Talk:Majoritarianism

message: " GUYS THIS  IS NON INFORMATIAL !!!!!!!!!!"'Bold text
Addressed to the anon: The changes you're making to "Variations and concept in-depth" are too verbose and stretch the definition beyond what anyone understands the definition to be.  The "decision to have representatives" makes no sense, and is, at best, POV.  Further, let's keep the verbosity out of this article. Let's let it settle down for a while. -- Stevietheman 19:36, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

message: The article tyranny of the majority redirects here, but this article really does not seem to address that subject, which has nothing to do with debates over representative versus direct democracy.  Someone redirected here from the link in judicial review is not likely to get very far in this article before stumbling over rare idioms like "initialized majoritarianism" and wondering "what the !@#$% is this nonsense?"  (I admit to not having been a poli.sci. major, but I do take an interest in government and political philosophy and I have never heard or read that turn of phrase in my life.)  18.26.0.18 04:35, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, something should be added about the philosophy of the tyranny of the majority. --Benna 22:51, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tyranny of the majority 

message: The section on "Reform and Backlash" violates Wikipedia guidelines for NPOV. It is written in a partisan tone that reflects the author's bias in favour of majoritarianism. It can, however, be easily re-written so as to convey the polarity of majoritarianism vs. multiculturalism in an NPOV manner. I would urge the author to do so, so as to avert an edit war. Wandering Star 02:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this section is fundamentally, biased (and indeed factually wrong) because it doesn't mention that these restrictions (e.g against the majority establishing a religion) are based on the Constitution, which wasn't written in 1960 and isn't a majoritarian document. Superm401 - Talk 10:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV? Maybe Not.

message: I know that the authors of Wikipedia's guidelines recommend against making sweeping criticisms about an article, but I find myself in a difficult situation. I am admittedly rather ignorant when it comes to majoritarianism -- or at least it's a term that doesn't pop up too often in my reading. However, I have read enough about voting theory to know that this article suffers from at least two major problems:
#At some points this article seems to be about the view that the default rule of a polity ought to be majority rule. At other points this article seems to be about the view that if a polity has an entrenched majority it ought to rule. These views are not equivalent. Anthony McGann would argue that these two views are incompatible. But even if he's wrong, we need to avoid conflating these two views.
#Paradoxically this article sometimes seems to state that minorities are protected under majoritarian governments. Though I agree with this statement, a significant defense of it has been developed recently, so it may violate NPOV to state it without argument. But the more glaring difficulty is that it doesn't mesh well with parts of the article that seem to equate majoritarianism with the establishment of an entrenched majority.
No doubt, part of the problem is that this article is entirely unsourced. This also makes it difficult for me to read about majoritarianism and offer criticism of this article that is more constructive. So can anyone recommend to me primary or secondary sources of information about majoritarianism? If you could recommend something that can be read for free on the Web or something I'm likely to find in a public library, that would be great. (I've googled, but that didn't lead to much that seemed relevant.) --SgtSchumann (talk) 23:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of Sources, Lack of Coherence 

message: Here are some sources to help others improve this article (I don't expect to be putting any more work into this article myself).
First, Dictionaries: 
* http://www.lexilogos.com/english/dictionary.htm: These are free dictionaries. There are 9 British English Dictionaries, 8 American English, and 6 Mutlidictionaries. Currently only 1 of the 9 British English dictionaries (Collins), and 2 of the 8 American English dicitionaries (Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com) even mention the term, a fact which is well worth pointing out in the article. Merriam-Webster tells us 'First Known Use of MAJORITARIANISM: 1942', while Dictionary.com tells us 'Origin: 1960-19651960-65; majoritarian + -ism'. In other words, if it really is a traditional political philosophy (as claimed in our lead but seemingly somewhat disputed by the excellent final comment in the preceding section), it's one that seemingly had no name (or perhaps some different name) for centuries. I expect that the term, used pejoratively, came into prominence in 1960-65 because at the time the US had just lost its majority in the UN General Assembly and thus wished to complain about the alleged tyranny of the new UN majority, and/or because the US Civil Rights Movement created a need for Blacks to criticize White majorities in the South and/or for Southern Whites to criticize the pro-Civil Rights majority in the country as a whole (probably citing States Rights as a protection against the alleged tyranny of that majority) - maybe the new term 'majoritarianism' was needed because the old terms (tyranny of the majority, mob rule, etc) were discredited through centuries of use in defence of slavery (initially) and segregation (later). However I leave it to others to see if they can find any Reliable Sources to support any such speculations.
* http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/majoritarianism
Definitions
noun
a form of democracy which upholds the rule of the majority
Example Sentences Including 'majoritarianism'
The impact of this stultifying majoritarianism was the creation of a society that frowned on the liberty to be different.
Roper, Jon DEMOCRACY AND ITS CRITICS - ANGLO-AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
* http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majoritarianism
Definition of MAJORITARIANISM
:  the philosophy or practice according to which decisions of an organized group should be made by a numerical majority of its members
First Known Use of MAJORITARIANISM
1942
* http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/majoritarianism
noun
1.
rule by a majority, especially the belief that those constituting a simple majority should make the rules for all members of a group, nation, etc.
Origin Expand
1960-19651960-65; majoritarian + -ism
Examples from the web for majoritarianism Expand
Majority rule or government by the consent of the governed becomes a crude form of majoritarianism.
While majority rule is the bedrock principle upon which democracy rests, simple majoritarianism has its own drawbacks.
* http://www.memidex.com/majoritarianism This is the first of the 6 Multidictionaries, and it gives plenty of useful info.
* I leave it to others to check out the other 5 Multidictionaries.
-----------------
Sources got by googling 'majoritarianism' in Google Books:
 
