Does the Tories’ alliance with the DUP demonstrate a potential problem with proportional representation where a government ostensibly in the mainstream is pushed to an extreme by forming a coalition with a fringe party? Could situations like that be avoided or is it an essential problem with proportional representation?
For those of you who do not know, the DUP is an Ulster unionist party and a bunch of jerks. In the wake of this year’s election, the Conservatives found themselves a minority party and could only form a government by forming a coalition with the DUP. Numerous observers criticized May for her choice of bedfellows, teaming as she did with the political arm of a former terrorist organization.
Your argument here is faulty in that you employ implicit premises that are oblivious to the political culture in (many if not most) continental European PR democracies.
In most of those (that i have the least knowledge about) including my own there is a culture of responsibility, that the UK apparently lacks (obviously because usually it's not needed in the first place).
Radical small parties are marginalised.
Moderate parties or sharp wing parties that are at least percieved to be supporters of the system are expected to be ready for whatever is deemed the "responsible" coalition government.
Major parties are expected to enforce this. They are expected to not do wacky experiments with radical fringe parties potentially hostile to constitutional order, decency, whathaveyou.
If need be major parties are expected to govern together.
The electorate is supposed to (and often does) reward and punish parties according to whether they uphold or transgress against this code of responsibility.
(The whole thing is backed up by tangible game theory, it's not just some lofty notion).
Let me demonstrate with a comparison of the current governments of the UK and the FRG:
This is the current Federal Diet:
Coming at this from an Anglospherian perspective you may wonder why the heck Merkel gets to govern the country (seeing additionally the left wing parties have the upper hand in the Federal Council - our upper house).
The cause is that for the longest time this nice pink party over there was deemed too radical to act responsibly in government. There's movement on this, in the near future a left wing government as seems opportune here might come to pass (if the seat allocations enabled it, which they will likely no longer do after the election next month).
People on the left often joke about how 320 is totally less than 311 while rolling their eyes (e.g. i may have done so on this board actually) - vaguely analogues to ranting Sanders supporters.
The result is that, abiding by the code of responsibility, both major parties govern together, as they did in the 16th Diet (i.e. 05-09).
There is some room for license in this code and this is where we get to the UK:
From a German perspective the LibDem refusal to enter a coalition would be deemed highly unorthodox and be subjected to intense scrutiny. In this particular case though there would be some empathy for their recent coalition experience and the public would, maybe, begrudgingly give them a pass.
The - very firm - expectation then would be that Conservatives and Labour would form a coalition government heavily emphasising consensus, reconciliation and national unification, particularly so due to the challenges of Brexit the wounds and resentments of the referendum etc.
What happened instead in the UK would have been deemed hyper-partisan, morally corrupt, the hight of recklessness and plain outragegous.
The country would be in a state of anger and political uproar.
(It would also be close to ungovernable due to the Federal Council considerations, but that's neither here not there).
Also:
As TF has pointed out the current coalition would have been prevented by PR in the first place, by not awarding Conservatives and the DUP the necessary seats in the first place.
No one made that declaration!
The potential problem in question came to me in the shower this morning, and I was curious if anyone knew of a solution. I don’t think anyone is suggesting British democracy is broke. I’m just curious if people a.) think of this behavior as a flaw and b.) can think of a solution.
I wouldn't say "broke". But...
My perception of political culture in the UK (and arguably the US and Canada as well) is hardly unique around here.
Also, the Basic Law outlines four criteria for what we deem a "democratic election".
The UK violates one of them, while the US grossly violates (at least) two of them with intent and prejudice.
So there's that.
Uprooting the entire system would be politically infeasible, and as I said, proportional representation has its own issues, but something needs to be done. Ranked choice voting would be a pretty good starting point.
As i have repeatedly stated i am fiercely critical of these harebrained AV/instant run-off schemes.
They are frought with moral hazard and only properly address parts of FPTP's problems.
There are less radical changes that could be made in the US, that would lead to some improvement while being wildly more feasable than switching to AV (or whatever).
There's the Interstate Compact for one. Or states could split their votes the way Nebraska and Maine do.
As for the House (and implicitly the presidency when combined with the above) multi-member districts (vaguely resembling the Australian Senate* to give a real life example) would be a significant improvement.
*(By which i mean, again, multi-member districts, not the silly AV stuff, obviously, having already stated my distatse for the latter)
