No, I am not arguing that it isn’t the job of the voters to hold politicians accountable. That diverges from what I am actually saying in two ways.
I am not advocating the sort of law described here, merely answering the question “Why should they?”.
I am not proposing, nor do I think anyone here is proposing, to abolish elections, whereby the voters hold politicians accountable.
The proposal in question (which, I repeat, is not mine) does, however, argue that as well as the usual means of keeping politicians accountable, there should be a further means of doing so. Voting is a very blunt instrument and it’s not obviously wrong to augment it.
Is that supposed to be an example that suggests why holding a referendum is a bad idea?
No, it’s supposed to be an illustration of a situation in which politician’s pre-election campaigning and their post-election behaviourshowed a particularly stark mismatch. As it happens I do think the UK’s referendum was a silly idea badly executed, but that wasn’t at all why I was bringing it up here. (That would have been a total non sequitur.)
I am not proposing, nor do I think anyone here is proposing, to abolish elections, whereby the voters hold politicians accountable.
If voters have the impression that they should choose candidates based on the promises those candidates made for the future they will put less effort into rewarding past actions and holding politicians accountable for past actions.
I want politicians you listen to expert advice and changing circumstances and are willing to change their mind about what has to be done.
I don’t want that our political system turns into a copy of the soviet system that replaces 5-year plans with 4-year plans. Advocating that an election for a president should be understood as agreeing to a 4-year waterfall plan is in my mind likely to damage our democracy from functioning properly.
Yes, I agree; that’s one of the reasons why “often the actions are better than the promises”. Though candidates’ promises are generally nothing as specific as 4-year waterfall plans, and I would expect them to get less specific if a law of this sort were introduced.
In Germany there was a campaign promise of the SPD at the last election to not change the current law of accepting refugees.
The SPD broke that promise when the amount of refugee seekers rose drastically. I think that fact that they did so, shows that they react intelligently to changing circumstances.
I wouldn’t want to have politicians looked into 4-year promises that prevent them from acting dynamically.
Binding promises also make consensus finding harder and could even forbid it when the promises made before the election aren’t compatible.
No, I am not arguing that it isn’t the job of the voters to hold politicians accountable. That diverges from what I am actually saying in two ways.
I am not advocating the sort of law described here, merely answering the question “Why should they?”.
I am not proposing, nor do I think anyone here is proposing, to abolish elections, whereby the voters hold politicians accountable.
The proposal in question (which, I repeat, is not mine) does, however, argue that as well as the usual means of keeping politicians accountable, there should be a further means of doing so. Voting is a very blunt instrument and it’s not obviously wrong to augment it.
No, it’s supposed to be an illustration of a situation in which politician’s pre-election campaigning and their post-election behaviourshowed a particularly stark mismatch. As it happens I do think the UK’s referendum was a silly idea badly executed, but that wasn’t at all why I was bringing it up here. (That would have been a total non sequitur.)
If voters have the impression that they should choose candidates based on the promises those candidates made for the future they will put less effort into rewarding past actions and holding politicians accountable for past actions.
I want politicians you listen to expert advice and changing circumstances and are willing to change their mind about what has to be done. I don’t want that our political system turns into a copy of the soviet system that replaces 5-year plans with 4-year plans. Advocating that an election for a president should be understood as agreeing to a 4-year waterfall plan is in my mind likely to damage our democracy from functioning properly.
Yes, I agree; that’s one of the reasons why “often the actions are better than the promises”. Though candidates’ promises are generally nothing as specific as 4-year waterfall plans, and I would expect them to get less specific if a law of this sort were introduced.
In Germany there was a campaign promise of the SPD at the last election to not change the current law of accepting refugees.
The SPD broke that promise when the amount of refugee seekers rose drastically. I think that fact that they did so, shows that they react intelligently to changing circumstances. I wouldn’t want to have politicians looked into 4-year promises that prevent them from acting dynamically.
Binding promises also make consensus finding harder and could even forbid it when the promises made before the election aren’t compatible.