Sad to say I live in a state that just preemptively banned ranked-choice voting (Missouri). (We also preemptively banned plastic bag bans when those were starting to get traction, ugh.)
I really enjoyed this Freakonomics ep about understanding our political system as a duopoly much like Coke and Pepsi are a duopoly.
Great arguments, Darby. I really do believe that many of our political problems in this country could be solved, or at least addressed more fully, if we could get out of a two party system. A parliamentary system, where the party selects the leader, does seem to provide much better outcomes on the whole. The part about ranked choice voting or parliamentary systems privileging ideas and policies rather than features of individual candidates makes very good sense to me, as does the notion that people are more skeptical of electing women in the United States in a race like the presidency, which is so often driven by personality and who you want to have a beer (Chardonnay?) with.
"The lack of female representation in U.S. politics costs us, because there’s solid evidence that countries with a greater proportion of female leaders are, on the whole, more stable, less beset by political corruption, and more likely to invest in education, healthcare, and pro-family policies like parental leave and high-quality childcare.. Female leadership is even moderately correlated (+0.40) with national GDP:"
Umm this seems extremely confounded. If there are a lot of women in government, this is an INDICATOR that something is true about a country. That it is probably developed, socially liberal, and so on. It doesn't mean that putting more women in government will make a country more like something. You can look at India, where Indira Gandhi came to power, and then what?
I think that countries with PR have more women because there are often quotas and political pressure from within the party to put more women on the list. I know that a lot of the center-left parties in Israel have explicit gender quotas. I am sure that if the US had PR, the Democrats would go put a bunch of women on their lists who are less popular, just because they are women. That's how we got Harris as Biden's VP. What is really going on is that women are less interested in becoming politicians. If anything this reflects well on women. But when politicians themselves choose the lists, you end up with more women.
I don't think it follows that implementing PR or something like that will necessary lead to more left-wing policies or more feminist. Is there evidence of that? I don't see that. The UK has a fist past the post system and it's not very anti feminist or whatever because of it. In fact the UK has had several female Prime Ministers (Thatcher, May, Truss), all from the Tories. The head of the Tories is currently a woman.
Yes - right below the passage you quoted, I made exactly that point re: confounding with a third variable explanation:
"Of course, there are plenty of terrible female politicians, here and abroad. Electing women is not an end in itself.
Rather, there may be a third variable explanation for the benefits of female leadership. That is, a political system that makes it easier to elect women comes with other advantages that improve national governance. Since they require more consensus-building and party alliances, proportional voting systems reward candidates who can find compromise."
I'm skeptical that this is the mechanism by which PR leads to more female representation. I'm familiar with the Israeli case, and there is a lot of female representation because the center-left parties have quotas. Certainly not every OECD country in this chart. Israel, which has PR, is not. I don't see Australia. Or Greece. And so on. I'd want a chart with all OECD members.
It's definitely true that some of the parties in proportional voting countries have gender quotas. But that's not because of charity - it's because it's good politics. If a party is nominating a slate of 10 candidates, making the slate gender-balanced ensures you're reaching your whole constituency, and will appeal to certain voters. So the parties are reacting to external incentives coming from voters.
Australia is on the chart! It's shaded gray because it uses a mixed voting system. I couldn't put the whole OECD on here because the chart gets hard to read but I will try redoing it with more countries.
Sad to say I live in a state that just preemptively banned ranked-choice voting (Missouri). (We also preemptively banned plastic bag bans when those were starting to get traction, ugh.)
I really enjoyed this Freakonomics ep about understanding our political system as a duopoly much like Coke and Pepsi are a duopoly.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/americas-hidden-duopoly_radio/
Seems like a lot of red states are banning RCV - which raises the question, what are they afraid of?
Great arguments, Darby. I really do believe that many of our political problems in this country could be solved, or at least addressed more fully, if we could get out of a two party system. A parliamentary system, where the party selects the leader, does seem to provide much better outcomes on the whole. The part about ranked choice voting or parliamentary systems privileging ideas and policies rather than features of individual candidates makes very good sense to me, as does the notion that people are more skeptical of electing women in the United States in a race like the presidency, which is so often driven by personality and who you want to have a beer (Chardonnay?) with.
Yes! Thanks so much for commenting. I agree...the question is just how to get there but maybe we start by getting more traction at the local level.
"The lack of female representation in U.S. politics costs us, because there’s solid evidence that countries with a greater proportion of female leaders are, on the whole, more stable, less beset by political corruption, and more likely to invest in education, healthcare, and pro-family policies like parental leave and high-quality childcare.. Female leadership is even moderately correlated (+0.40) with national GDP:"
Umm this seems extremely confounded. If there are a lot of women in government, this is an INDICATOR that something is true about a country. That it is probably developed, socially liberal, and so on. It doesn't mean that putting more women in government will make a country more like something. You can look at India, where Indira Gandhi came to power, and then what?
I think that countries with PR have more women because there are often quotas and political pressure from within the party to put more women on the list. I know that a lot of the center-left parties in Israel have explicit gender quotas. I am sure that if the US had PR, the Democrats would go put a bunch of women on their lists who are less popular, just because they are women. That's how we got Harris as Biden's VP. What is really going on is that women are less interested in becoming politicians. If anything this reflects well on women. But when politicians themselves choose the lists, you end up with more women.
I don't think it follows that implementing PR or something like that will necessary lead to more left-wing policies or more feminist. Is there evidence of that? I don't see that. The UK has a fist past the post system and it's not very anti feminist or whatever because of it. In fact the UK has had several female Prime Ministers (Thatcher, May, Truss), all from the Tories. The head of the Tories is currently a woman.
Yes - right below the passage you quoted, I made exactly that point re: confounding with a third variable explanation:
"Of course, there are plenty of terrible female politicians, here and abroad. Electing women is not an end in itself.
Rather, there may be a third variable explanation for the benefits of female leadership. That is, a political system that makes it easier to elect women comes with other advantages that improve national governance. Since they require more consensus-building and party alliances, proportional voting systems reward candidates who can find compromise."
I'm skeptical that this is the mechanism by which PR leads to more female representation. I'm familiar with the Israeli case, and there is a lot of female representation because the center-left parties have quotas. Certainly not every OECD country in this chart. Israel, which has PR, is not. I don't see Australia. Or Greece. And so on. I'd want a chart with all OECD members.
It's definitely true that some of the parties in proportional voting countries have gender quotas. But that's not because of charity - it's because it's good politics. If a party is nominating a slate of 10 candidates, making the slate gender-balanced ensures you're reaching your whole constituency, and will appeal to certain voters. So the parties are reacting to external incentives coming from voters.
Australia is on the chart! It's shaded gray because it uses a mixed voting system. I couldn't put the whole OECD on here because the chart gets hard to read but I will try redoing it with more countries.