Questions About Other Countries' Politics that You Were Too Afraid To Ask

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Afaik, it was Tony Blair who broke the convention (in terms of PMs leaving office, MPs ofc had resigned via the aforementioned procedure previously).

Stanley Baldwin resigned his seat on his resignation as Prime Minister in 1937 and Anthony Eden did much the same under somewhat more awkward circumstances in 1957.* Clement Attlee fought one more General Election after losing power in 1951 and then resigned his seat at the same time as the Party leadership that he'd held for twenty years. Of course he only stayed on as leader after the 1951 election to make sure that Herbert Morrison would be too old to realistically succeed him: Morrison had tried to topple Attlee shortly after the 1945 election and Attlee was very much a dish-served-deep-frozen kind of man.

_{*And may have been acting irrationally due to amphetamines at the time as he immediately started searching around for a way to return to the Commons and was hastily gifted a Peerage to prevent an embarrassing spectacle. Alternatively, the searching around for a new seat may have been the case of acting irrationally due to amphetamines, rather than the resignation.}

[Battista Minola 1616]

Apologies for the very belated response; I am only seeing this thread now. But as the most prominent poster who lives in Italy I feel bound to add my answers on the topic.

Italy really confuses me in general, but one thing really confused me from the recent election - what do people mean by saying M5S is a parody of an old-school labor party?

Nathan already answered this quite well but I have a couple nitpicks to make.

It has the internal political culture of a weirdo extremely-online e-utopian techbro party (by design!) yet its main actual policy accomplishment, at least on the national level, is also the only major leftist social/welfare policy achievement in Italy for a long time (the citizen's income, basically a diminished form of UBI). As of last month's election it also now has the voter pattern--in the South, its main remaining stronghold--that one expects of a traditional left-wing party, namely gritty working-class cities and especially deprived areas of the rurals.

The citizenship income is a sort of guaranteed minimum income with weird hoops, but I think using the term "UBI" is misleading (it's very much not universal!). And I disagree with the implication that its voting pattern looks more left-wing in the South, it does just as much in the urban North and I doubt deprived agricultural backwaters in the hills are what people typically imagine as an area where a labour party overperforms significantly.

They also made putting in place a minimum wage (which Italy currently doesn't have) the centerpiece of their campaign this year. They've stumbled ass-backwards into this being their role in the political system rather than intending it, but they seem comfortable with it for now. And even if some of their views continue to be stupid and/or self-defeating, having a party that actually does see that as its role again (since it hasn't had one, no matter how flawed, arguably since the PCI stopped being the PCI) should be a good thing for Italian politics.

I disagree with this actually, the centerpiece of their campaign was much more defending the citizenship income. The minimum wage was still important of course, but so goes for the PD as well.

Apparently Italy doesn't have a minimum wage? Is this common in southern Europe?

Common all across Europe, but IIRC it's not universal. In many northern European countries sectoral bargaining creates de facto minimum wages. No idea if that's also the case in Italy. Its enormous economic divide between north and south also probably makes it harder to set a minimum wage that works everywhere.

Italy has no minimum wage but a large majority of workers is covered by collective bargaining agreements that way indeed (although surely fewer than in the Nordics). It's also not exactly common in Europe, 21 countries out of 27 in the EU have a national minimum wage.

[Sol]

What would the best plausible electoral result for Plaid Cymru look like?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What would the best plausible electoral result for Plaid Cymru look like?

General Election or Senedd?

[Sol]

What would the best plausible electoral result for Plaid Cymru look like?

General Election or Senedd?

Either.

[Agonized-Statism]

How come communism never took off in Ireland the way it did in other Catholic countries that weren't fighting wars of independence? Particular focus on the late 1910s to the early 1930s.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What would the best plausible electoral result for Plaid Cymru look like?

General Election or Senedd?

Either.

Looking at the new boundaries, then the best plausible result for Plaid at a General Election in the near future would be four seats, but one of those would be very tricky and perhaps only plausible if their leader runs there himself as he was planning to do before he was drafted in to fill the sudden vacancy at the top of the party. And the party has a rule that says that the party leader and the group leader at the Senedd must be the same person, which makes that awkward. There are two others where activists would likely insist that they are serious challengers, but in both cases they would have come a poor third in 2019.

