Academics Explain How Proportional Representation Helps American Politics

Detroit today,

Sam Corey

Most people agree that our political parties are very different.And not only do we have different tastes, we operate in different ecosystems. People there consume different media, have different friends, and occupy different specialties.

At the national and state level, this often means a dead end. If you don’t agree or even like what the people on the other side are saying, it’s much harder to pass legislation. But it’s not just people. Our political structures make the passage of laws easier or harder, depending on how they are structured. That’s made even more difficult by the fact that there are so many opportunities to veto the law in America.

Is there a way to make our political structures more representative of the will of the masses and to depolarize politics?

“What we really need is a more proportional system that allows for greater diversity over a more complete political spectrum.” — Lee Dortman, scholar

Listen: A political scientist discusses why American politics is polarized and what can be done about it.

The guests

Lee Drutman He is a Senior Fellow of New America’s Political Reform Program and a contributor to FiveThirtyEight. He is also the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case of Multiparty Democracy in America. He said that proportional representation ensures that a party’s share of the vote in elections equals its seats in parliament.

“What we really need is a more proportional system that allows for a wider representation of diversity across a more complete political spectrum,” says Drutman.