* https://books.google.ie/books?id=srzDCqnZkfUC&pg=PA427&dq=majoritarianism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6cKmVOxh7q3sBvaFgeAO&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=majoritarianism&f=false - This seems to have a very useful 'majoritarianism' article by 2 academics from Essex University in the UK. Unfortunately page 428 is not available online, but the pages before and after are useful. It often seems to contradict some of the things in our article. In particular I note that those 2 Essex University academics say that almost all majoritarians accept some safeguards for minority rights, though they then seem to suggest that this acceptance can later tend to get less straightforward in practice.
Correction: The 2 Essex University academics are just editors of the book. The Majoritarianism entry is by Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart.
* page 429 in the above contains a 'Further Reading' list of other potentially useful books on the topic, though I leave it to others to check them out
* There are presumably other books  that can be got by googling 'majoritarianism' in Google Books,  though I leave it to others to check them out.
Tlhslobus (talk) 17:07, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some sources to help others improve this article 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Dominant majority. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  signed, Rosguill talk 19:46, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Dominant majority" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: I believe a majoritarian electoral system is one in which candidates require a majority of votes to be elected, such as a Two-Round (top two) or Instant Runoff. Yet this article asserts majoritarian systems use a mere plurality vote, which seems like an error:
"This should not be confused with the concept of a majoritarian electoral system, which is a simple electoral system that usually gives a majority of seats to the party with a plurality of votes. A parliament elected by this method may be called a majoritarian parliament (e.g., the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Parliament of India)."
Parliament of the U.K. I don't believe is majoritarian electoral system as classified by political scientists, rather it's a plurality system—i.e. each representative can be elected without a majority vote.
Filingpro (talk) 18:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error re: Majoritarian Electoral System? 

message: Hello, just a quick side note before I begin and that is that I am a new user so if I make mistakes please be patient this is in fact my first attempted edit. I believe this article should be merged with direct democracy because their is no real practical difference between the two. As mentioned the example in the majoritarian article Athenian Democracy is direct democracy and what makes it a direct democracy also by definition makes it majoritarian. Direct democracy and/or majoritarian democracies/societies are distinct from what we would call representative democracies which often have constitutional protections and judiciaries which can sideline or overthrow the people and reject their decisions. A classic example would be same-sex marriage as in ballot initiatives it failed the vast majority of times it was put on the ballot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_constitutional_amendments_banning_same-sex_unions) and that includes even if you include legalizations that were not via sate constitutional amendment (https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/pol-same-sex-marriage/index.html) and note where the CNN article mentions that they "lost at the ballot box more than 32 times" compared to the three states that legalized same sex marriage over the 32 who choose to ban it. However the will of the people at the time (it has not been put on the ballot since Obergefell) was overthrown via supreme court decisions such as Obergefell V. Hodges and Hollingsworth v. Perry. This was able to happen particularly because of the United States being a representative democracy and in many ways these judges are representatives. That the will of the people (which is always understood to mean the majority) was overthrown over constitutional concerns. The direct democracies article mentions referendums and initiatives and later lists these aspects of the United States that have semblance to a direct democracy or have direct democratic aspects to them. In other words in order for a direct democracy to vote everyone must vote (not through representatives but everyone (or at least every citizen or person with voting rights)) and what ever comes out of the voting becomes law via majority wins. Switzerland's Landsgemeinde system mentioned in the direct democracy article is another example which shows this where it is a direct democracy where the citizens vote and majority wins and then by definition is also majoritarian as is pretty much all other systems mentioned in the article of direct democracy and what makes them a direct democracy by definition also makes them majoritarian. So I hope to initiate the process to merge the Majoritarianism article to the Direct Democracy article and please respond with your doubts if you have any. Additionally since I am new and this is literally my first attempted edit I would invite more experienced users to make minor edits to my post to be more in compliance with Wikipedia's standards and let me know what they are so I can improve.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by ALSBBAB1234 (talk • contribs) 07:10, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: They are distinct ideas.  You can have representative majoritarianism if the representatives represent the diversity of views and the representatives will change when the majority view changes.  You can have direct democracy where there are restrictions on what decisions can be taken, e.g. to protect minorities.10:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with Direct Democracy Article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy)