Opinion: Majoritarian vs. Consensus Democracy

By Mia Korsunsky

Every state has different constituents, different histories, and different governments. Today’s democratic leaders continually claim that democracy is the best form of government, often pushing it onto other states thinking it would fulfill their moral obligations to liberate the people in them. So much so, that the notion that democracy is the superior governmental system has become relatively widespread, believed by many across the world. However, democracy comes in many forms and variations, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Two of those variations are the consensus and the majoritarian models. While each does have significant downsides, and democracy is never “one size fits all,” ultimately, the consensus model is superior to the majoritarian model, not necessarily by a huge margin, but superior nonetheless.

A majoritarian democracy is when power is concentrated to a small number of individuals or institutions. It’s a single-party government* with a two-party system. There’s executive dominance and a First Past the Post** voting system, which favors bigger parties, along with unicameralism, a flexible constitution, and the absence of judicial review. A consensus democracy on the other hand consists of a coalition government*** where the government is made up of at least two different parties with the multi-party system and power is shared as widely as possible. There’s also more balance of power because the legislature is independent. A consensus model has proportional representation, where parties are elected instead of individual candidates, bicameralism in the Legislature, a rigid constitution, and judicial review of the legislative branch.

The fundamental value of collaboration and problem-solving is an important aspect that is lost in a majoritarian system. People swear, “you can’t please everyone,” and while that may be true, I don’t think that’s a reason to give up trying to find solutions that help as many people as possible to the plethora of problems that face modern governments. The proportional representation that the consensus model allows for is far better than the First Past the Post system that’s in place in majoritarian democracies. With First Past the Post, vast portions of the population go unrepresented in government. Both the thick**** and the thin***** conceptions of democracy require high participation to classify a state as a democracy, but it’s unfair to expect high participation when we guarantee half of those participants that their voices and beliefs are not going to be represented in their own government. That is a concern that is eliminated in a consensus democracy. Maybe majoritarian models would have been better half-century or even a century ago when the only differences between political parties were the amount they wanted to tax the people, but in 2020 when our political climates are so polarized that even in one party, beliefs vary drastically, we cannot afford not to represent the other 49% who weren’t in support of the majority leader that would go into power in a majoritarian democracy. Consensus democracy may not be the most efficient, but the outcome is most valuable.

Policy stability is also a benefit of the consensus model, which is amplified when you take into consideration the kind of policy that is typically passed in this kind of democracy. With a focus on human rights, environmental policies, and solutions to the actual issues that need to be addressed, now instead of later, we need policy that is thorough, thought out, and beneficial to almost every single person that will be governed by it. And we need that policy to stick. What is the point of having a government be more “efficient” and pass more policy in a term or two, it all gets reversed? That is not an effective way of coming up with solutions to issues that cannot wait to be addressed in a comprehensive and fruitful manner. Ultimately, all of those supposed benefits of a majoritarian democracy, just prove that the system is one that’s outdated and deficient, therefore, a consensus democratic system ends up superior.

________

Definitions:

1 - Single party government: a type of unitary state where opposition groups or parties are permitted, but a single party dominates election results.

2 - First Past the Post: an electoral system where the candidate who receives the most votes wins all of them, irrespective of vote share.

3 - Coalition government: a form of government in which political parties cooperate, reducing the dominance of any one party within that "coalition". The usual reason for this arrangement is so that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the election.

4 - Thick (Substantive) Conception of Democracy: Democracy requires high contestation, high participation, and civil rights, where civil rights are defined as rights intended to protect an individual from discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.

5 - Thin (Proceduralist) Conception of Democracy: Democracy only requires high contestation and high participation. Democracy can exist without civil rights for the people in it.