRC, we haven't had a non-coalition government since the '50s.
For the english, everything not english is "continental"...
Wow most European countries have experiences with coalitions, he can’t mention all of them.
As does Iceland.
I would compare our coalition system more to the UK model rather than the ones used in Germany or the Netherlands because even though coalitions are a lot more common than in the UK they very often (with the exception of the current government) consist of one large party and another smaller party, which usually leads to the large party blaming everything that goes wrong on the small party, causing that party to lose seats in the next election.
If anything, it's the UK that is a little out of step with the rest of the democratic world. Even within the UK itself, the Westminster election process is incredibly archaic. Scotland and Wales have far superior processes whereby the parliaments actually reflects the vote share (to much better %)
Hear, hear!
And Northern Ireland.
AMS isn't proportional and has had even more disproportionate results than FPTP (Wales 2016)
How to achieve absolute majority Malaysian way : bribe mp's from other parties to join your party
The same thing used to happen in India but a new law was passed which disqualified MPs if they defected.
Berlusconi did that many times, from smaller parties
We have had immigrants as guards outside the voting rooms, and one of them crashed into the harsh reality of a working democrazy, via a police investigation and being kicked out of the party.
Pakistan *nervous sweating*
@@josephthomas9717 The Malaysian opposition is looking to implement anti hopping laws so I hope that actually comes through
One obvious thing I wish would have been covered is the effect of coalitions on political culture; in countries with coalition governments, political discourse tends to be more constructive rather than combatitive, as parties are wary of closing off doors for cooperation after the next election. This in turn fends of polarisation and virulent discourse - sometimes at the expense of extreme alternatives, be that for the better or worse.
Another thing that I would have love to seen discussed is the effect of the government type on institutions; UK over the last few years is a great example of how one-party-rule can lead to declining standards in institutional integrity and following the mores of parliamentary democracy. This one-party rule is in turn facilitated by the same electoral system enabling parties to gain large majorities with only 40-45% of the popular vote.
But when they do get something with more than 50%. Parliament still trying to ignore it.
Agree would reduce combativeness. The Lib Dems and Conservatives didn't do bad in publicly working together (am sure arguments behind closed doors but that is fine).
To be fair, the UK becoming an almost 1 party state has more to do with Labour alienating their base and becoming unelectable than it is about the Conservatives. In 2019, Labour lost seats they had held for the better part of a century. That didn't happen by accident, but because Labour seemed to forget that they had a base to appeal to outside of London.
In Canada right now we have five parties in parliament, we have a FPTP election system and it's basically just this:
The Liberals are tactically raging about the NDP not backing them with everything even though they pretty much are. Trudeau refuses a coalition with anybody and turned against electoral reform after promising it because most Canadians "don't care." Even though many polls suggest they do.
The Conservatives who since their formation in 2003 have always been just two parties who can't win alone agreeing to stick it out together are now more or less conspiracy theorists who want to get rid of the CBC (Canada's BBC more or less) and are infighting over every issue.
The NDP are basically trying to survive, my emails tell me they are pretty much penniless. They've been proposing things that the Liberals had in their own platform and yet the Liberals are blocking it and then blaming the NDP for it not getting passed.
Bloc Québécois: A bunch of nationalists who only care about Quebec and basically wouldn't care if everybody else burned. One member gave their farewell speech to parliament talking about how Quebec was more of a real country then Canada because Canada stole Poutine and the Maple Leaf from Quebec. (More or less) Their role has been to literally back the Liberals when the NDP doesn't and complain.
Greens: Literally falling apart as we speak, their leader is on the verge of being ousted after only a few months in the position and they lost 1/3rd of their entire caucus last month (likely because the greens were behind in constituency polling among other reasons.)
So, you might ask what are the alternative options? Well the only other two parties that even remotely have a chance of getting seats are 1. A party who had their leader arrested a few weeks ago and 2. A party that is more or less just a Western nationalist cry for help. (That will probably prevent the Conservatives from forming government ever again)
Literally, most of this would have likely been avoided if Trudeau just went with his electoral reform promise and then agreed to a coalition. The NDP leader (Who backs MMP) has been trying to get in a coalition since before the election. The problem is parties who propose things and don't go on the attack get largely ignored and treated as Liberal swing votes. Then if they go on the attack they get an election called that's statically against them.
TLDR: Canadian government is an attack heavy mess and it could've easily been avoided if the government actually came through on one of their promises for once.
@@jacobhogan3208
The electoral reform promise is actually way more complicated than that.
Trudeau wanted to just force through ranked choice voting in 2015 and he created a new committee in Parliament to do just that. The Conservative and NDP both then cried foul and demanded more representation on that committee. The NDP and Conservative then realized that ranked choice voting might be bad for them and then worked together to kill it.
The Conservatives wanted to keep FPTP because it is the only way they can win. While the NDP wanted to push for the German style MMP because that system would benefit the NDP more.
This led to lack of progress on the committee and Trudeau eventually just got sick of it and killed the committee.
The irony of the brits moaning about coalitions being inefficient. How long did Brexit take ?
The instability of the May government (surely one of the worst ever) due to not being able to command a majority in parliament demonstrates the weakness of coalitions. At the same time it also illustrates the strengths in preventing measures from being railroaded throught he house without opposition. (The House of Lords is a complicating factor of course, but that needs huge reform IMO, which Blair botched)
A coalition government might have gotten things dealt with that would have prevented the brexit vote from happening.
