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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   930 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 28, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Ireland

In an unexpected change of tune Sinn Féin have come out against the controversial hate speech bill, citing their own experience being on the wrong end of censorship and the refusal to include their proposed amendments to the bill. This is especially strange given that they voted in favour of the bill at every stage of the process so far. Leo Varadkar has accused the party of cowardice and falling prey to "an online campaign of misinformation".

They've also come out against the EU migration pact saying that Irish immigration policy should be decided in Ireland. The migration pact seems like it would solve some of the immigration problems the EU is facing so Sinn Féin's opposition isn't a move to the right on the face of it, but they have said they agree with some parts of the agreement so the objection doesn't seem to stem from their being against stemming the flow of migrants.

Pretty weird to talk about an entire political party as if it was one agent in the context of a bill like this. Is that how it works outside the US? In the US it's common for at least a few congresspeople to break party lines. Or at least I think it is.

In a typical parliamentary system political parties are supposed to vote in lockstep. There's a bit of leeway when political parties are in opposition, some issues might be declared "issues of conscience" where there's a free vote (typically stuff like abortion or euthanasia where some MPs might have religious reasons for voting against the party line) and sometimes MPs vote against the party line and get away with it when it doesn't affect any major vote, but especially when parties are in the government, they're supposed to vote the government's policies through without a fail. If they repeatedly go against their party, they'll be kicked out of the group, possibly out of the whole party.

It's also my understanding that Sinn Féin, due to its history, still is particularly regimented and disciplined in its voting, and doesn't tolerate open dissension easily.

Do you think that's a good way to do things or a flaw in the typical parliamentary system?

It's basically a product of the system. When you have governments consisting of coalitions between parties and when elected representatives are reliant on the party for support (particularly in PR systems where the MPs are not really dependent on having the support of some precise geographical one-MP constituency but larger and more inchoate electoral districts), the only way you can get the business of government done is those parties agreeing on a governmental program and then making sure no-one defects, since if defection is allowed, there's too much of a risk that parties start trying to maneuver to get things on the program they don't like busted (ie. even if they don't formally vote against some law they "allow" a sufficient number of MPs required to get it scuppered to vote against it or so on).

Whether such a system is better than, for instance, the American system, is of course a question on opinion. There are probably more important things to consider than the precise methods of representative democracy whichever country chooses.

Flaw.

America has some of the loosest party discipline in the world, because of how we choose candidates and our two party system. In general, parliamentary systems can have news articles saying, "the party has chosen this," and be basically correct, because people who disagree enough to not go along with the party simply become independents or 'lose the whip,' which is a sign they'll be deselected at the next election.

That’s a difference I hadn’t noticed but yes, it’s common enough to see newspapers say stuff like “the party has now said“. Maybe intra-party discipline is more of a thing where elections can be triggered at any time by a loss of confidence in the government.

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