Filibuster
Jun. 26th, 2013 12:34 pmWhen first exposed to the concept of a filibuster, most people's reaction is "That's ridiculous! Why would that ever exist in a civilised government?"
But how should a government be designed? One of the fundamental problems, is that if it alternates between a year of majority of Party Pro-X and a year of majority of Party Anti-X, what should happen?
One thing is to switch back and forth between Pro-X and Anti-X every four years. But this is normally immensely costly in transaction costs: the costs of changing the legislation, of throwing away all the pro-X or anti-X infrastructure build the previous four years, of no-one being able to plan for X or not-X.
Even if X is really important, it's often better to find some compromise. Not because compromise is always better, but because it's the only solution that both sides will accept, even grudgingly. The form of the compromise varies -- usually "exactly half way between" isn't sensible, but some other compromise is found, such as "everyone can choose for themselves" or "everyone gets part of X, but only when it's really necessary".
But how do you construct a government system that will actually find a compromise? One way is to give the minority some power. If the minority have no power, everything switches back and forth every four years. (eg. Sweden's nuclear power?) If the minority have too much power, nothing ever gets done (eg. American national senate where a supermajority is required for everything because filibuster is no longer an exceptional thing, but just turned into "everything needs 2/3 majority").
The minority need some way of pushing back against the majority, saying "we can't force you to agree, but we feel really strongly about it, you have to give us something". This normally comes in some form of bending the rules in a cheeky but just-about-acceptable way. If they could always do, they always would do it.
But this means, there's always some bizarre point of procedure that everything depends on, because only those are things that people resort to when they really, really mean it, but aren't tempted to just use all the time or people will see they're taking the piss.
Hence, filibuster. The same applies to things like peaceful protests, passive resistance and (ultimately) violent resistance. It says "we may not be able to win, but we insist that whatever compromise we reach REALLY HAS TO include X."
Of course, the trouble is, it can't STAY balanced on that knife-edge.
What I'm not sure of is if there's any way of making the process more efficient. It might be something like "people get a limited number of vetos which they can use in secret ballot", so they're more free to vote with their conscious and not along party lines, but there's a limited supply so they don't use them for everything. But a majority can force a vote through by voting repeatedly if it really means it.
But I'm worried that anything even semi-formal would just lead to it becoming part of the standard process, and not achieve the theoretical goal of averaging opinions across time as well as across regions. Are there any countries where this works better?
But how should a government be designed? One of the fundamental problems, is that if it alternates between a year of majority of Party Pro-X and a year of majority of Party Anti-X, what should happen?
One thing is to switch back and forth between Pro-X and Anti-X every four years. But this is normally immensely costly in transaction costs: the costs of changing the legislation, of throwing away all the pro-X or anti-X infrastructure build the previous four years, of no-one being able to plan for X or not-X.
Even if X is really important, it's often better to find some compromise. Not because compromise is always better, but because it's the only solution that both sides will accept, even grudgingly. The form of the compromise varies -- usually "exactly half way between" isn't sensible, but some other compromise is found, such as "everyone can choose for themselves" or "everyone gets part of X, but only when it's really necessary".
But how do you construct a government system that will actually find a compromise? One way is to give the minority some power. If the minority have no power, everything switches back and forth every four years. (eg. Sweden's nuclear power?) If the minority have too much power, nothing ever gets done (eg. American national senate where a supermajority is required for everything because filibuster is no longer an exceptional thing, but just turned into "everything needs 2/3 majority").
The minority need some way of pushing back against the majority, saying "we can't force you to agree, but we feel really strongly about it, you have to give us something". This normally comes in some form of bending the rules in a cheeky but just-about-acceptable way. If they could always do, they always would do it.
But this means, there's always some bizarre point of procedure that everything depends on, because only those are things that people resort to when they really, really mean it, but aren't tempted to just use all the time or people will see they're taking the piss.
Hence, filibuster. The same applies to things like peaceful protests, passive resistance and (ultimately) violent resistance. It says "we may not be able to win, but we insist that whatever compromise we reach REALLY HAS TO include X."
Of course, the trouble is, it can't STAY balanced on that knife-edge.
What I'm not sure of is if there's any way of making the process more efficient. It might be something like "people get a limited number of vetos which they can use in secret ballot", so they're more free to vote with their conscious and not along party lines, but there's a limited supply so they don't use them for everything. But a majority can force a vote through by voting repeatedly if it really means it.
But I'm worried that anything even semi-formal would just lead to it becoming part of the standard process, and not achieve the theoretical goal of averaging opinions across time as well as across regions. Are there any countries where this works better?