I grew up in an area that had lots of alleys (though not our neighborhood). I always thought they were wasted space. But I did enjoy riding my bike through them back in the day.

That’s not exactly a rare view even (especially?) among political scientists. I don’t happen to share it. I also don’t dismiss out of hand the smarter versions of this argument (there are lots of dumb, or at least arguably irrelevant or poorly elaborated, versions).

John K. and I summarized political science on the fragmentation myth here: manhattan.institute/article/refo...

MSS, ML, and I reflected on the presidentialism issue here: protectdemocracy.org/work/toward-...

PR might not “solve” our deep problems. (Things called “solutions” to complex problems in politics seldom are!) But it certainly would help.

The “if it were the ONLY reform” case needs to be developed more explicitly. I’m sympathetic to the reservations. But ultimately come down on PR for the House being a step forward as well as being more politically realistic than any other reform we academics might say would be better still.

And in more detail, with Latner and Santucci in 2023.

protectdemocracy.org/wp-content/u...

(Chapter 12)

I sketched out the case in 2021.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2021/01/19/e...

And I believe there are PR models that would improve our politics immensely even if it were the only reform we adopted.

Lots of people say pres+PR/multipartism are incompatible so I’m pushing back at that, even though I do have nontrivial reservations.

I favor a transformation to a parliamentary or premier-presidential system, but that’s far less likely than PR for the House (which also isn’t exactly highly likely).

I felt that way in 2004 or thereabouts, if not earlier. But while I favor a transformation to a parliamentary or premier-presidential system, that’s far less likely than PR for the House (which also isn’t exactly highly likely).

I don’t want 2-party elections for president either! There’s no reason why multipartism and presidentialism can’t be compatible. But it requires close attention to institutional design. Too often arguments for PR and multipartism in the USA are made on a basis that implicitly assumes parliamentarism

Yes that’s awfully high, although what I specifically questioned was whether it was “democratic” to have that high a *national* threshold despite districted PR. This means a party can have sufficient votes for seats in a district (even be the largest) yet win no seats (due to <10% nationwide).

Good find.

A political scientist friend shared with me back in 2005 or so a memory of having attended a seminar by Cheney many years prior, and that Cheney was a really sharp thinker.

In my paper the other day in @liberalcurrents.com I spent some time on our very weird candidate selection & non-membership based political parties because I don't think Americans know just how strange it is:

www.liberalcurrents.com/the-american...

Thanks for the shoutout

(Bluesky had this interesting note when I opened the reply window!)

Yeah, I want to look more like this.