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One thing about MMP that is at least theoretically an issue (not sure in practice how much of an issue it is, and it's something that the public could be informed about if it was) in places that are transferring from single-member systems, is that the voter must be aware that their party list...

It seems to work reasonably well in Germany. Personally I prefer regular proportional representation, however I think in most English-speaking nations, MMP is more likely to be adopted than PR, given the seemingly unshakeable cultural preference in these nations for having a specific local...

Realistically, if Gillard had decided to play hardball with the Greens and refused to budge on the Carbon Tax issue, what could they have realistically done? Unlike the Democrats who were centrist, the Greens are of course well the left of the ALP, so the ALP in negotiations does the have...

Is there any particular reason for this? Is it just the very high population of England compared to the rest of the UK? Or is it a concern that people will oppose an England-wide at-large district because 'if we don't assign them a particular locale, they'll all choose to live in London'? I'm...

While Alon has posted a link which provides a comprehensive overview of MMP, I'll use a very simplified and 'back of an envelope calculation' example of how it work. Under MMP, all voters get to 2 votes: a constituency vote (which they do now under FPTP) and a party list vote. The constituency...

Any interest in this?

Challenge: To have the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system replace First Past The Post (FPTP) in the UK at national elections. POD: Anytime from 1945 onwards. More information: Most discussions of the possibility of changing the electoral system in the UK centre on the...

My understanding of the reasoning behind the 'Africa was decolonised too soon' argument is the comparison made with India. Of course there are many other reasons why India fared better post-independence than Africa, but one of them is said to be how since the very early 20th century, there has...

Just a question: What is the specific reason why the 2/3rd majority of (only) the Senate rule was included the US Constitution in the first place? Is this used in other federations? Was it done to prevent the Federal government from using its treaty-making powers to undermine state powers? I'm...

It is true that nowadays it would hard in most metropolitan areas to afford rent on 15 hours of work a week, but would in this ATL rents rise that much if most people have comparatively lower incomes with which to pay the rent with? To some extent the prices of some things rise with the...

Perhaps, the most plausible (or alternatively the least implausible) way to get the USSR to 'do a China', is precisely NOT to have China do those reforms and instead become even more ideologically driven and militarily assertive in Asia (particularly SE Asia) in the 1970's and post-Mao. Of...

In the first half of the 20th century, it was widely viewed that by the early 21st century, the working-week would be significantly lower that it is currently (35-40 in most Western nations). Probably the most famous example of this was Keynes who in the essay Economic Possibilities for Our...

I agree a military coup is unlikely, although the concept of it being a Tory government overthrown by a military coup would make a very interesting TL (the usual assumption is that it would be a hard-left Labour government that was overthrown).

Isn't this a bit of an exaggeration? I don't mean that the Iranian government since 1979 hasn't been a fundamentalist regime, but I mean that your comment seems to imply that is something unstable/'mad' about the leadership, which I would tend to disagree with; this is the thing that in my...

I was always under the impression that it is generally Argentina/Uruguay/Chile (particularly the latter two) that have been consistently viewed as the Latin American nations most likely to have Western level development, not least because they are basically the Western Hemisphere versions of...

It is often assumed that the reason Hoover was so overly lenient to the Mafia was because they have incriminating photos and blackmailing him. But you definitely have a point. Given that Hoover was disliked by quite a lot of influential people, it is quite surprising that no one decided to...

Isn't the much of at least the initial cause of much of the decline in Western manufacturing due to the massive reductions in tariffs since the early 1960s? Broadly I do agree that much of the post-war/New Deal-era economic consensus works best when there is an implicit deal between...

I disagree with many who say it is impossible for the West to have turned left in the 1970s/80s, 'because it has already turned Left'. What it IS correct to say, is that it was clear in the mid-late 1970s that much of the 'post-war economic settlement' wasn't working particularly well...

If you don't mind, would be go into a bit more detail about this; is there an actual prohibition on budget deficits in Sweden. I know things like that have been discussed in various nations, but wasn't aware that any such policy has been actually adopted anywhere. My understand of the...

I admit I don't know much about Cold War nuclear strategy (particularly Soviet), but wasn't MAD as a doctrine in itself, always a primarily American policy and the Soviets but much more emphasis on the concept of a 'winnable' nuclear war (including much more extensive civil defence measures...