Question

write a short note for majority government

Answer 1

Majority rule is a decision-making system. In a choice or vote between two or more options, the option that wins over 50% of the vote wins. Although we use this strategy in daily life as in the ice cream/frozen yogurt dilemma, more often we think of majority rule in government. When a new law is voted on or a president is being elected we often use majority rule. The will of the majority of people is respected and controls the outcome almost all the time.

Majority rule is similar but slightly different from a plurality system. When a plurality system is used, the winning candidate only needs to win more votes than the other candidates. In a majority rule system a candidate needs to win over 50% of the overall vote.

Advantages

1. Majority-rule maximizes self-determination
Majority-rule ensures that in any such clash of interests, more people ‘get their way’ than people who do not. This in turn increases the overall welfare of society.

On the contrary, it may be argued that counter-majoritarian solutions necessarily cheats a community of its sense of common adventure.

2. Majority-rule is likely to provide middle ground solutions

According to Anthony Downs’ Median Voter Theory, political preferences tend to be distributed over a single peaked ‘bell’ curve; the median voter will therefore be pivotal in securing a majority. Hence, majority-rule will tend to create middle ground solutions, which is arguably better than ‘radical’ outcomes.

3. Majority-rule is more likely than not to produce the ‘right’ answer to political questions

if there are right answers to political questions, voters are more likely than not to identify them. This is because, while there will always be many people who will ‘get it wrong’, over the large number of decision-makers, more likely than not, people will get it right. For example, rarely do radical and destructive political systems arise out of majority rule. Yet, history is full of examples of oppressive regimes arising out of dictatorships.

4. Majority-rule is just

Majority-rule treats everyone equally. Allowing minorities to succeed would mean treating each of their votes as carrying more weight than members of the majority. This is wrong, since it fails to accord to the majority the equal respect they deserve as citizens in a political community.

Answer 2

A majority government is a government formed by a governing party that has a absolute majority of seats in the legislature or parliament in a parliamentary system. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats.