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Notes -
Now we're in the realm of pure theory.
If a parliamentary system has an election and a new party is voted in, the entire government -- legislative and executive -- changes. If they prevent such swings by not having elections they're clearly not representative. If the party changes but policy doesn't for some reason, again, they're not representative.
Most governing coalitions are 2 parties, and when there are 3 one of them is generally small and has little influence. When the governing coalition changes, the new one generally has one large party in common with the old. These are found empirically, and there are theoretical reasons to expect it, so its propably not some hidden sign of not really having elections. And this means that the usual size of a swing is much smaller. Coalitions can also last quite long, because they do react to changes in the relative vote contribution of their members.
The US also votes in a new executive and legislature. They are not necessarily the same, but they are more than half the time. Almost every president had at least one 2-year period with a congress of the same party, so we should still expect one potential flip per president.
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