Question

How would American politics be different if we had a multiple party system instead of the two party system? Given your analysis of the pros and cons of this, would you advocate for the United States to switch to a multi-party system?

Answer 1

The kind of political system that we find in America is the two party system. This has been deeply rooted in American politics and since the start, has been unchanged. The two parties that we know of are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, popularly known as Democrats and the republicans.

on the other hand, there exists another kind of system, also referred to as the multiparty system. This is the one where there are no limits on the number of political parties existing in the system. Each of these parties have equal opportunities of forming a government, provided they receive enough votes, or through coalition.

there are a number of variants of this multi party system, in some forms, where we find only two of the major parties dominating, whereas the other smaller parties acting as a support group or as subsidiaries. Another form of multi party system is the one where proportional representation is taken up. Proportional representation is the one where seats would be given to the parties according to the vote percentage that they would be obtaining in an election.

Though we know of the two party system, let's look at some of the advantages of a multi party system. There are more than just two choices available. This could be correlated with buying a smartphone, where, a user would prefer to have more number of brands, to increase competition among the brands and better their performance to get a customer. Hence, choice, forms a major advantage.
in many cases it might happen that the views of the majority is completely over the minority views. Since, there would not be adequate representation of every sector of the society, it is very easy for the minority requirements being lost under the umbrella of majority. They might begin feeling outnumbered.

maybe america could have been different

- as their would be more choices

- greater representation of every sector

- more voice to the minorities and their opinions

- fewer degree of polarization inside the govt.

- greater opinions and divergent thinking, as more the number of people, greater the number of ideas.
- greater stability in political decision making.