Fruits & Votes is the Web-log of Matthew S. Shugart ("MSS"), Professor of Political Science, University of California, Davis.
Perspectives on electoral systems, constitutional design, and policy around the world, based primarily on my research interests.
Also experiences with growing many varieties of fruit (always organic) and other personal interests. Please see the Mission Statement for more. (There is also an explanation of the banner.)
Other "planters" have been invited to contribute. Please check the "Planted by" line to see the author of the post you are reading.
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With all the cold weather, this should be a great year for cherries and apricots. However, the buds can’t flower and fruit if they’ve been eaten. Birds, apparently lacking for food in the dry winter, have stripped more than two thirds of the buds off the ‘Moorpark’ apricot and attacked several other trees as well.
To help protect the remaining buds, I added some flash tape to the corralito.
Normally I put this up only as the fruit ripens. The look of the bare trees and the flash tape is sort of surreal.
According to the Hindustan Times, the major Nepali political parties and the demobilizing Maoist rebels have agreed to some major structural changes to Nepal’s political system.
The electoral system, until now plurality in single-seat districts (SSD), will be changed to half SSDs and half proportional representation for the “over 400 seats” in the upcoming constituent assembly. No other details are given, except to note there will be changes to the process of constituency boundary delimitation, including “demarcating them on the basis of geography as well as population.” (This implies a tolerance for significant malapportionment, which might perhaps be a demand of the rural-based Maoists and various ethnic minorities. I would also guess that this means the system would be MMM/parallel, not MMP/compensatory.)
The article also notes that this decision comes after:
the Madhes Janadhikar Forum, a socio-political organisation comprising Madhesis, people of Indian origin living in the Terai plains, began a series of shutdowns and blockades in the south from this month.
The Madhes Forum is seeking proportional representation and regional autonomy, possibly including federalism.
Meanwhile, the King has little to do but to watch peacocks.
This is something I have been mulling around a bit since the news item back in December that the US Food and Drug Administration issued a “draft risk assessment” that is a likely step towards letting cloned animals into the nation’s meat and milk supply. (Reports I read said that some cloned animals had already been slaughtered for market, but relatively few.)
My reaction to the whole idea is negative. But why? (I mean other than that I am an organic farmer and my politics lean green, and so in the area of agronomic policy I tend to be pretty conservative.) This is not GMO (which I have a pretty strongly negative view of). This is perpetuating genetically identical copies of a parent. Just like I do every time I graft a known fruit variety into a rootstock (or plant a commercially purchased tree that is grafted or otherwise asexually propagated).
At one of my favorite fruit/food/farm blogs (long linked on my sidebar), life begins at 30, one of the reasons given for why cloning of animals for food is a “bad idea” is that it “encourages monoculture.”
But does it? Back to fruit, it is true that if all fruits were grown from seed, every tree (and its fruit) would be unique. So, if every apple tree, for example, were from seed, we would have a lot more genetic variety. On the other hand, we have an amazing degree of genetic diversity because so many good seedlings have been found over the years and grafted as a way to preserve them and pass them on. Thus, I have numerous apple varieties in my collection, just as I have numerous apricots, and so on.
But I suppose this really gets to the crux of the matter. Although the practice is less widespread for fruits other than apples (the reason I used them as my example), stores sell apples as ‘Jonathan’ or ‘Gala’ or ‘Fuji’ so that we know what we are getting. And so that there is more, not less, genetic variety among what we can buy.
With cattle and pigs and such, I don’t suppose we are going to get labeled varieties like we get with apples. In fact, at least until some certifying organization comes along for consumers who want to know their meat and other animal products aren’t from clones, we are not likely to get any labeling at all.
Maybe the difference comes down to there being greater natural variation in the flavor (and other qualities of interest to humans) among the offspring of any given male and female persimmon blossom than in the offspring of any given bull and cow. (Why would that be?)
I wonder if cloned animals will be allowed under organic labeling? Again, using the fruit analogy, why not? However, I suspect there will be a lot of resistance from the organic producers, retailers, and consumers. And will such animals be considered kosher? The certifiers and those who care about certified products will be very much engaged in this process.
