The golden age of two-party politics is over. But both countries lack the culture of political compromise credible coalitions need
Such is the traditional animus towards coalitions in this country that it is often enough for anyone seeking to prove the supposed superiority of single-party government simply to point to the almost daily embarrassments of Messrs Clegg and Cameron – or else to Greece, where politicians are frantically putting together an administration that, whatever its eventual composition, few believe can solve the country's crisis.
This is, to say the least, slightly ironic because it involves picking on the two democracies of any significant size in Europe that by and large have avoided multiparty government – one reason (though by no means the only one) why both seem to find it so hard to make it work even though it serves so many other countries perfectly well. Such criticism is also short-sighted since it seems unlikely (though not impossible) that single-party majority government will again be the default setting in either country.
For decades, both countries enjoyed (if that is the right word) what was in effect an either-or choice between administrations run by one of two big parties. In part, this was down to electoral systems – first-past-the-post in the UK and (bar a short-lived change in the late 80s) "reinforced proportionality" in Greece. But it was also because, partly as a response to these systems, the overwhelming majority of voters seemed happy to vote for Labour or the Conservatives, for Pasok or New Democracy.
Those days are over, and have been for quite a while. In the UK the duopoly was first broken in 1977 – the year in which Greece returned to democracy after a period of military rule. There, the impression of exclusively two-party politics was always something of an illusion created by an electoral system that also (albeit in its own way)provided a winner's bonus to one of the big two, helping to ensure that they alternated in government while the far-left (rather like the Liberals and their successors in Britain) languished some way behind in terms of votes and seats.
The reasons why are not too hard to fathom. In the so-called golden age of two-party politics, voters were more tribal and more trusting of whichever team of politicians "people like them" were supposed to vote for. With mass education, mass media and mass affluence, voters became more consumerist and more volatile – inclined to choose for themselves rather than follow the dictates of custom and class. The big two, for their part, sought to build support by becoming "catch-all parties" led by (hopefully) charismatic leaders and, in the case of Greece, offering supporters "pork" as well as policies.
But rather than shoring up the party system, this served only to facilitate its fragmentation – a phenomenon fuelled in the UK (as in Belgium, Italy and Spain) by latent regionalism and minority nationalism. Meanwhile, globalisation seemed to make it harder than ever for mainstream parties to deliver on their promises. All this, plus the entry into the market of political entrepreneurs offering populist solutions, ensured that disillusioned voters were even more inclined to explore alternatives to the busted flushes that they'd put up with for far too long.
In Britain and Greece, then, we have winner-take-all electoral systems that no longer produce a winner but have failed over time to create the culture of compromise between niche and mainstream parties – and their voters – that is essential for credible coalitions.
In the UK this mismatch between the ever more varied preferences of voters and the increasingly ill-fitting straitjacket of a plurality electoral system means that the Lib Dems' half-hearted and half-arsed attempt to change that system in 2010 was not simply a non-event but a criminal waste of a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
In Greece, however, the implications are far more serious. Even if its politicians can cobble together a coalition , their failure to forge an agreement in the aftermath of the election held earlier this year casts doubt on whether any arrangement will be sufficiently durable and broad-based to convince ordinary Greeks and the markets that the country can somehow escape its looming fate.
That said, we should be wary of falling into the bien-pensant trap of thinking that so-called consensus democracies will always have the edge over their majoritarian equivalents. The Netherlands, so long the archetype of the former, seems increasingly unable to produce governments that work, while France – the only significant European example of majoritarianism outside the UK – offers one of the few rays of hope in what are dark days indeed.
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