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Proportional Representation In Canada

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The choice of electoral system determines fundamental political institutions in democracies, shaping the form the elections take and the necessary considerations necessary in the differing electoral systems. Proportional representation systems produce more representative legislatures that have a focus on reaching decisions through consensus, whereas single-member district, or majoritarian, systems produce less representative legislatures; however, the decreased representation is replaced by increased efficiency through majoritarian decision-making. The trade-off between efficiency and representation is evident in each of the individual electoral systems, but why does a state choose one system over another? Why do Canada and the United States feature majoritarian electoral systems, while the vast majority of European countries, often with a similar history, are proponents of proportional representation? Despite the centrality of electoral systems to the structures and institutions of politics, there was limited literature explaining why some states …show more content…
between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party — as a defence against the growing influence of the left. Under this theory, switching to PR allows the right vote to be shared between the parties while the influence of the left is restricted. As such, in countries where the left threat was significant, such as Sweden and Germany, the dominant party switched to PR in order to maintain their dominance; on the other hand, countries like the United States and Canada, wherein the threat from the left was minimal, there was no incentive to shift to PR, and thus the dominant party elected to stay with the majoritarian system. This approach to the choice in electoral systems, while still containing significant economic elements, can loosely be labelled a the political

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