As for the Senedd, the electoral system makes it tricky to work these things out exactly (and it may well be changed by the time of the next one anyway) as does the voters habit of treating it like Wales County Council, but they've never done better than they seventeen seats they took in 1999 and that is probably around about their functional maximum.

[Battista Minola 1616]

How come communism never took off in Ireland the way it did in other Catholic countries that weren't fighting wars of independence? Particular focus on the late 1910s to the early 1930s.

You should probably be somewhat clearer (I would not say communism really "took off" in any Catholic country before the early 1930s) but at least in Latin Europe which is the part I know best I can think of three obvious common strands in future communist strength. Class voting in heavily industrialized areas where it built off pre-existing socialist strength (Italy, France, perhaps Spain), strong association with anti-fascist resistance movements (Italy, France, Spain, perhaps Portugal) and class voting in areas dominated by sharecroppers seeking land reform (Spain, Portugal, Italy, perhaps France). This is certainly not the full explanation, but you can see none of these applied in independent Ireland.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Why do so many Latin American countries have completely new parties every election?

[Pivaru]

Why do so many Latin American countries have completely new parties every election?

I don't know enough to make any kind of sweeping generalization of the situation in other Latin American countries, but specifically in Brazil, I think it just comes down to the following factors:

First of all, there are just a lot of parties, something like 30 registered ones I think (there used to be more, the number has been trending down due to some recent reforms). Now, granted, most of them have never and will never get close to winning something like the presidency, but most (~70% or so) are organized enough to elect someone to the lower chamber of congress and/or a mayor.  This is important because mayors and congressman can be a great asset in propping up some small party's gubernatorial candidate who no one cares about into a position in which they may actually win. Not only do incumbent mayors/congressman have the government's public machine to use, they'll often print out these pamphlets commonly known as "santinhos" in which they'll promote their allies.

Second is that many Brazilian parties are not very ideological, they're organizations created by some church/political family/notorious politician/whatever so they can further their power and influence over government. For example, PSD, the Social Democratic Party was created by Gilberto Kassab, it doesn't really stand for anything in particular, it's just a way for Kassab to have his own personal political machine which he can then sell the services of to whoever is the highest bidder at any given moment. PSD politicians are all over the place ideologically, you have people like Ratinho Jr, a right-wing Bolsonaro supported, Eduardo Paes, a centrist Lula supporter, and Fábio Mitidieri, a left-winger and a Lula supporter.

Even bigger, more legitimate parties (and with legitimate I mean, they have a reason to exist other than just satisfying some power hungry family) can be pretty ideologically ambiguous. MDB, the Brazilian Democratic Movement is Brazil's largest party, but it doesn't really have much of a coherent ideology so it has housed people from varied places in the political spectrum throughout the years. You have free-market loving conservatives like Michel Temer, staunch nationalists like Orestes Quércia, left-wingers like Roberto Requião, so on and so forth. This lack of ideology has always been a feature of Brazilian parties, even back in the empire, they were basically indistinguishable, there's even this one phrase you'll sometimes see in history tests: "there's nothing more liberal than a conservative in the opposition and nothing more conservative than a liberal in government". Not every party is like this, but many are.

The result of these two factors in combination is that you'll have a prominent politician with an already existing base of voters who really wants to run for something, but their party denies them the opportunity, or maybe they lose some sort of internal struggle or something, so the politician just leaves. Since many parties are so non-ideological, the politician will just join anyone who'll accept their terms and then go on with their careers. This is pretty common, Bolsonaro did this during his presidency, he was a member of PSL (which itself was a small party he joined exclusively to run for president in 2018), but lost an internal dispute there, so he left and joined PL, a centrão party which never really stood for much.

Of course, there are other factors as well, some races just happen under weird circumstances, sometimes the small party candidate gathers the support of someone relevant somehow. Last year's Mato Grosso do Sul gubernatorial election saw a runoff between a PSDB candidate and a guy from PRTB. PRTB is a miniscule cartoonishly conservative party and the reason they got that far is that Bolsonaro out of nowhere just decided to endorse their guy during one of the televised debates (even though his party backed the PSDB guy).

