Multiple viewpoint dimensions Modelling for fun and profit
Often political viewpoints are talked about in right-left wing context. In reality voters and parties can rarely be aligned in such a simple (2 dimensional) manner and political viewpoints can be aligned according to many different political axes (multi-axis political model. The website politcalcompass.org argues for at least two axes: economics and social. In this post we explore the effect of these changes.
Above we show the voting history for a political model that assumes two axes. As shown the first past the post voting system results in 2-4 viable political parties. In contrast the proportional representation voting system results in 4 viable parties.
We can also see that the more political axes we assume there are the more sustainable parties proportional voting supports. In contrast, first past the post supports 2 parties almost regardless of the number of axes. You might also notice that the proportional voting on average results in two parties for each political axes.
Further additions to the model
I still want to add two things before I consider the model complete. First, parties that can change their viewpoint over time in response to the will of the voters. Second, the possibility for new political parties to appear in the model. I think both of those are very important features of a realistic model. After that I can spend one or more posts on looking at the results in more detail.