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Majoritarian democracy is a form of democracy based upon majority rule of a polity's citizens. [1] Majoritarian democracy contrasts with consensus democracy, rule by as many people as possible. [1] [2] [3] [4]
In the majoritarian vision of democracy, voters mandate successfully-elected politicians to enact the policies they proposed during their electoral campaign. [5] Elections are the focal point of political engagement, with limited ability for the people to influence policymaking between elections. [6]
Though common, majoritarian democracy is not universally accepted – majoritarian democracy is criticized as having the inherent danger of becoming a "tyranny of the majority" whereby the majority in society could oppress or exclude minority groups, [1] which can lead to violence and civil war. [2] [3] Some argue[ who? ] that since parliament, statutes and preparatory works are very important in majoritarian democracies,[ citation needed ] and considering the absence of a tradition to exercise judicial review at the national level,[ citation needed ] majoritarian democracies are undemocratic.[ citation needed ]
Fascism rejects majoritarian democracy because the latter assumes equality of citizens and fascists claim that fascism is a form of authoritarian democracy that represents the views of a dynamic organized minority of a nation rather than the disorganized majority. [7]
Australia and Canada are examples of majoritarian democracies.[ citation needed ] Representatives are chosen not by proportional electoral systems, but by a system based on plurality voting.[ citation needed ] Contrary to popular belief, the USA is not a majoritarian democracy[ citation needed ] as they can have an elected individual based on points from the majority of county and further state votes.[ citation needed ][ clarification needed ] This means an individual can be in power in the USA while having a minority vote overall.[ citation needed ]
In representative democracies, gerrymandering is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" or "packing". Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions among voters. The essence of such systems is that all votes cast - or almost all votes cast - contribute to the result and are effectively used to help elect someone—not just a bare plurality, or (exclusively) the majority—and that the system produces mixed, balanced representation reflecting how votes are cast.
In political science, Duverger's law holds that single-ballot majoritarian elections with single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system. The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a "law" or principle.
In a first-past-the-post electoral system, formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their vote for a candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins even if the top candidate gets less than 50%, which can happen when there are more than two popular candidates.
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It is the most common form of mixed member majoritarian representation (MMM), which is why these terms are often used synonymously with each other. In some countries, parallel voting is known as the supplementary member (SM) system, while in academic literature it is sometimes called the superposition method within mixed systems.
Majoritarianism is a political philosophy or ideology with the agenda asserting that a majority based on a religion, language, social class, or other category of the population, is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. This traditional view has come under growing criticism, and liberal democracies have increasingly included constraints on what the parliamentary majority can do, in order to protect citizens' fundamental rights.
Majority rule is the principle that the group that has the most supporters gets its way. It is the binary decision rule most often used in decision-making bodies, including many legislatures of democratic nations.
Geniocracy is the framework for a system of government which was first proposed by Raël in 1977 and which advocates a certain minimal criterion of intelligence for political candidates and also the electorate.
How Democratic is the American Constitution? is a book by political scientist Robert A. Dahl that discusses seven "undemocratic" elements of the United States Constitution.
The single-chamber Parliament of Georgia has 150 members, elected for a four-year term through elections. The last presidential elections were held in October 2018 due to constitutional changes taking effect in 2024, after which the president will be elected for a five-year term by a parliamentary college of electors. The series of constitutional changes, initiated in 2017, stipulated a one-time transitional presidential term of six years for 2018–2024. Other major systemic changes included a move to a fully proportional system by 2024 with a 5% threshold.
The majority criterion is a single-winner voting system criterion, used to compare such systems. The criterion states that "if one candidate is ranked first by a majority of voters, then that candidate must win".
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under a representative democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. After a period of expansion in the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy became a prevalent political system in the world.
Power sharing is a practice in conflict resolution where multiple groups distribute political, military, or economic power among themselves according to agreed rules. It can refer to any formal framework or informal pact that regulates the distribution of power between divided communities. Since the end of the Cold War, power-sharing systems have become increasingly commonplace in negotiating settlements for armed conflict. Two common theoretical approaches to power sharing are consociationalism and centripetalism.
Semi-proportional representation characterizes multi-winner electoral systems which allow representation of minorities, but are not intended to reflect the strength of the competing political forces in close proportion to the votes they receive. Semi-proportional voting systems can be regarded as compromises between forms of proportional representation such as party-list PR, and plurality/majoritarian systems such as first-past-the-post voting. Examples of semi-proportional systems include the single non-transferable vote, limited voting, and parallel voting.
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices.
A majoritarian electoral system is an electoral system where the candidate with the most votes takes the seat using the winner-takes-all principle and in this way provides majoritarian representation. However, there are many electoral systems considered majoritarian based on different definitions, including types of at-large majoritarian representation such as block voting or party block voting, but district-based majoritarian systems such as first-past-the-post voting (FPTP/SMP). Where two candidates are in the running, the one with the most votes will have a majority, but where there are three or more candidates, it often happens that no candidate takes a majority of the votes.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to politics and political science:
A mixed electoral system or mixed-member electoral system combines methods of majoritarian and proportional representation (PR). The majoritarian component is usually first-past-the-post voting (FPTP/SMP), whereas the proportional component is most often based on party-list PR. The results of the combination may be mixed-member proportional (MMP), where the overall results of the elections are proportional, or mixed-member majoritarian, in which case the overall results are semi-proportional, retaining disproportionalities from the majoritarian component.
Mixed member majoritarian representation (MMM) is type of a mixed electoral system combining majoritarian and proportional methods, where the disproportional results of the majoritarian side of the system prevail over the proportional component. Mixed member majoritarian systems are therefore also as a type of semi-proportional representation, and are usually contrasted with mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) which aims to provide proportional representation via additional compensation ("top-up") seats.
According to our model the proportional system has a lower probability of rebellion than the majoritarian system. .. Empirically, we find that countries with proportional system has the lowest probability that groups rebel and that the more inclusive is the system, the smaller the probability of suffering a civil war.
Unfortunately, one of the worst democratic structures is the most ubiquitous: majority rule based on majority voting. It must be emphasised, furthermore, that these two practices are often the catalysts of division and bitterness, if not indeed violence and war.