Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I DEMOCRACY AND GLOBALIZATION
- PART II INDIA AND THE WORLD
- PART III SOCIAL NORMS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
- 21 Social Norms, Law, and Economics
- 22 Methodological Individualism in the Social Sciences
- 23 Left Politics and Modern Economics
- 24 Hung Parliament: A Voting Scheme for Preventing It
- 25 Money, Music, and Harmony
- 26 Rules of Engagement
- 27 The Enigma of Advertising
- 28 The Truth About Lying
- 29 Rationality: New Research in Psychology and Economics
- 30 Higher and Lower Education
- PART IV PERSONS
- PART V ON THE ROAD, AROUND THE WORLD
- Index
24 - Hung Parliament: A Voting Scheme for Preventing It
from PART III - SOCIAL NORMS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I DEMOCRACY AND GLOBALIZATION
- PART II INDIA AND THE WORLD
- PART III SOCIAL NORMS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
- 21 Social Norms, Law, and Economics
- 22 Methodological Individualism in the Social Sciences
- 23 Left Politics and Modern Economics
- 24 Hung Parliament: A Voting Scheme for Preventing It
- 25 Money, Music, and Harmony
- 26 Rules of Engagement
- 27 The Enigma of Advertising
- 28 The Truth About Lying
- 29 Rationality: New Research in Psychology and Economics
- 30 Higher and Lower Education
- PART IV PERSONS
- PART V ON THE ROAD, AROUND THE WORLD
- Index
Summary
A major concern for all Indians today is the repeat appearance of hung parliaments. If after an election no party manages to establish a majority in parliament, the standard recourse has been to call another election. However, with around 600 million voters, elections are expensive, and there is no guarantee that the new parliament will yield a majority. So I suggest a new voting system which, without sacrificing the basic principles of democracy, will almost always guarantee that one party will come out with a majority.
In suggesting this scheme a few criteria are worth bearing in mind. First, the new system must be simple, so that even the illiterate voter can understand it. Second, it must not be so different from the present system that it gets rejected out of hand as too alien to Indian democracy. Indeed, I believe India would be better served by a presidential system, and we could then use the system of run-offs that many countries use to ensure that the elected president has majority support. But this would involve too major a change for it to be immediately implementable. Finally, it must not be too expensive.
What I am about to suggest meets all these criteria and can be adopted in the very next election, which, given the current prognosis, may not be too far away.
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- Information
- The Retreat of Democracy and Other Itinerant Essays on Globalization, Economics, and India , pp. 179 - 181Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2010
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