Talk:Majoritarian

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I am no expert on the subject and I dont have much time, but this obviously needs attention.. If anyone else wants to take care of it..--24.221.187.19 06:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and it's not plurality. Plurality means the most votes. It could be any number but the "plurality" is more votes than anyone else. Majoritarian is a broader term.

In a majoritarian system the plurality does not necessarily win. In New Zealand, with plurality electoral districts, in 1978 the conservatives got fewer votes than Labour yet retained government. Australia has majoritarian systems in most of its lower houses but none are plurality because it is all "alternative vote", ie preference voting. So majoritarian is not (necessarily) plurality and it is also not majority. "Majoritarian" is a bad name and I think Lijphart should be demoted to demi-god for having created it. It is rarely the case that in a majoritarian system, the winning party has a majority - it happens but it is rare. Presumably "majoritarian" is supposed to indicate that one party wins a majority of seats despite not (almost never) winning a majority of votes. Majoritarian means, as Lijphart says, concentrating power.

In NZ, BTW, the same thing happened again in 1981. Labour got so annoyed that when they did finally win (1984), they set up an inquiry the upshot of which, somewhat famously, was to chuck the 140 year-old Westminster majoritarian system out the window and install German proportional representation. Now, the government always has a majority supported by a majority of votes. But that is called (by Lijphart) a "consensus" system.

- Pepper 150.203.227.130 03:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)