The conservative party promised a vote to discourage ukip from siphoning off votes. But that wouldnt be a concern if first past the post was done away with.
And the conservatives never expected it to pass either.
@@Knightmessenger It MIGHT - but on the other hand, a system of PR would certainly allowed UKIP to win seats (as well as other smaller parties) , and it is also more than possible that The Tories would have been happy to get a deal with UKIP so that the Brexit vote would have gone ahead anyway.
In any case, whilst "government by consensus" is a tempting prospect for the vast majority of things, for constitutional matters the voters have to make the decision or faith in the system is lost. For example, the voters of Scotland have to be the ones to decide whether they should have "home Rule" in Scotland, not have the decision made for them by the Holyrood/Westminster government. Similarly, the Irish people have to decide on a united ireland...or not.
@@channelcreatedtoallowmetoc4150 yes it would have allowed UKIP to win some seats. I dont see a problem with that because that would mean A) UKIP appeals to a significant amount of voters, B) letting that voting base have representation means they're less likely to feel the government isnt listening to them and more drastic measures are needed.
I think a coalition would have been more likely to negotiate some of the things about the EU, brits were unhappy with, better than a binary leave or remain choice. People may have voted for brexit for all kinds of different reasons. A simple yes or no vote doesnt tell you what percentage of "Leave" voters were unhappy with what aspects of the EU. And even those who voted "stay" may have had issues with the EU they wanted addressed regardless if they thought membership was still worth it.
So even though I really dont understand what drove the motivation for the brexit push, I gotta imagine proportional representation would have delivered a much clearer picture of what brits liked and didnt like about the EU.
@@Knightmessenger It is extremely refreshing that you recognize that the Leave/Remain vote was complicated by a whole series of issues on both sides, and that (like myself, IMHO ) would see that both Remain and Leave had some valid points. The EU has good and not-so-good in it, from each person's point of view, and of course their overall opinion depends on the weighting that they give to those factors.
I think that a coalition may well have been able to propose a better package of reforms as you suggest, with give-and-take on both sides. This could have been acceptable to the majority of the other members of the EU.....but...and this is a big "but", Chancellor Merkel played hardball in the talks with Cameron over what she felt were red lines (and she would have done so to ANY proposal which she felt breached her red lines) She is a committed European and incredibly defensive about threats to something that she loves being undermined. So I don't want to demonises her, but where is very flexible and collegial over details, she seems stubborn over the deeper ideology of it all.
I am sad because I feel that there has been a lot of wasted effort and missed opportunities in the EU. I believe personally in compromise, and give-and-take. However there is a subtle difference between THAT, and business-as-usual type competition between states and using the rules for your own advantage - "in-fighting" for want of a better description. Monet's vision has been undermined IMHO. When push comes to shove, people still regard themselves as "Own country first, European second". Maybe if we all spoke one language (It would have to be French, German or Spanish though), and could seamlessly move between any country in the bloc then it would work wonders in breaking down barriers.
BTW I go back to the first referendum in 1975, when i was an enthusiastic supported of the EEC (as it then was). Over the years, my views became more "nuanced".
TLDR: Europeans form coalitions.
the US: Coali-what now? THATS COMMUNISM!
well, at least they got the first 2 letters right...
Normally, you just have to breathe and they claim it's communism
hot take, I would suggest the US always has a coalition government. because the Republican and Democratic parties are themselves easily divided into multiple large chunks.
the gop, center right, far right, and... problems
the dems, center right, center left, and mid left
@@andrewemerson1613 Your take is good, Isaac's is a smooth brain "America bad" take.
But communism is single party rule.
I think the american take is "but then how can anything get done if there's never a majority in power?"
@@Knightmessenger as an American, the thing that gets me the most about most European parliamentary systems is that what they call a "government" is to us, just the executive administration. say for example that we instituted preferential voting across the board and the two major parties broke up and congress never had a majority, and a coalition was hard to form for some reason. we wouldn't just.. not have a president because of that.
In a parliamentary system, a single party having absolute majority is very dangerous
Especially if the president/monarch is not that powerful
Depends on power of the constitution. One party could have majority and nation be perfectly safe for the long term, if certain key issues and stuff like election reforms are super majority votes or for example demand ratification by two different parliament terms. So that despite having majority, the majority party can't just go changing the whole society while they are in power.
Want to change the election system in your favor or say change the power of various senior government officer.... Sorry governing party, that is article of law is listed as constitutional matter. You need 2/3 or say 5/6 to change that immediately. Oh you don't have that, well too bad for you.
Having absolute majority single party government in absolute democracy (instead of constitutional one) sure would be freakishly dangerous. Which is why absolute democracies are pretty much non existent and nearly all democracies are constitutional ones. Though of course what is in that constitution matters. Some constitutions are stronger than others and it really really matters what reads in constituion regarding shares of power, limits to power and so on.
The UK is a time limited party dictatorship.
@@aritakalo8011 the President should also be a guarantor
@@neodym5809 Fr
As a polish person i am actually suprised that some people DONT want coalitions.
Like : if one party has big majority is basically can ignore all other worldviews and ellectorall blocks.
U just get better representation and you also have security check if one party becomes insane.
