Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
In a typical parliamentary system political parties are supposed to vote in lockstep. There's a bit of leeway when political parties are in opposition, some issues might be declared "issues of conscience" where there's a free vote (typically stuff like abortion or euthanasia where some MPs might have religious reasons for voting against the party line) and sometimes MPs vote against the party line and get away with it when it doesn't affect any major vote, but especially when parties are in the government, they're supposed to vote the government's policies through without a fail. If they repeatedly go against their party, they'll be kicked out of the group, possibly out of the whole party.
It's also my understanding that Sinn Féin, due to its history, still is particularly regimented and disciplined in its voting, and doesn't tolerate open dissension easily.
Do you think that's a good way to do things or a flaw in the typical parliamentary system?
It's basically a product of the system. When you have governments consisting of coalitions between parties and when elected representatives are reliant on the party for support (particularly in PR systems where the MPs are not really dependent on having the support of some precise geographical one-MP constituency but larger and more inchoate electoral districts), the only way you can get the business of government done is those parties agreeing on a governmental program and then making sure no-one defects, since if defection is allowed, there's too much of a risk that parties start trying to maneuver to get things on the program they don't like busted (ie. even if they don't formally vote against some law they "allow" a sufficient number of MPs required to get it scuppered to vote against it or so on).
Whether such a system is better than, for instance, the American system, is of course a question on opinion. There are probably more important things to consider than the precise methods of representative democracy whichever country chooses.
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Flaw.
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