Political Geography of Britain - Essay Example

Political Geography of Britain Abstract Electoral systems matter, as they are important in the determination of a country’s political stability. In the chain connecting the preferences of citizens to governments’ policy choices, they are a vital link. Political actors choose them and these systems have political effects for them once in existence. Therefore, an electoral system is one of the imperative features of a representative government as well as democracy. There can be great variations in political outcomes of elections depending on the type and variations of electoral system in effect. Hence, an electoral system strongly determines a political system’s organization. For anyone interested with the political process, electoral systems are a significant object of study. This paper is on the electoral system of Britain, particularly focusing on its advantages and disadvantages. Introduction Britain uses the single member constituency with simple majority, also referred to as the First Past the Post system as her electoral system. For general elections purposes, Britain comprises single constituencies. Every party wishing to contest for the seat/constituency must present one representative or candidate to stand. In every constituency, each voter has one vote, which they cast for the representative or candidate of their choice. Elected as the Member of Parliament for a certain constituency is the candidate with the greatest number of votes. Subsequently, the party with the largest number of elected Members of Parliament normally forms the government (Britton, p1, 2008). Pritchett (2003) asserts that such an electoral system’s mechanics have in general given support to the dominance of Britain’s parliament by two parties thereby permitting one party to form a governing majority alone. Various scholars associate several advantages as well as disadvantages to this kind of electoral system. Advantages As far as electoral systems are concerned, the First Past the Post system that Britain uses is relatively simple and straightforward for voters to comprehend. It requires each voter to place one cross only on the ballot paper (Scade, p2, 2002). Normally, counting of the ballot papers is quick and the next day after polling, a British general election’s result is usually out. The fact that the ballot papers are usually simple with the voter only putting one clear mark on their paper makes counting easy thereby removing the prospect of the confusion, which disturbed the year 2000 American election. Due to the speed of the process, a new government swiftly takes over power or allows for a speedy come back for government continuation devoid of too many disruptions to the nation’s political life in the event that the current government wins the general election (Trueman, para6, 2008). The electoral system used in Britain enhances accountability. Not only do all constituents have members of Parliament in the Britain’s electoral system, but also all members of Parliament have constituents. All Parliamentarians therefore know that their respective constituents will scrutinize whatever they say and do, which makes them cautious owing to the fact that these constituents have a vote to put them out of Parliament during the next election (Great Britain: Ministry of Justice, p36, 2008). The First Past the Post system has a tendency of leading to one party attaining a majority in the House of Commons and thus voters can tell which party will comprise the government and so the policies to expect (Britton, p1, 2008). The British electoral system also ensures stability. It provides a good foundation on which to plan for an unwavering democracy. It has created an essentially stable political system because just two parties dominate Britain’s politics. It avoids the chaos of Israel and Italy’s political systems. For instance, while Britain has had just twelve Prime ministers since the war until the year 2007, Italy has had fifty-six of them. Some countries that use a different electoral system have their governments failing to last out a full term. Unlike in systems with coalitions where citizens cannot tell for how long the Government will last, Britons know at the opening of every Parliament that they can expect the Government to last out a full term (Great Britain: Ministry of Justice, pg36, 2008). First Past the Post system also has the virtue of returning Governments with a sound parliamentary majority. This gives them an opportunity to finish their programme thereby honouring their last election’s commitments (Scade, p2, 2002). Defining proportionality as the ratio between the time spent in power and the votes gained, the British electoral system is much better as compared to many others. It ensures proportionality, though the issue of proportionality in many governments is a much-distorted argument (Great Britain: Ministry of Justice, p36, 2008). Another advantage of FPTP is that it is easy to identify the winner largely undisputedly. This is unlike under certain systems like the Single Transferrable Vote where there is usually greater complexity