I would love in Poland to have now coalition gov because unchecked Law & Justice sucks.
"multiple parties makes for more moderate policies to retain a stable government"
Laughs in Israeli
My understanding is that Israel has parties based on ethnic groups. Of course that's going to be a nightmare of conflicts.
@@0xCAFEF00D not exactly, there is some overlap, but other than the religious parties (Shas representing the religious Mizrahi jews, and Yehadut Ha'tora representing religious Ashkenazi Jews like the Hasidim), that isn't the case. Even the arabs, who have united into one party, have wildly different ideologies under their banne, from Islamists to communists.
The rest are either classic Labor (Ha'avoda), classic Greens (Meretz), classic Conservatives (Likud) and the rest are either nationalist or off brand Likud
Israel is a crazy country to begin with.
Hard to have a stable government when you country is the incarnation of chaos in the middle east.
@@MichaelDavis-mk4me really? Would think that Israel is the most stable in the middle east.
I feel that no single party must ever win an outright majority. This makes the parties authoritarian. Compromise can actually lead to a government satisfying the needs of EVERY PERSON, not just the person who voted for Majority Party
i think it's called majority dictatorship
@@crazydinosaur8945 Additionally, depending on the voting system it can be a minority dictatorship masquerading as a majority dictatorship (like the conservatives in the UK)
@@zephyros256 same with the us. Overall there are more Democrats in the country. It is such an unfair system that to win the house(our parliament but with two parties) by one seat the Democrats have to be up in polling around the country by TEN points. Since when is that fair🤨
@@shawnperry5983 The Democrats got 50.8% of the popular vote for the 2020 (latest) House of Representative election, and they won 222 seats out of 435 (51%).
So...??
Gerrymandering is true, but the reality is that both parties are playing the same game.. the Dems are better at covering it by giving the power of redistricting to 'independent' commitee, but in most times, those 'independent' commitee are leaning Dems. Take CA for example.. the Reps got 33.7% of the state-wide popular vote, but they won 'only' 11 seats out of 53 (20.7%), or in Maryland, the Reps got 34.8% of the state-wide popular vote, and won only 1 out of 8 seats (12.5%).
@@shawnperry5983 You cannot possibly claim to know the result of a proportional election in the US. As only 66% actually voted in the last election the hidden sympathies are enormous. In a proportional election all the votes from Reps in California would matter, and all the votes from Dems i Texas as well.
The current 'popular vote' does not tell us anything.
Heck, in a proper open and proportional election in the US, the Libertarian candidate could win...
5:57 after the last elections, SPD was CDU's secont choice because they actually wanted to form a coalition with the greens and the FDP. The talks failed because of the FDP and then CDU formed a coalition (that almost broke several times) with the SPD (that actually promised that they would stay in opposition if they lost the election).
Germany is full of no go zones because of the blunder Merkel did in 2015
@@karankapoor2701 what are you talking about?
If not for Steinmeier, there maybe would have been new elections, but who knows how they would have turned out.
Besser nicht regieren als schlecht zu regieren
@@karankapoor2701 name one.
Make a video on the Swiss system of government.
Coalition breeds compromise, compromise means wider acceptance. Unless you have a population that can be sharply divided in two totally different groups (looking at you, Belgium), coalitions are the superior form of democratic governance. Are they perfect? No. Are they better than one-party-rule? Definitively!
How do European countries make coalitions work?
Sweden: Well yes but actually no
It's working, a new coalition will be formed. If not, a new election can be held.
There is no problem whatsoever
@@Kafei01 Of course but this is a joke:)
@@Kafei01 Sure a coalition can be formed, but it cannot get a budget through the Riksdag.
Come the fall budget (if he does as he promised) Löfven will step down and the speaker rounds start over again.
Because at that time no one wants to have an extra election that will happen around March, just six months before the general election.
But of course since Makten is all S cares about I am sure he will just ignore his promise and stay Prime minister even when forced to implement a M+Kd+SD budget...
5:41 Naaah. The SPD often votes for things they extremely disagree with, because of the union. When the SPD to example wanted a more harder climate law, the union didn't want it and was easily able to stop it. That's only one of much examples. But still a good video
Let's hope the next election will shorten the CDU's leverage in parliament
Sure, thats the idea of a coalition after all.
On the other hand, the CDU voted for topics the SPD wanted to enact.
That the SPD can't spin public support out of this, well.. That's another topic, Merkel is really good in getting the bonus points^^
@@frankkobold Thats true
@@frankkobold the thing is: the SPD has a trust issue due to their last chancellor (Gerhard schöder and the Unemployment-Reform) many classic social Democrats switched support for other parties. And the young Left-leaning Voters? Well, the Greens managed to hook them to their party (opposition and critics etc). If the Union-FDP-Green coalition became a reality in 2017, maybe the SPD would be >20% now.
If I could vote In this years election (I'm under 18) however, don't know if I Would choose the Greens or the SPD😅. In my opinion the greens have "fresher" ideas, but the SPD politicians seem way more professional...
SPD got minimum wage from the CDU, an huge win.
I realize the full fallout of it haven’t materialized yet, but I was really hoping for you to talk a bit about the Swedish situation atm when I saw Sweden early in the video.
He already talked about it.
