Well, there was a feudal time when the land-lord-owner of his subjects of his district was what represented the region in the council of the King.
The King was, in the beginning, elected by the council, but after numerous civil wars, someone came up with the idea to make it obvious that the son of the King would be the next King, to pre-empt all those fights (well, they moved over to the inner family of the King, family-assassinations,etc)
Some hundred years after that, more in some parts of the world, less in most parts of the world, that idea of proportional representation was re-instated (just like in Iceland, the All-Thing)
Historians usually point to the fact that this had always been a fact outside the anglo-american world, something about the multi-party houses, skilled workers, citizens, priests and the aristocrates (who were responsible for both collecting taxes and keeping the local army going).
But, as some historians tell it, while this was going on, these anglo-americans somehow got stuck in that winner-takes-all single-seat-district thing, the fundament of the two-party system (as only one is elected, and one better hook up in two gangs in parliement to have a chance on the majority)
The general anglo-american historian might say something about these two parties with something like "those who supported the King, and those in opposition to him", back in the 1700s (or free trade, isolationism, segregation or other ways of segregation, south and north, London and Scotland, Wales and all the others, etc,etc)
However, in the early 1800s, when division was already fairly common knowledge, it became something of an idea that if somebody gets x% of votes, this should mean x% of representation, seats in the parliament or congress, that is, the issue of proportional representation, not unproportional single-seat winner-takes-all-districts...
Ilmarinen
Sorry, I have difficulties staying serious on this subject, I have had too much fun with it for too many decades
However, it gets much more interesting after this point in history, when one gets to issues like "center-based-consensus-proportional-multi-party-systems" and open, transparent coalitions for forming the government (and the King: Turkey decided to have one president for half of the term, and the other one for the rest of the term as the election ended very close to 50-50, one basic idea on proportionality)
However, Turkey is one of the few examples of a proportional-King, usually it is a question of that house of representatives.
For USA, that Senate is one problem, as electing two senators from every state favors a two-party system.
(without getting into electoral president elections, minority small state protections,etc,etc,etc)
However, it seems as the fourth estate (for those who have a two-party estate) goes pretty much along the same ideas. What commercial news-paper--media-organization would always bet on the same party, knowing that the whole idea is that the two parties should, like in Turkey, take turns in running nation.
if that would not be the case, it would turn into a one-party system. |