In the meantime, I certainly will be seeking to support producers–especially smaller and local ones–who do not use cloned animals.
________
UPDATE: Interesting perspectives from The Evil Fruit Lord (in the comments) and at Organic Shmorganic.
Sorry. We don’t have this kind of excitement here at Ladera Frutal very often. Especially this year. (Last measurable rainfall was 4 January, and season–i.e since 1 July–to date is 1.02 inch.)
Ah, it sounds so nice!
Update: After a slow start, it turned out to be real rain! As of 9:22, the season total is up to 1.65. Still pretty pathetic, but at least I can shut of the irrigation for a bit, thanks to an impressive T-storm that came through in the evening.
Finally, a member of the Israeli Arab minority has been approved for a place in the cabinet. Ghaleb Majadle, who was reelected to his Knesset seat in the 19th rank on the Labor Party’s list at the election last March, was confirmed by his new colleagues to a post of minister without portfolio.
Surprise, surprise, Avigdor Lieberman was the one cabinet minister to vote against the appointment.
“I have no problem with an Arab minister…I have a problem with the way it has been done,” said Lieberman. “His appointment is a blatantly political move to help [Labor Party Chairman Amir] Peretz with the primaries.”
Peretz said that Lieberman’s vote exposed “the truth about Lieberman’s racist views.”
(Yes, of course, the motivation in politics is quite often political, and yes, Lieberman is a racist.)
Arab parties also spoke out against the appointment. For instance:
“The [appointment] gives a seal of approval to the policy of racial discrimination against Arabs,” said a statement released by the Balad Party.
Constitution Drafting Committee deputy chairman Wicha Mahakhun said Sunday that party-list MPs might not be necessary.
He said it was his own personal view that 500 MPs would be too unnecessary high and the reduction of number of MPs could be done through the abolition of party representative election system.
“I think party-list MPs are not necessary and without them, the number of MPs will be reduced,” Wicha said.
Thailand’s suspended parliament had 500 members, with 400 single-seat districts and 100 party-list MPs, the latter elected nationwide, and in parallel.
The mature, fruiting-age stalks of this ‘Goldfinger’ banana were damaged (perhaps killed) by the freeze. However, two ‘pups’ growing from the inside of the clump appear to have been spared, thanks to the protective tent created by the grown-ups.
Two weeks after the freeze, it looks very doubtful that the Mamey sapote has survived.
It is hard to exaggerate how upsetting it would be to lose this tree. As depicted here previously, I grew this tree (and other tender subtropicals) in pots outside the Ladera Frutal office for a few years, in order to allow its roots to develop before planting, and so that the tree could be put into the garage when unusually cold weather was expected. Then in late summer, I planted the tree on higher ground, above the level at which frost and freezing temperatures normally occur. But the weather two weeks ago was anything but normal, and the tree’s survival is very much in doubt. We can go fifteen to twenty years without having a major episode of freezing weather. If only I had waited till this spring to plant…
Visible behind the mamey (and to the right of the stake) is the green sapote, which looks even less likely to have survived.
The canistel may have made it, albeit with significant damage.
The wild flower growing in front of the subptropicals, and heralding the arrival of spring-like weather, is obviously adapted to cold weather. (Oh, look at the canistel’s sprinkler! I didn’t notice that when I was up there. I’ll have to go fix that.)
Continuing the photo tour of the damage to Ladera Frutal resulting from the freeze of 2007. It has now been two weeks since the first of five nights of freezing temperatures. Over this time, damage that was not at first apparent has become quite evident.
Entering the avocado grove from its lowest part, the appearance is really grim. These trees may have survived, but they will be severely set back and may not fruit again for a few years.
However, enter the grove and things start to look a lot better.
These trees, just a few short steps from the ones in the first photo, are mostly OK. Only the very tops are “burnt” from the freeze. Obviously, the warmth of the trees themselves helped the trees protect one another. These trees will be OK by next year.
Still farther into the grove, and things look almost normal.
Up at the very top of our grove, you can look out over the entire grove. Only light damage is visible from here. Naturally, given the way cold air sinks, the upper part of the slope sustained less damage.
