POLSCI 1G06 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Minority Interest, Plurality Voting System, Direct Democracy
7 Apr 2016
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Political science 1g06 2013 lecture 10a: institutionalizing democracy. Our political system is a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy. Elected representatives in government are supposed to give voice to the will of the people. The institutional mechanism chosen to sort millions of votes into a few hundred representatives is profoundly political. Dickerson and flanagan: the result obtained from an election depends upon the method that is employed . There are a number of institutional solutions to the problem of representation: single member plurality system first past the post winner takes all. This is the institutional procedure used in canada, britain, us. Ridings: one vote who will best represent. It is marked by a distortion between the votes cast and the electoral outcomes produced. Steadily and progressively going down: parties with geographically concentrated support may see their influence magnified, parties with support that is spread too thin geographically may see their influence reduced.