The situation still isn't resolved (though it is moving), so I'm guessing they don't want to make too many videos about it. A recap when all's said and done is probably enough. :)
@@Theorimlig they have done a video on it. Basically how it got to where it is now
I'm not as much of a supporter of coalitions as I am of proportional representation. You know, the electoral system that doesn't force you to just opt for the lesser evil? I like having like 8 parties to choose from!
Then there's Italy, where a guy creates a new coalition and immediately start destroying it to create the next.
I have an idea what about we politely ask to the Swedes to invade us? 😭 Pls i just want a decent government
On coalitions, Should have a closer look at the coalition government in Australia and the power balance there.
the liberals and nationals aren’t really a coalition, since they never negotiate or anything before forming. They are essentially conjoined twins of parties, or two factions of the same party.
Yeah, let's look at and learn from Australia, a nation run by the lackeys of gas companies.
Enfant666Terrible the liberals are literally just a glorified gas lobby
@@bringbacktherevolution1064 that isn’t entirely true. They are a coalition as they do have a coalition agreement that is formed before elections and often between cabinet shuffles. That is currently happening at the moment with Barnaby Joyce’s rise back to leadership in the Nationals. The difference is that it is more an expected coalition as it has been going on for so long. But it is in fact possible for negotiations to fall apart and the two parties leave the coalition. The only place they are actually a conjoined party is in Queensland where they run as the Liberal National Party.
The glorified gas lobby part is true though.
It's not a coalition in that sense. They're moreorless the same party. They're basically the same as CDU/CSU in Germany
As a Norwegian in the UK I can see how a lot of this is based on culture as well. The UK tends to favour a "winner takes it all" approach in many aspects of society, while Norway is all about compromise and finding solutions that work for everyone (no clear winners, but also no clear losers). Also, minority governments are the rule rather than the exception in Norway, and as long as everyone's willing to play somewhat nicely with each other, this ensures that even smaller parties can have a fair degree of influence on the direction the country goes in.
I think this is a good thing for society and democracy, as it draws a clearer line between the executive and the legislative branches of government while ensuring that your vote almost always matters. What it does require is a political culture in which politicians don't just represent certain groups of voters, but see themselves as responsible for the well-being of the entire population. The major downside is that things can move veeeeery slowly sometimes, because the government is rarely in a position to take quick and decisive action without proper parliamentary consent. But as they say, slow and steady wins the race.
LOL TLDR out here saying "New Zealand's system makes it hard for small parties to succeed but Germany's doesn't," when we both use MMP and the electoral system influencers on national-level party size are largely the same in both our systems. The reason New Zealand tends to elect strong Labour and National parties when they're in government, (and even managed to elect a majority government under proportional reperesentation) as opposed to Germany's more distributed parliaments, is primarily cultural, not simply because of our electoral system.
(There are electoral system reasons that our proportional system favours larger governing parties, but they're also present in Germany, like our high party vote threshold)
Yeah, that bit missed the mark a bit.
In fact, that German multi-party system is rather recent. For a long time (from 1960 - 1983), we had a similar situation like New Zealand - two large parties (Union and SPD) and a small one playing kingmaker (the FDP), and after that, two smaller parties that were ideologically aligned with one of the large ones (Union+FDP and SPD+Greens).
That opened up only after reunification - five parties since 1990, and six parties only since 2017, with the main reason for the changes being a cultural shift (the traditionally large parties, esp. the SPD, losing long-standing voters).
The point about the German voting system: that's not true, the final composition of the Parliament is determined by our Second vote, every party gets as many seets as they get second votes and those are not FPTP
@@bomschhofmann1644 He didn't say it was FPTP, though - MMP (mixed-member proportional representation) is what both Germany and New Zealand use (with a few differences in detail).
@@varana yeah, but to say that the German system favours bigger parties is not very accurate, the voter turnout is almost 1 to 1 translated in the Bundestag(after of course calculating the votes of the minor parties which didn't made the 5% ;-;)
@@bomschhofmann1644 I said we have the same elements that favour bigger parties. Even a system that encourages smaller parties and coalition politics is likely to have elements that favour larger ones. In New Zealand, because we tend to have 60 to 80% of voters favouring the two largest parties, a 5% threshold works as a huge barrier to entry, and nobody's ever managed to clear it without splitting from an existing party, not even with very wealthy backers. This has, over time, led to a situation where our smaller parties are dying off. (which would be fine, if they were getting replaced) The New Zealand First party mentioned is no longer in Parliament, which in their specific case is great, but we're now down to five parliamentary parties where we've historically had seven or eight under MMP.
Coalitions are a great representation of democracy, and people working/living together. There's no way everyone wants the same and that's why compromise is needed.
I honestly can't understand how can a government only consist of one party. For me, that is not a good idea.
The Anlgo-Saxon model allows for quick decísions on top, while implementation of those decisions runs into many unforseen or unconsidered situations and questions needing answers, slowing down the roll-out and when power changes priority might be lossed.
The continental model, is known for slower decisionmaking, as everybody will want have their say, during implementation (ideally) many aspects of practical implementation will have been considered during decisionmaking by differing groups of people thereby allowing a smoother roll out
Basically it shows the difference between debating an issue and discussing an issue, a debate you'll want to win and a discussion can enrich......
0:20 That is the perfect segue from ad to the video lol
3:22 It should be noted that Australia does not really have coalition governments (at least not in the spirit of this video). There is something called 'The Coalition' which is a permanant historical alliance of two very similar conservative parties who operate in different demographical electorates. The senior party is the Liberal Party which runs in the urban seats, and the junior party is the National Party which runs in rural seats. So, they effectively are the same party but with different branding and focus, not really a coalition. The loyalty between them is rarely questioned.
It is very similar to the CDU and CSU in Germany; the CSU run in Bavarian seats, whilst the CDU runs in every other seat.
The Liberal and the National Party are a coalition in name only, typical coalitions break apart when the Australian Coalition is permanently used together. It is basically one party consisting of two subset factions with different aesthetics.
Ive neverheard anyone consider the LNP to be separate parties.
@@jonathanodude6660 Pedanticly, they are still technically two distinct parties with separate caucuses, leadership-spills, etc., and they do compete against each other in some federal seats. In Queensland seats, it is true that the two parties have merged to form the LNP, but this just means that LNP MPs can sit with either party.
Also, there have been times when the coalition was threaten to split up, e.g. caretaker PM McEwan threatened to break the coalition if the Liberal party elected McMahon as the new PM after Holt (who died as PM), effectively vetoing the Liberal party's leadership. Instead, the Liberal party had to elect Gorton.
But you are correct that they are effectively one party. That is why it would be more accurate to considered them an 'alliance' rather than a 'coalition'. That is why I brought up the CDU and CSU.
Whenever someone says 'failed coalition', I always think of the Napoleonic wars ...
wAR
Nice explainer video 👍🏽
I love these kind of topics. 👍 really like your channels, keep up with great work👏
Some pretty weird arguments against coalitions and compromise there. Why for example would only the junior party have to compromise? Realistically all sides will have to compromise. At least, that's how reality plays out. The only issues here are willingness and communication. Because if there is no willingness to compromise, you won't be able to properly form a coalition and if there is no proper communication, voters will think their party has sold out.
The only legitimate issue here, is where there is a small party that is pretty much always needed and thus gets too much power -- as you point out, apparently happens in NZ. How often does this really happen though and are there really no alternatives? Because when I look at it, I do see several alternatives. That one party is just ideologically fairly close to the biggest party.
Though in all honestly, I hardly know anything about NZ, so I could be wrong here.
I don't know. A lot of these arguments seem to be fear based arguments from the UK, that don't tend to play themselves out in reality. At least, not if you have somewhat competent people in your political parties.
The second part of the video made much more sense to me.
"At least, not if you have somewhat competent people in your political parties" This is why the uk has a problem with coalitions, there isn't any competent politicians on that island
"Why for example would only the junior party have to compromise? Realistically all sides will have to compromise."
Big party: Support this.
Small party: No.
Big party: Support this or I break the coalition and make a new one without you.
Small party: No plz I'll support.
Big party: You better.
Videos like these are so fascinating to watch when you live in a country where the opposite view is the norm.
Imho it seems the countries like Britain forget that most coalition parties can agree on most issues, hence them ruling together means that even though compromises will be made, a large part of their programs will be done without problems.
Here in Slovakia, the last elections we basically tried to make as big of a coalition (without corrupt parties and extremists) that we could haha.
In Spain we have a big-small party but with a relatively strong small party and that depend in a lot of other smaller partys
Great video!
Belgium and the netherlands parties remind my of HRE
Yeah, but most of the parties in The Netherlands are shit in my opinion. Allot of scandals happened this year with all different kinds of parties from left to right, to a seat member to our prime minister. The only problem mainly is our media, that tries to destabilize right wing parties in a unfair way and aren't political neutral. For example the Socialistische Partij (Socialist Party)had a youth club called ''Rood''(red), that called for a communist revolution and it didn't got any attention by the media. Forum voor Democratie(right wing party) had a group chat of there youth club, where 1 person talked about how he fascinated Hitler and the way he did stuff and that one got blown up in the media for months.
They found out this week that a public broadcast called NPO released a propaganda video about Sigrid Kaag(party leader D66) before the elections and that isn't allowed, but also not blown up in the media.
A party member of D66 had groomed underage boys, but he was a lawyer and knows how to operate without breaking the law, so he didn't got send to prison and also didn't got blown up by the media. A member of the PVV got accused of raping and sexually harassment a women that worked inside of the PVV, but that one got blown up in the media as if he was guilty and the coalition and left wing parties acted the same way towards them, but there never was a trial(Report that was send to the police got canceled by the one who reported it first).
Also law and state got worse. Our prime minister and other ministers where involved in many scandals where one is known as''the child benefit scandal'', but after many reports that has done to the police by the victims nothing happened and they got away with it. Our king, some ministers(prime minister included) and some party members of mostly CDA have broken intentional the corona rules. Those CDA members(inc there party leader) and the ministers never got punished for it, but the party leader of Forum voor Democratie(FvD) broke it once and the police tried to investigate it(ordered by the prosecution) to hopefully get a trial and send him to court. There is more, but i think this is enough ;)
@@daanschravendijk9269
Do you identify more with parties like the FvD and PVV?
Part of the issue with Belgium is that they have a Flemish and Walloon party for most political sides.
