How To Overcome The Problem Of A Two-Party System
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Publicado: 22 de septiembre de 2012
How to overcome the Problem of a Two-Party System
Do we have the freedom to choose our politicians when we can only choose between two options? Is that fair? Nowadays, a lot of people complainabout powers distribution. The same group or kind of people are in the power controlling and making decisions which affect our everyday lives. Some people say that there is no difference betweenright-wing and left-wing in policy, and that both are governed by the economy. Some Western countries, such as Spain, are governed by a two-party system, when actually there are as many different parties asthere are ideas that people have. Then, why is power always in the same hands? We say we want to see changes in the political system but we do not act to achieve them. There are three responses tothis problem: resignation, opposition and action.
The first response and the most common one is resignation. We tend to think that our right to vote is not really important. According to Lisa JaneDisch (2002) , we accept a binary option because they made us believe that this is a democracy when it is not (1). The population still votes for the same two parties thinking that if they vote for aminor one, their votes will not be useful because the main parties will win anyway. That is a form of acquiescence; maybe we do not want it but we do it because it is the easiest way: to follow thecrowd.
Another argument against a two-party system is opposition. And with opposition I mean not to join the electoral system and refuse to exercise our voting right. There is a main problem at thispoint: people who really support main parties will still vote for them so the situation will not change at all. This response wants to express disagreement but actually shows laziness and a lack ofknowledge. It is similar to succumbing to the power of the main political parties.
Last but not least, we can respond to this problem with actions; however, this response requires thinking and...
Do we have the freedom to choose our politicians when we can only choose between two options? Is that fair? Nowadays, a lot of people complainabout powers distribution. The same group or kind of people are in the power controlling and making decisions which affect our everyday lives. Some people say that there is no difference betweenright-wing and left-wing in policy, and that both are governed by the economy. Some Western countries, such as Spain, are governed by a two-party system, when actually there are as many different parties asthere are ideas that people have. Then, why is power always in the same hands? We say we want to see changes in the political system but we do not act to achieve them. There are three responses tothis problem: resignation, opposition and action.
The first response and the most common one is resignation. We tend to think that our right to vote is not really important. According to Lisa JaneDisch (2002) , we accept a binary option because they made us believe that this is a democracy when it is not (1). The population still votes for the same two parties thinking that if they vote for aminor one, their votes will not be useful because the main parties will win anyway. That is a form of acquiescence; maybe we do not want it but we do it because it is the easiest way: to follow thecrowd.
Another argument against a two-party system is opposition. And with opposition I mean not to join the electoral system and refuse to exercise our voting right. There is a main problem at thispoint: people who really support main parties will still vote for them so the situation will not change at all. This response wants to express disagreement but actually shows laziness and a lack ofknowledge. It is similar to succumbing to the power of the main political parties.
Last but not least, we can respond to this problem with actions; however, this response requires thinking and...
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