European Democracy Is Broken. Here's How to Fix It.
Parliamentary systems need rules changes to overcome deadlocks that are blocking coalition-building after inconclusive elections.
Out with the old.
Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesWhat do Spain, Israel, Austria, Belgium and the German state of Thuringia and perhaps, soon, the U.K., have in common? Elections whose outcomes make reasonable, cohesive parliamentary governing coalitions next to impossible. This isn’t just political fragmentation, which is becoming the norm in Europe and beyond. It’s compromise-defying deadlock. Breaking it may require substantial change to political traditions and parliamentary procedures.
Spain has just held the fourth inconclusive election in as many years and the second this year. The problem for the plurality winner, caretaker Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, is that he’s already tried and failed to make deals with political parties on the leftist flank and in the political center. Policy differences with the remaining parties would probably paralyze a coalition government that included them. Such a scenario is unfolding in Germany now under a reluctant, uneasy coalition of the center-right and the center-left.