So instead of (1) Marxists - (2) Social democrats - (3) Environmentalists - (4) moderates - (5) liberals - (6) nationalists - (7) other, you get:
Flemish Walloon:
(1) PVDA PTB
(2) Vooruit (former SPA) PS
(3) Groen! Ecolo
(4) CD&V CDH
(5) OpenVLD MR
(6) Vlaams Belang Défi (former FDF)*
(7) N-VA / (no walloon party)*
So in some sense, there are 'only' 6 or 7 parties, but in practice there are 13.
*Some might consider N-VA to be opposed to Défi instead of Vlaams Belang
Ofcourse, this means that for the fedeeral government, both the Flemish and Walloon party will be in the government, since their ideologies are very similar. Except for the nationalists and some exceptions ofcourse. ;)
@@Robbedem i know that flamders are more concervative and walonians are more liberals and to be honest its so strange how it almost got like islamic party that wanted sharia law hope west will not die or give up with out a fight
@@tomasroque3338 Sort off, but i rather choose JA21.
The problem with (effectively) two-party systems like the UK, US or France is that sometimes both parties are wrong (I realize that France is different but the presidential election still ends up with a choice between two people where both may be horrible).
I live in Denmark. When one party in the group of parties that I like is broken, I can pick another. I do not have to abstain from voting or vote for someone sane that I disagree with. That creates stability and avoids huge changes when the government changes due to a few percent of voters changing their mind.
Running a coalition government - regardless of whether parties are of similar or non-similar size - is a work of art. You need to keep everyone somewhat happy but not allow anyone to have a veto. In particular you need to not be afraid letting the government fall as that in the end is the only way to keep fringe parties from running the show. However in a coalition government, the parties at the center tend to be able to chose which coalition they prefer. The parties with extreme views usually have only one choice. Thus a great leader of a coalition government will bully the extremist as power lies in working with the center. The benefit of that is that that is policy that makes most of the people happy.
Running a coalition government is not that different from dealing with fractions within a party though.
France would be fine if the assembly didn't have the same system as the president, and if the president had limited powers
Switzerland has a constant coalition where the executive is made up roughly proportionally to the legislative. It's called "Zauberformal" (magic formula). As the legislative is also elected from a PR system, you get fairly stable, long-term coalitions. As the government ministers have to work together with ministers from other parties, they tend to become far less partisan.
In Malaysia, we ended up with a 'backdoor government' - a party in the governing coalition switches sides suddenly, therefore causing the opposition to have the majority and being the new (probably unelected) government. I hate it.
In Spain, we have the same system as Italy and Germany and, after more than 50 years of democracy, we are still not used to coalitions (we had a lot of absolute majorities or almost [so any other remaining parties can fill the 2 or 3 MPs lacking]).
Edit: typos.
In the central government yes it us basicaly a duopoly betwen blue and red, even counting the entrance of new more extremist parties that in reality can only make a coalition with the partie next to them, but in the autonomie where i live (Catalonia) we have a pairlament with 8 parties and the current government is a 3 party coalition composed of parties more far apart than even the two parties at the central government
Coalition of Chaos sounds a bit like the Temple of Doom consisting of politics nerds.
In Croatia electoral coalition became popular this lasr decade. Parties would agree on a shared platform and their coalition would have some name and they'd share their place on the ballot and distribute the seats the way they agree. Its pretty neat and stable if the coalition wins.
Those are pre-formed coalitions, though.
Great video, I learnt a lot as a brit!
Step one : make policy compromises
Step two : offer ministrys
Step three: hope they agree
Step four : if Step three doesnt work go to another party
Step Five : if no one accepts you have a new election or a minority gouverment
TLDR: “here a loads of options for just and fair electoral system all you can choose whatever goes best with your political culture”
America: “So I was thinking that we maybe don’t…”
Meh. All America needs to do is make the President a ranked ballot, turn the House election PR and keep the Senate the same. That is all the updating that the American system needs. Maybe they can increase the amount of seats in the House and Senate as well. But beyond that, the American system actually works fine.
Most of the examples in this video are for Parliamentary Unitary systems. America is a Presidential Federal system. It has very different needs.
@@mattbenz99 a system with 2 senators a state would be fine if each state had the same population, but they don’t, so in Republican states, one vote is worth way more than in democrat states.
Also gerrymandering is really bad in the US for local and congressional elections, so that requires an independent unbiased group to fix.
And the electoral college is such an incredibly stupid thing. A simple popular vote is all that is needed
@@thelegend_doggo1062
"a system with 2 senators a state would be fine if each state had the same population"
That defeats the entire purpose. The reason the 2 Senators per state system exists is because different states have different populations. The goal is to make sure the small states have a say in government and the big states can't unilaterally enforce their will on the entire country. Someone living in Wyoming needs to be treated differently than someone in California because they live completely different lifestyles.
@@thelegend_doggo1062 do you not understand why each state is given 2 senators regardless of population?
Gerrymandering would be greatly reduced if multi member districts with proportional representation were enacted.
Having a popular vote for president without ranked choice voting wouldnt solve anything.
@@Knightmessenger I do understand, and it's not really fair, because it means that a constituent from Montana has more of a say in the Senate than a constituent from California.
I've not looked into that, but multi member districts could be an option, although I still think that districts need to be redrawn by an independent impartial committee.
ranked choice voting would help let more parties into Washington, which would help represent more of the population, but a popular vote would on it's own be a massive improvement from the current electoral college
Great Video 👍👍
excellent piece.
I would like to see stats on how anglophone countries compare on how individual votes across the whole country/union/nation translate into seats in the lower house, upper house, head of state, head of gov't etc. Maybe also compare public policy opinions as they translate to national policies.
The situation in Spain is actually quite interesting because is a mixture of the three: only two parties can form government, there are various medium size parties, and plenty of regional parties with sometimes betweem 6 and 1 MPs. As you might imagine, sending a man to the moon is easier than passing a budget
in 2016, in portugal, the party with the most votes was unable to approve the budget,
so António Costa created the strangest coalition ever. he managed to form a coalition the communist party, which wants to collectivize the lands and create control of the proletariat, the workers' party (BE) which is, in itself, a coalition of several smaller parties, the socialist party (the strongest) and the greens.
this frankesntein was called a "gimmick" because no one knew how this coalition held together for an entire 4-year government.
to form a government in portugal, it is only necessary for half of the assembly to not veto the state budget that is presented by the party that obtained the most votes.
if the budget is vetoed, the president invites another party to present its budget. if neither party manages to pass a budget, the president calls for new elections.
This is what needs to happen in the Netherlands. Similar to Israel if the winning party or 2nd party cannot agree to form a coalition government, new elections are called.
In the Netherlands for 3 months talks were completely dead because of integrity issue of the Rutte's liberal VVD party and internal problems of the Christian Democrats CDA.
@@DFandV you dont want it. it was a very corrupted government
Informative video. But you left out what I think is an important concept: Minority governments. A lot of countries have governments where a single party or even a coalition dosen't have the majority. For example in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. They still survive because there isn't a majority against them. They rely on parties that supports them indirectly, because these parties think the government it is better than other coalitions.
Also an important point in parliaments: Some parties like being outside of the government they support, in order to avoid compromises with a larger coalition party. And being able to tell their voters they have kept their promises.
in my country, there are 2 coalitions (a centre right and a centre left) who consist of ca. 25% and 15% parties with 2 10-4% parties. the 4 major parties require the very small ones to get a majority, so the greens or christian party can get some policies enacted.
And this is why the UK should grow up and change its system, at least slightly...
No cause then UKIP would be on a crusade against Islam with like 20% of the vote
Yes I think the mmp system should be used for uk reducing constituencies to 600 and 100 extra seats gained from PR so ppl get two votes a FPTP for yr MP and a party vote
@Fuad Ii no why do u think that
@@DP-ic2lz UKIP are a spent force
@@tomosprice8136 in the like brexit election they got 20% of the vote
"A coalition is a government no-one voted for."
That applies to all British governments. In the parliamentary system, you vote for parliamentarians, not governments.
No one goes to vote like "Man I really like john whoever i want him to represent me because he's the better person. party who?"
In Finland coalition governments are the norm, but resently they dont hold for full 6-year term because of some scandal. Usually the prime minister resigns and we get another government from same parties but different people or at least with different prime minister. The reason we dont get another elections, however, is because they always form a sort of contract, or "a government program" as they call it, after every parlamentary election. This program then lasts even if people change and usually they are very resistant of changing the program.
As an US citizen, I can say A. Parliamentary systems are much more successful than our shit system. B. Coalition governance can prevent the extremely polarized situation we have in the US today.
As someone with property and interests in South Africa, I am very hopeful for a coalition government as of next year.
Great video. Thanks.
For all the faults of the Netherlands, the political is a great plus. If only the parties would be restricted a bit in what they can write into the "this will pass" thing
Were dit i see this flag before
In the Netherlands, they always have the choice to eat their prime minister.
@@niklasmolen4753 straight up, yes. Rutte looks tasty, not gonna lie.
Do you actually like the low threshold to get a seat in the Netherlands?
In Sweden we have a 4% threshold to avoid getting tiny parties. It also helps with keeping the extreme fringes out.
@@Merecir yes. It makes representation very easy. Also, it can promote ideas quicker, and raise "one-issue-parties" quicker to the public eye. Which is a net positive. It all makes the forcing of parties to work with each other better. if the right is leading because of too many/too factured left, they will have to band together. Which ensures a stable/stabler government. The same vice versa.
America is a one-party state with two brands
How is a center left coalition in Europe different from the Democrat party?
@@robertabella1806 It's a coalition and it's center. It also does not play identity politics. Yet.
@@robertabella1806 can be more left. No nukes. Health care cree at point of use. Nationalisation. Less flag humping.
@@julianshepherd2038 no nukes? no one can make nuclear weapons in Europe except for France . and nationalization is straight up socialist
@@robertabella1806 They're significant less corrupt and don't pay every outlet to shill for them. Nor do they blame Russia for their loss.
Switzerland has an interesting take on coalitions: the "Zauberformel". it's a more or less permanent coalition between the biggest or most prominent parties.
I think in the end it doesn't make as much of a difference.
In proportional electoral systems such as the german one, you vote according to your conviction and then the politians have to strike compromises in order to build a gouvernement with other parties.
In first past the post systems such as the UK one, the voters themselves need to compromise in order to avoid votesplitting which than usually insures a majority for a big party.
You presented the previous Belgian 4-party coalition as one of many parties. 4 parties is not that much by Belgian standards, and they were all centre-right or right wing. We now have a 7-party coalition, including greens, socialists, liberals, and conservatives XD
How Europe makes constant coalition governments work
Italy: am I a joke to you?
