Peter Emerson: From Majority Rule to Inclusive Politics. Electing a Power-Sharing Coalition

The newly published book of Northern Irish political scientist and activist, Peter Emerson, From Majority Rule to Inclusive Politics. Electing a Power-Sharing Coalition is a very personal and passionate defence of consensual voting procedures. I liked reading the preface, where the author nicely and very honestly discussed his relationship to what he was going to discuss, along with clearly declaring his normative position to the subject. So what is Emerson for? He is for maximum power-sharing, all-party coalitions for executives and proportional representation in legislatures. Entrusting legislatures with maximal power, he devises special voting procedure based on preferential voting, the matrix vote, to elect the executive during one ballot with multiple issues (and options) being voted simultaneously. In case of the executive, individual executive portfolios, preferably even that of the prime minister, are allocated in that way. Emerson contrasts his proposals with the current trend of majoritarianism, in which binary yes-no, win-lose elections are typical, and a subsequent number of decisions are left to the single figure of prime minister, whom he calls an “elected dictator”. He is also not satisfied with the current uses of decision rules based on proportional representation, in which he regards the forming of the executives to be very slow. Emerson advocates uses of non-binary options for the referendums as well. His subtle argument that especially when the status quo option is the winner of the binary referendum ballot, the “status quo” is only rarely left unchanged in the form in which it was voted on, is inspiring and begs to be a subject of further empirical research. The book is also full of examples explaining the mechanics of electoral rules that Emerson advocates with such ubiquitous passion.