In praise of the upcoming Finnish general election I thought to play a little with ideas. In a normative sense, it is quite relevant question whether it does make any difference to the justification of electoral system if voters know or don’t know beforehand what kind of coalition parties would be likely to form after the election. Text is based on an exercise that was part of an MRes degree I’m currently doing at UCL. It’s not directly freedom of information- or info management-related, but you’ll just have to cope with it.
Let’s compare Finland with our dear neighbours, the Swedes. In Swedish parliamentary election 2010 the electorate was more or less aware already before the election what kind of coalition alternatives they were choosing from, whereas in the latest Finnish election 2007 political parties started negotiating and thus compromising on their pre-election programmes only after the election. This is the case this year, as well. It was only yesterday (31.3.) when party leaders gave identical answers – ”let’s not speculate with the coalition alternatives, that’s for people to decide in the election” – to a question of who would they pick as a coalition partner if given a chance to lead negotiations.
In parliamentary elections 2010 Swedish parties formed two alternative coalitions already before the election, giving voters effectively two options. Opposition parties (Social Democrats, Green Party, Left Party) formed an alliance against the then incumbent coalition government (Moderate Party, Liberal People’s Party, Centre Party and Christian Democrats). Election resulted in a narrow victory for the incumbent coalition and a minority government.
In the latest Finnish parliamentary election in 2007, no one knew before the election what kind of coalition would be formed, thus creating surprises for several voters. To mention an example, the Green Party was fundamentally against nuclear power in their election manifest. In the election they gained 8,5% of the popular vote and joined in the coalition with the Centre Party, National Coalition Party and the Swedish People’s Party. During the summer 2010 coalition government decided to give permission to build three new nuclear power plants in Finland, which lead to a wide criticism towards the Green Party, who were accused of betraying their supporters and effectively wasting their votes.
Question I play with here is whether Finnish and Swedish voters are as equal in terms of knowing how their candidate would behave if elected, and whether their vote would thus be likely to be ”wasted” or not. Thomas Christiano sees voting as a resourcist action, where vote is primarily a resource or a tool. Furthermore, the rules of voting should ensure that these resources are distributed in an equal way. (Christiano 1995) I read this equality to include – in addition to the actual possibility to vote – the understanding of possible outcomes, as well.
I base this argument on the principle of equal consideration of interests. (Dahl 1989; Christiano 2004) To over-simplify: each person should be able to see that his/her interests are treated equally in the society. In both systems examined here each adult citizen has an equal right to cast a vote, but only in other one (s)he can be relatively sure how his/her candidate will behave in terms of political alignment if elected. In the other system, party may join unwanted coalition and in the process of negotiation give up that part of the pre-election manifesto why they were voted for in the first place.
Now, some voters may understand that it is intrinsic for democracy to reach for compromises and thus they vote for the most suitable party regardless of possible coalition. Also, some voters may have been able to define a few possible coalition alternatives beforehand and therefore placed their votes strategically, but not nearly all have that kind of competence, access to relevant information or sufficient level of political awareness.
There are several comprehensive studies made on the impact of political information on individuals’ political awareness and voting behaviour. (e.g. Bartels 2005; Blais et al. 2009) The general outcome of these studies is that voters are in inequal position when it comes to the amount and quality of political information they are able to receive. According to Bartels, less-informed voters are simply confused what is in their own interests. (Bartels 2005) Arguably it would be easier for less-informed voters to form a voting decision if they were aware of how their candidate will align after the election. At minimum, it would spare them from unpleasant surprises.
Arguably the fact that some people’s votes seem to be wasted because of their seeming ignorance of the procedures and rules of coalition forming is against the principle of equal consideration of interests. Since Finnish voters have inequal standing points in terms of competence to form an informed opinion, all voters are not able to see that their interests are being treated equally, which effectively decreases public trust in government and ultimately undermines the justification of such a system.
According to Christiano and principles of weak publicity and equal considerations of interest, in strictly normative and theoretical sense it appears that the Swedish system prevails. However, the question is more complex than that and would require further toying to form a more comprehensive argument. It could be argued, for example, that despite the lack of clarity on how Finnish parties will negotiate after the elections, Finnish voters are still treated as equals. They are just treated as equally poor in terms of how parties respond to their wishes about potential coalitions.
Another question dismissed here is the possibility of empirical evidence whether ignorance of post-election alignment has in fact had much impact on voting outcome and on the general perception of politics. An enlightened guess might be that those without sufficient awareness of their candidates post-election alignment would be in aggregate level more disappointed on the coalition politics than those who were already aware beforehand how their candidate would align him/herself after the election.
Bibliography:
Bartels, Larry: Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind, Perspective on Politics, Vol. 3, No 1, March 2005, pp. 15-31
Blais, André et al.: Information, Visibility and elections: Why electoral outcomes differ when voters are better informed, European Journal of Political Research 48, 2009, pp.256-280
Christiano, Thomas: Voting and Democracy, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 25, No 3, September 1995, pp. 395-414
Christiano, Thomas: The Authority of Democracy, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 12, No 3, 2004, pp.266-290
Dahl, Robert: Democracy and Its Critics, Yale University Press, 1989
