So what up in Hong Kong?

[warpus]

Surely 1 party is even worse/more upfront foolery, but 2 parties is not really in practice something better by much. If some oligarchs have the power to control/place 100 people in one party, chances are they can do it for 200 in two parties.

It fully depends on the situation IMO.

My initial post was basically just a point that having exactly 1 party will almost never lead to anything good for the citizens. Two parties isn't that much better, you're right, but most democracies have more than 2 parties. I'm not sure if I can really imagine a system in which there are exactly 2 parties. That's a pretty interesting idea actually, I wonder if anyone's ever written anything about it. But I think if we're going to artificially limit the number of parties to something, you might as well go with 3 or 5. I think hat's going to be a lot more balanced.

In the case of the U.S. there are 2 parties that dominate, but that's a bit different. Their system has problems, but in theory their people have choice. I think the benefits of something like that over a system with just 1 party can be most apparent at the municipal level. At the state level I'm not sure, it probably differs from state to state. And on the federal level I'm pretty sure they're screwed.

 

[Borachio]

What difference does it make in the end?

One party is still going to have members with a spectrum of views, and represent a coalition of some sort. And a changing system of alliances. That's just the way people are.

Equally, a multi-party system is still going to have an overarching one party aspect: the political elite itself, if nothing more.

 

[plarq]

Well, things boiled down to political dynamics I think.

Yes, the gap between political elites and the masses is large no matter what political system you choose (besides direct democratic system). However, the masses have the "penalty" role for exceptionally bad political administrations. As long as this penalty discourage irresponsible political behavior, that is the check and balance we see in elective system. It may not work, as we can see, under the following conditions:

1) The regime is more or less a puppet regime. Because penalties from the master is much more powerful than from the people, the puppet regime, even if democratically elected, have to disregard people's will in favor of master's command.

2) Internal or external crisis. Because the situation is bad no matter what, the people will keep punishing the current administration, causing "music chair" style of government replacement, which further weakens the role and capacity of the government. Usually it ends violently by a coup or an invasion.