At the very top of this photo, however, you can see the neighbor’s grove. Although it is hard to tell from the photo, by the naked eye, even from this far away, it is clear that his trees were severely damaged. I always wondered why anyone would try to grow Hass avocados in the canyon bottom. He planted these trees only a few years ago, and he may have lost them now. (Click here for a view from a lower vantage point, which shows the grey disaster that is his grove.)
Almost all the avocado groves that I have passed by in recent days in the area have considerable damage. However, it is clearly worse on the canyon wall opposite ours–their north slope meant more hours of cold–and in some low-lying areas (like the neighbor’s) that are marginal for Hass avocados even in a normal year. This, of course, has been no normal year.
Many more photos, tagged “freezeof2007” at the Flickr set.
In a publication called Sun2Surf, which describes itself as the “Malaysian source for news and lifestyle,” an article on 22 January noted that a Ph.D. candidate at Essex who is doing research on Malaysian elections has argued that MMP would be preferable to Malaysia’s current FPTP system. (Can you imagine an American “news and lifestyle” publication devoting an article to electoral reform? Alas, you can only imagine it.)
Wong Chin Huat said Malaysia’s FPTP electoral system was not democratic because worldwide, FPTP notoriously produced seat-vote disproportionality, made much worse in Malaysia because of partisan constituency delineation.
He said the mal-apportionment of the FPTP system, coupled with gerrymandering (unfair electoral advantage by redelineating constituency boundaries), produced a scenario in the 2004 elections where Barisan Nasional (BN) won 91% of seats in Parliament with only 64% of votes.
Meanwhile, PAS only secured 2.7% of seats despite having 15% of voter support, DAP 5.5% of seats with its 10% voter support, and Parti Keadilan Rakyat 0.5% of seats with 9% voter support.
I am certainly not about to disagree that MMP would be a vast improvement over FPTP for just about any jurisdiction. However, it is worth exploring his claims about the specific impact of the existing FPTP system in Malaysia.
I have insufficient knowledge of Malaysian elections and political geography to know the the extent to which either malapportionment (districts having unequal voter populations) or gerrymandering (districts having lines drawn in such a way as to make one party or demographic group likely to win the plurality) would be the primary explanation for the leading alliance having won more than 90% of the seats on 64% of the vote, rather than the FPTP system’s inherent disproportionality.
Each factor could be a parameter in a model connecting the vote to the seat outcome, such that we would know how much bonus the leading party/alliance would have in hypothetical equally populated districts with unbiased boundaries.
From a quick look at the votes and seats, and an application of the seat-vote equation, it appears that any gerrymandering (and perhaps malapportionment) has been done to bias in favor of minorities, not against them. If that is the case, the way that the ruling alliance has managed FPTP has contributed to minority representation and has dampened the normal plurality-bonus effect of this electoral system. (more…)
Some discussion this week by James and Steven about primary elections, and the broken process currently employed in the USA for selecting the major parties’ presidential candidates. The discussion is prompted, in part, by the recent news that California may move its presidential primary up to February, a move that would not only make the largest (by far) state’s voters relevant for a change, but also thereby make the entire process somewhat more national and slightly less absurd than it is now.
When I was in grad school long ago (OK, about 20 years ago), one of my professors (a leading scholar on US parties) circulated a draft paper entitled something like, “Is it time for a national primary?†The answer was yes then and is still yes now.
Opposition to a national primary is usually centered on fear that it would benefit only the richest candidates. However, as James put it, quoting Dan Conley of Political Insider:
that “only the richest candidates had a shot at winning the nomination and that no issues would be discussed in any depth whatsoever†perfectly describes the status quo, not some post-apocalyptic future.
Indeed, those with the money and name recognition are already in the driver’s seat, and the notion that the sequential primary season with small states coming first will let a â€dark horse†win is a quaint notion that never had much basis in reality.
Almost everyone remembers Jimmy Carter coming out of “nowhere” and “winning” the Iowa caucuses (which are not even a primary election) in 1976. However, hardly anyone remembers that the actual winner was a slate of “uncommitted” delegates. Well, really, no one wins the Iowa caucuses, for two reasons: First, as with most caucuses and primaries nowadays, the delegates are allocated proportionally (as they should be, if one must have delegates at all), and not all to the plurality candidate (or non-candidate in the case of Iowa 1976). Second, because the caucus night is not actually when delegates are selected for the national convention, but rather the first stage of a complex multi-stage process leading up to state party conventions at which the delegates to the national convention are finally chosen.
That the USA continues to tolerate nomination processes that are grounded in mythical “retail politics” of no relevance to administering the world’s most important national office is a real failure of American democratic imagination.
Of course, we also continue to tolerate the electoral college, which similarly de-nationalizes the contest for our only elected national authority. Which leads me to wonder, would a national primary bypass the state parties and delegate-selection altogether? If so, we would have a direct primary for an office not (yet) directly elected in the general. Most likely such a primary would not be direct, even if there were a single-shot national primary day. So, how would it work?
My preference would be a direct national primary by instant runoff and abolishing the archaic government-subsidized conventions altogether. But that’s because I am clearly beyond the mainstream.
According to the NZ Herald, Helen Clark, leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister of New Zealand, intends to “freshen” the party ranks by shaking up the party list. Her goal is to advance some of the party’s “very good people waiting in the wings.”
Clark is proposing to reduce the use of “dual inclusion,” by which I mean the simultaneous nomination of candidates in both a single-seat district and on the (national) party list. If this happens, it may undermine some of the key advantages of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, as I elaborate below.
Typically, the top positions on the party list are filled by the candidates who also have been nominated in their own individual districts. In this way, the party can be certain that these candidates make it to parliament even if they lose their individual race. As the Herald notes, Clark’s comments to the effect that some district candidates may not be assured of a place on the party list “may be seen by some MPs as a hint they risk being given low slots on the list if they stand again.”
Clark said:
There are good and able people coming through who have been in the lower ranks of the list, and would be quite legitimate in pursuing their aspirations for a higher slot.
One example is Phil Twyford, a former journalist and union organizer, who lost his district race to a National candidate and failed to secure a seat off the list because his 55th rank was too low.
The Herald then lists nine current MPs who ran and lost district races but won on account of a sufficiently high list position, including two current cabinet ministers (David Parker and Rick Barker).
The Herald refers to these legislators as “Backdoor MPs.” That is unfortunate, as it perpetuates the myth that these legislators are inherently less worthy than those who won a plurality of the vote in a constituency (“electorate” in NZ terminology) in which they were nominated. The term, “Backdoor MPs” is perhaps not as bad as the term, Zombies, used in Japan, but it is just as inappropriate. Mixed-member systems have two ways to win: By winning a plurality of the vote in a geographically contained district, or from a party list. (The party list need not be national, although it is in New Zealand.)
In fact, far from being inferior for allowing a candidate who loses a district race to win a seat via the list, a mixed-member system really needs to have such legislators in order to live up to its “best of both worlds” potential. The only way one could prevent these alleged ‘backdoor MPs’ from being present in the legislature is to prohibit the dual inclusion of candidates. Only with such a prohibition can losers be losers, i.e. only then can those who do not win a plurality in their district be kept out of parliament altogether.
To diehard defenders of FPTP, that is as it should be. But probe a bit deeper. One of the major flaws of pure FPTP systems (aside from the obvious one: their tendency to distort party support due to their disproportionality) is that the claimed advantage of local representation may not apply to locals who voted for a losing party. Yet under MMP many districts have candidates who ran locally, but did not get the plurality, nonetheless represented in parliament via the party list. When losers of the district race have a possibility of winning a seat anyway, then thay have an incentive to pay attention to the district. In other words, with a local “loser” still representing the district, more of the district’s voters have “won.”
If, on the other hand, the possibility of dual winners is banned (because we don’t want MPs to enter via that horrible “back door”) then we have created two classes of MPs–not the mythical “backdoor” MPs who sit alongside the “frontdoor” MPs who managed to win district pluralities. Rather we have one set of MPs who competed in districts and won the plurality in their race and a separate set of MPs who ran only on the list. The latter, of course, have no need to pay attention to local considerations; they can be pure list specialists.
Therefore, we should want to encourage parties in mixed-member systems to run their candidates in both tiers and discourage the media from using derogatory terms like “backdoor MPs” that have no basis in the actual working of the system.
Helen Clark’s plans, if implemented, would tend to centralize authority in the party leader’s hands by creating a class of MPs dependent primarily upon the leader and with little incentive to connect to local interests. It may be in Clark’s short term interests to do so, but will her party recognize that it is not in the party’s longer-term interests to reduce its members’ incentives to recognize local interests even in districts it loses?
Every once in a while my Google headlines on “party list” turn up something that was not quite what I had in mind when setting up the news search. For instance:
The Beckhams are already taking to Hollywood like ducks to water. [...]
Attending a bash at the Playboy mansion. [...]
Hef said: “I think Hollywood is going to love Victoria and David. The girls at the mansion want to make sure that we put them on the party list.”
Updated and re-planted from its original (21 Jan.), with results provided beneath, thanks to Wilf.
If you are relying on the mainstream media–even the BBC–all you might notice is that the ultra-nationalists “won” the election! Not the result that the EU was hoping for! Of course, in a system like Serbia’s where the executive must be based on a majority in parliament, a plurality “victory” is irrelevant unless other, also non-majority parties, choose to make it so. The more important story is that the pro-Western democratic parties won a large majority. That does not mean that the formation of a united coalition of democratic forces will be “easy.” They have their differences (as Wilf alludes to below). If they had no differences, they would have contested the election as a unified electoral bloc. But none of their component parties is likely to prefer a coalition with fascists and socialists.
This is about as good an outcome as one could expect in the only country in Europe to have had its government and people coerced by aerial bombardment at the hands of Western European and American forces since WWII, and the only country ever to have had the UN prepare to sever a portion of its territory from it.
The following is excerpted from the Southeast European Times (linked above), with the votes percentages of the parties in the 2003 parliamentary elections inserted in the third paragraph.
Sunday’s vote pits Western-oriented political parties — including Serbian President Boris Tadic’s reformist Democratic Party (DS) and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s moderately conservative Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). — against parties associated with the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
The most recent polls suggest that Tadic’s DS has taken a lead over the ultra nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), nominally still led by Hague war crimes indictee Vojislav Seselj.
According to the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, support for the DS has reached 29% [12.6], making them the most popular party in the country. The SRS is in second place with 26% [27.6], and the DSS is third with 19% [17.7].
As depressing as it may be to see the essentially fascist SRS holding steady at over a quarter of the vote, the big rise of support for the DS–assuming the voting confirms the poll–is encouraging.
The electoral system is some form of party-list PR, according to IFES, but I have no details. {Alex provides some further information at the propagation bench.}
So. 250 seats, 126 needed to form a government. Who you gonna call?
Look at those numbers again. The Radicals are pariahs. The DSS and DS hate each other… but it is impossible for either to form a government without the other! Put both Radicals and DSS in opposition, and you have an “opposition†of 127 votes. D’oh! And, of course, putting DS into opposition is even worse.
So, unless something totally bizarre happens, we’re going to see another government built around a DS-DSS entente. And even that only gives 112 votes, so they’ll have to tack on a third coalition partner, either G17 or the Liberal Democrat mess. Both of those will complicate matters mightily.
Having said this, I must add that this could be better — slightly — than the last government, which was a truly ridiculous Frankenstein monster of a coalition, with liberals, conservatives, technocrats, socialists, monarchists, mystical nationalists, and, really, the kitchen sink. This one may at least have fewer actors.
On the other hand, Marti Ahtisaari goes live with his “proposal†for Kosovo in the first week of February. That should have an interesting effect on things. Order your tickets now.
If by my laws you walk, and my commands you keep, and observe them,
then I will give-forth your rains in their set-time,
so that the earth gives-forth its yield
and the trees of the field give-forth their fruit.
--Vayikra 26: 3-4
F&V time: This blog's date function is so set as to start a new day at approximately local sunset.
(Why, if we have "day" and "night," should a new "day" start in the middle of the night?)
FRUITS: Support your local, organic growers; and, plant vines and fig trees and pomegranates for the generations to come...
VOTES: For democratization and full representation, for environmental sustainability, social justice, and peace, always sincerely...