in the determination of the winner. Trueman (2008) notes that in the vast majority of cases, this system allows for a clear winner and just in the very rarest of cases, has there been a re-count owing to the closeness of that specific result. Moreover, rarely do circumstances under which increases in the share of vote among candidates harm a candidate’s chances of election. In addition to producing an undisputed winner, the FPTP system can award the party that wins with a surplus of seats to govern without necessarily depending on a coalition. This is unlike in governments under other systems whereby parties strike deals and enter coalitions or other arrangement kinds in order to offer governance and the voters have little influence if any on these negotiations (Great Britain: Ministry of Justice, p36, 2008). Trueman (2008) adds that the system allows for easy identification of a person with a particular area given that each constituency elects just one representative, therefore giving voters easy time knowing who to approach in case they have a problem. This would not be as easy in a multi-member constituency where several parties are represented. Disadvantages We cannot consider the First Past the Post system as a perfect electoral system – various disadvantages relate to this system. To start with, the system requires that the winning candidate should only secure a simple majority. The shortcoming with this requirement is that there is a possibility that more people in total may have cast their votes to other candidates other than the winner (Britton, p1, 2008). Another disadvantage with the electoral system that Britain uses is that the parties that usually emerge as the first and second runners-up in the constituency votes but which wins very few outright may find themselves with relatively few seats, yet with a very high total vote percentage. Another clear shortcoming of this system is that theoretically, it is possible that in reality, the party that forms the government will have won less total votes compared to their nearest rival (Rivera, para17, 2009). A further notable drawback with this system is that a small constituency’s winner can have received fewer votes compared to the runner up in a bigger constituency due to lack of a uniform number of voters in a constituency (Britton, p1, 2008). Put in Scade’s (2002) words, compared to the losing party, a Government may have fewer votes but more seats due to unequal winning margins and constituency sizes. He notes that since 1945, this has happened once in Britain. This system is also unfair in that it discriminates against minority parties and fails to give equal value to all votes. It also has the tendency of considering some constituencies safe for particular parties. In such cases, voters in support of the feeble party may not see the point of voting at all. In case these voters vote, it may force them to vote for a party that they do not support merely to partake in the outcome. The system therefore encourages tactical or negative voting (Aneurin, para14, 2010). Another drawback of this system is that members of Parliament have fewer than fifty percent of the cast votes. In addition, since 1935, no Government has had an absolute majority of cast votes, although most have had an absolute majority of seats in the House of Commons (Scade, p2, 2002). Conclusion Although there have been reforms in the devolution elections surrounding Wales and Scotland and in such places as Northern Ireland where a form of proportional representation has been used in elections, Britain, has predominantly used what Trueman (2008) refers to as the tried and authenticated First Past the Post system. The advantages of Britain’s current electoral system indubitably outweigh the disadvantages. References Aneurin, (2010) “Political Geography of Britain”. [Online] Available http://everything2.com/user/aneurin/writeups/Political+Geography+of+Britain (Accessed March 4, 2010). Britton, E. (2008) “The British Electoral System: The First Past the Post System Determines the House of Commons”. [Online] Available http://british-house-of-commons.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_british_electoral_system (Accessed March 2, 2010). Great Britain: Ministry of Justice, (2008) “The Governance of Britain - Review of Voting Systems: The Experience of New Voting Systems in the United Kingdom Since 1997”. Britain: The Stationery Office. Pritchett, A. (2003) “The Electoral Systems of Britain and Sweden”. [Online] Available http://pritchea.myweb.uga.edu/electoral.html (Accessed March 4, 2010). Rivera, M.A. (2009) “Parliamentary Elections in the United Kingdom - Elections to the House of Commons”. [Online] Available http://electionresources.org/uk/ (Accessed March 3, 2010). Scade, C. (2002) “Electoral Systems in Comparative Perspective”. [Online] Available http://www.nyegaards.com/yansafiles/Electoral%20Systems%20in%20Comparative%20Perspective.doc (Accessed March 3, 2010). Trueman, C. (2008) “First Past the Post”. [Online] Available http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/first_past_the_post.htm (Accessed March 2, 2010). Read More