Yeah i love the actual situation but I know it won’t last that’s why I’m asking to the Spanish and the Swiss to Annex us 😅😂😭😫
Cooperation and humility. Two things forever in short supply.
I'd very much love a video explaining the different democracies in Europe!
In response to the question you raised: in Portugal the system has so far favoured 2 big parties (PS and PSD) and a cluster of very small ones. The two main parties are PS, the socialist party (left leaning) and PSD the social-democratic party (right leaning), and though I have payed very little attention to the actual politics of it all, the overall feeling we have over here is that whenever the other party wins (be it the Prime Minister or a Municipality) it will start actively taking measures to counteract the previous party's actions, and when elections draw near, suddenly, public works get started or finished and stuff actually moves. But between elections, it's the same stuff.
I expected a bit about how the European Commission remains with a stable government
No one, really no one, gives a fuck about the european comission.
@@timokohler6631 Obviously, many people care about the Commission and what they're doing. You might not like them but since they do have a pretty big say I guess it's your loss.
@@maghambor literally everything the Commission does needs to be approved by the Council (the most powerful EU body) and the Parliament (the next most powerful). They remain because they are paper pushers and can't take a shit without asking for approval.
2:55 „A coalition is a government that no one votes for“ I disagree with that sentence. Peoples votes fill the seats in parliament, so they vote the politicians in and trust them to form a government. So indirectly they vote for the government without knowing what coalition there’s gonna be or even if there’s gonna be a coalition.
Exactly. In a parliament that's been elected through proportional representation, any government that can count on a majority in parliament holds, by definition, a mandate from the majority of the electorate.
Great video
In Ireland our election system never changed (STV) but over the past 30 years we've moved from "UK/Australia style coalitions" to almost the level of "belgium and the Netherlands coalitions" just because voter behaviour has changed and become more volatile
What do you think to the fact the main parties won't even talk to Sinn Fein about coalitions?
Do you think that will change in say 15 years time? It must do at some point.
Is the current position not mentally inconsistent with ensuring they are part of Northern Ireland governments?
"We find their existence so reprehensible we won't talk to them. But you, you have to have them in charge."
I don't see that as a bad thing. It's entirely down to the slow death of civil war politics.
Switzerland sitting in the corner: “If your government form already is a coalition, you don’t need a coalition of parties to form a government.” 😉🤯
Thanks to the abrogating referenda potential of big parties...
The individuals do get changed out, but the party seats in govt are preset. It did change with the addition of an extra seat for one party at the expense of another. Further, the symbolic presidency (chair) of the federal council rotates so all in govt gets a chance to be the president.
The federal assembly (parliament) ensures that parties can still vote without compromise, if they wish.
The swiss system is collegial, not presidential or parliamentary.
Wouldnt have Sweden in the thumbnail given that our government collapsed two weeks ago.
Deputy: You Excellency, you just lost the confidence Vote.
And the opposition has enough support to form a new government.
Head of Government: D'ooohhhhhh noooooooo
Ignoring decades of stable coalitions because one collapsed recently?
@@Medicus_Asur well tbf sweden has major issues coming foward
they chose to ignore it but as somepoint it was come and bait them in the ass
@@Jayvee4635 problem: they dont
Maybe the idea should be to form coalitions based on issues instead of parties ie if the 2 largest parties formed a coalition around the issues where they agree but disagreed on 1 issue say college tuition, then the party that say supported reducing tuition can form a coalition with 1 or more smaller parties that agree with them on that stance (assuming that together they make up a majority) and create a temporary coalition to pass a bill on that issue without having to compromise on the other issues.
In South Africa we are in the infancies of been coalition driven country rather than a dominate single party. I agree that coalitions bring more a centralist/common policy agreement(s) and dampers down the more extreme policy(ies) of the parties forming the coalition.
Right now in Italy all parties but one are part of the government 😂
which is the one that is excluded?
@@elliot04877 FdI
@@elliot04877 far right
@@elliot04877 also they were actually asked to be part of the government (just like every other party) but declined the offer
@@MrSaverio97 I have seen them in the polls, they are huge right now. So why did they decline to be in goverment? And i thought lega was the far right party?
*laughs in belgian*
In Australia, we essentially have 4 parties, left, centre left, centre right, right
Both central parties are the main ones who will normally get atleast 40% each. If they don’t receive 50% they will form a coalition with smaller party on their side. Especially as we have preferential voting
I grew up in a country where there is no true party as everyone is a shameless powergrubber who jumps onto the winning president's ship. When I moved to Belgium, I was quite bemused on how the country functions as well as it does with how fragmented it is. To think that the bureaucracy is (too) resilient to maintain a nation during the long absence of a government when I kept on hearing about how the US grinds to a halt when no budget is agreed on. I have come to love Belgium's approach though as it stretches down to my workplace and apartment building. Quite amazing how we somehow keep on managing our ship to move when we're as eager to pull it apart.
PR is the fairest, most democratic system.
3:23 laughs in Germany
Coalitions with one large and one small party can be very stable. Until a few elections ago this used to be the norm in Germany with the CDU and SPD being the two big parties and 2-3 smaller Parties in parliament. I think one of the biggest problems with coalitions in the UK is that people (including politicians) are just not used to them.
Wow, so many parties