Democracy, voting system and financing Flashcards
What are the 5 criteria that democracies are assessed on?
Electoral process and pluralism
The functioning of government
Political participation
Democratic political culture
Civil liberties
What there the key components of Australia’s democracy?
Representative democracy—Australians vote for members of parliament to make laws on their behalf – Federal elections = every 3 years
Constitutional monarchy—The King is Australia’s head of state but does not have absolute power and is required to follow the Australian Constitution. The King gives his powers to the Governor-General.
Federation of states—A Federation is a group of states who have given some of their law-making powers to a national government and kept some law-making powers for local matters.
Separation of powers – how power to make and manage laws is shared between the parliament makes the law, the executive (government) puts law into action and the judiciary (courts) settles disputes about the law
What would the benefit of increasing Australia’s electoral terms be?
cheaper
less election fatigue
politicians could focus more on governing than campaigning
increased certainty for business = increase investment
increased certainty for consumers = increase spending
What would the negatives be for increasing Australia’s electoral terms?
decrease in accountability for politicians
unpopular governments would be in power for longer
What are the drawbacks of flexible terms for elections
can be manipulated by the govt. as they can call elections when circumstances (e.g. economy) make them more popular
How does the First-Past-the-Post electoral system work?
Country divided into constituencies
Each constituency has one seat
Voters select first preference only
Candidate with most votes (even if not majority wins)
What are the advantages of first-past-the-post system?
Creates single party governments = more stable
Creates a single large opposition
Tends to lead to 2 ‘broad church’ parties = less divided, encompass lots of different views
Tends to exclude extremist parties
Creates link b/w MP and their constituency
Simplest for people to understand = legitimacy
What are the disadvantages of first past the post
Governments elected w/o support of 50% population t/f do not have popular sovereignty
Excludes minority parties
Can exclude minority groups
Open to manipulation of electoral boundaries (gerrymandering)
How does preferential voting work?
Country divided into constituencies
Each constituency has one seat
Voters rank candidates in order of preference
Votes counted, if no candidate has 50% +, least popular candidate is eliminated and their preferences are redistributed - keeps happening until one candidate reaches 50%+1
What are the advantages of preferential voting?
more representative of will of people than First-Past-the-Post = greater popular sovereignty
Creates link b/w MP and their constituency
Big political parties have to be more responsive to smaller groups in order to attract preferences - makes partied ‘broader churches’
Allows minor parties to influence political agenda
No wasted votes
Still leads to one party gaining majority of seats which can make government more stable
What are the disadvantages of preferential voting?
It requires a reasonable degree of literacy and numeracy to be used effectively
It is not as proportional as proportional representation - major parties get more seats than they get votes
Leads to a single party government which is not an accurate representation of the will of the people
How does proportional representation electoral systems work?
state divided into constituencies
each constituency has multiple seats (more than one person elected)
more than one candidate from each party can run in each seat
voters indicate preferences
quota is set (#votes/#seats+1) - that is what is needed to ‘win’ a seat
counting occurs, if a candidate reaches their quota then any surplus votes are reallocated to second preference
if nobody reaches quota then lowest ranked candidate is eliminated and their preferences are redistributed
continues until all seats are allocated
Advantages of proportional representation
tends not to lead to any party gaining a majority, so leads to coalition governments which better represent popular sovereignty
most representative of will of the people in terms of who is elected
allows voters to pick between candidates from the same party - rather than that being dictated by the party
Disadvantages of proportional representation
Most complex for people to understand
Leads to coalition governments (more than one party share power) - therefore, only works where parties can work together and compromise - otherwise unstable
Can lead to fractures within a party
What is compulsory voting and how many states have compulsory voting
leads to higher turnout = higher level of engagement t/f increased popular sovereignty
Increases stability b/c people were involved
Prevents disengagement
