I think the veto thing you suggest is an ad-hoc patch that might be able to hold things together if they have already gone very wrong.
If you have one monolithic group of 51% who share a particular culture, religion, ethnicity, industry and class vs 49% who are different on every metric then I don’t think any system (baring splitting the country in two) is going to deal with it well. But, if religion cuts the population in pieces. And so does ethnicity. And so does conservatism, and so does class and so does culture, but they are all uncorrelated, then there is little room for a tyranny of the majority. Nobody can build an election platform on any specific one of those splits, because there is someone else muddying the waters by trying to drive a wedge through a different one.
As a voter you set out into the demagogue market, the first person tries to sell you on the idea of the Christian majority bashing up the rest. The second in your ethnicity sticking it to the others. The third says “Eat the rich, and take their money”. You leave disappointed, as what you wanted was someone who would advance the interests of farmers, who after all, are 51% of the population. Each of these groups trips over the others.
The American civil war is a good example. The North and South were divided by the issue of slavery, but the North was also richer, more industrialised, more cosmopolitan and more urban. I imagine the troubles in Northern Ireland would have been much less violent if the Protestant—Catholic divide had been uncorrelated with the Unionist—Republican one.
I think the veto thing you suggest is an ad-hoc patch that might be able to hold things together if they have already gone very wrong.
If you have one monolithic group of 51% who share a particular culture, religion, ethnicity, industry and class vs 49% who are different on every metric then I don’t think any system (baring splitting the country in two) is going to deal with it well. But, if religion cuts the population in pieces. And so does ethnicity. And so does conservatism, and so does class and so does culture, but they are all uncorrelated, then there is little room for a tyranny of the majority. Nobody can build an election platform on any specific one of those splits, because there is someone else muddying the waters by trying to drive a wedge through a different one.
As a voter you set out into the demagogue market, the first person tries to sell you on the idea of the Christian majority bashing up the rest. The second in your ethnicity sticking it to the others. The third says “Eat the rich, and take their money”. You leave disappointed, as what you wanted was someone who would advance the interests of farmers, who after all, are 51% of the population. Each of these groups trips over the others.
The American civil war is a good example. The North and South were divided by the issue of slavery, but the North was also richer, more industrialised, more cosmopolitan and more urban. I imagine the troubles in Northern Ireland would have been much less violent if the Protestant—Catholic divide had been uncorrelated with the Unionist—Republican one.