Lyte
Member
I've been on this forum for a short time, checking out political discussion in United States. I've made an observation how the political discussion differs in here vs. how it is in my country Finland. Here the two camps Republicans and Democrats seem to be really dug in with their opinions not really accepting any reasoning from the other camp - it is simply dismissed, rarely debated on and usually replied with propaganda from the other camp. To a degree that is happening in our multi-party political system as well.
In our multi-party political system, parties form alliances and break alliances to get their political agenda through. This dynamic seems to at least bring camps together temporarely and discuss issues seriously to see if they can find a common ground to form an alliance on the subject against other parties. Even ideologically very different parties are able to form temporary alliances on tough subjects (True Finns (right wing) and Left Alliance against raising the retirement age for example) even though they really don't see eye to eye ideologically.
Im not saying multi party system is better than two party system when it comes to actually making sound political decisions, but when it comes to public debate, people seem to be less antagonist to other parties and the political discussion is less heated than what it seems to be here. I'm not sure how much culture affects political discussion - I suspect it has effect, for example Japanese tend to be very polite in social situations compared to us Finns, and it probably affects their political discussion as well.
Now we have 8 parliamentary parties and 9 extraparliamentary parties ranging from National Coalition Party (right wing) to Communist Party, From Christian Democrats to Pirate Party, so there is some room for parties to maneuver. New parties are formed from time to time, as you only need 5000 signatures from supporters eligible to vote to form a political party. In this quite dynamic political scene it isn't sound to burn bridges with other parties, and public political discussion tends to stay civil.
In our multi-party political system, parties form alliances and break alliances to get their political agenda through. This dynamic seems to at least bring camps together temporarely and discuss issues seriously to see if they can find a common ground to form an alliance on the subject against other parties. Even ideologically very different parties are able to form temporary alliances on tough subjects (True Finns (right wing) and Left Alliance against raising the retirement age for example) even though they really don't see eye to eye ideologically.
Im not saying multi party system is better than two party system when it comes to actually making sound political decisions, but when it comes to public debate, people seem to be less antagonist to other parties and the political discussion is less heated than what it seems to be here. I'm not sure how much culture affects political discussion - I suspect it has effect, for example Japanese tend to be very polite in social situations compared to us Finns, and it probably affects their political discussion as well.
Now we have 8 parliamentary parties and 9 extraparliamentary parties ranging from National Coalition Party (right wing) to Communist Party, From Christian Democrats to Pirate Party, so there is some room for parties to maneuver. New parties are formed from time to time, as you only need 5000 signatures from supporters eligible to vote to form a political party. In this quite dynamic political scene it isn't sound to burn bridges with other parties, and public political discussion tends to stay civil.