As a side not, I guess you could argue that between 1994 and 2014, Brazil had a stable party system, since every presidential election came down to PT and PSDB, I'd disagree though. There were moments, more than once, during this timeframe, in which PT and especially PSDB seemed like they'd lose to some other competitor from a smaller party. PSDB was very lucky that their status as a major player in Brazilian politics lasted for as long as it did.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Why do NUPES/Die Linke parties that hate the US for being a hypercapitalist imperalist power without government-run healthcare like Russia, a hypercapitalist imperialist power without government-run healthcare?

Russia is undoubtedly imperialist, but it is not “hyper capitalist” (which is a dumb term to use to begin with, but certainly not true of Russia), and it does have government run healthcare. As does the United States, incidentally.

55% of Russian wealth is controlled by the top 1%. 85% is controlled by the top 10%.

That's because during the Yeltsin years, Yeltsin allowed the oligarchs to enrichen theirselves and he became a powerless puppet of them.

Yeltsin was an awful and pathetic leader. Democracy and capitalism in Russia have miserably failed.

For most Russians, life during the USSR was better, esp. economically, they've not seen or witness the "economic advantages" of capitalism, quite the contrary, and it's not like many Russians experience a lot of freedom nowadays.

The collapse was only a good thing for east European nations that have sought closer ties with Europe, but for anyone else it was a disaster. The further east the worse the consequences were (except for Kazakhstan and maybe Azerbaijan because they sit on a ton of wealth), but even than those people do not experience freedom or the same kind of liberteis the upper class do.

[LabourJersey]

For the Irish posters:

Is the rise of Sinn Fein in the polls chiefly coming from the parts of the ROI outside of the greater Dublin metropolitan area, or is it coming from all parts of the country?

I've always gotten the sense that there's a bit of antimosity against Co. Dublin from other regions of the ROI (Met one or two from the West who consider Dubliners "West Brits", etc) and was curious if that is 1) real, and 2) bleeds into Irish politics.

[MayorCarcetti]

For the Irish posters:

Is the rise of Sinn Fein in the polls chiefly coming from the parts of the ROI outside of the greater Dublin metropolitan area, or is it coming from all parts of the country?

I've always gotten the sense that there's a bit of antimosity against Co. Dublin from other regions of the ROI (Met one or two from the West who consider Dubliners "West Brits", etc) and was curious if that is 1) real, and 2) bleeds into Irish politics.

Not really, they're doing just as well in Dublin as they are outside of it. The Northside is one of their strongest areas. The 'West Brits' traditionally tend to be from the more affluent South side (D4 is famously a posh postcode in Irela nd), whereas the Northside is more marginalised and working class

The biggest cause for Sinn Feins rise is the housing crisis. With high house prices and ridiculous rents, Ireland has a very serious problem at the moment with homelessness, especially in Dublin, on the rise. FG/FF response is seen as inadequate and out of touch, and it doesn't help that many of their TD's are landlords too. Lot of Irish people are basically fed up with both those parties and Sinn Fein is seen as the alternative. It also helps them that memories of the Troubles are starting to fade, and they are very strong among young voters who don't remember them. Also recent years have seen a growing resentment of the British government  post-Brexit and a sense that a United Ireland is achievable so they might also help them a little bit

[ingemann]

This is a more general question, but Political activists do seem to very underrepresented as political candidates compared to those from other professionals looking to branch out into politics ?

Why is this the case ? Why aren't activists more heavily represnted among political canidates and elected officals.

Because they make lousy politicians, they usually have a laser focus on one issue and they tend to be  self-righteous and unable to compromise, of course that’s if you’re lucky and get the good activists, if you get the other kind they’re usually grifters, and a grifter in parliament is sure way to get a corruption scandal later.

[Oryxslayer]

For the Irish posters:

Is the rise of Sinn Fein in the polls chiefly coming from the parts of the ROI outside of the greater Dublin metropolitan area, or is it coming from all parts of the country?

I've always gotten the sense that there's a bit of antimosity against Co. Dublin from other regions of the ROI (Met one or two from the West who consider Dubliners "West Brits", etc) and was curious if that is 1) real, and 2) bleeds into Irish politics.

Not really, they're doing just as well in Dublin as they are outside of it. The Northside is one of their strongest areas. The 'West Brits' traditionally tend to be from the more affluent South side (D4 is famously a posh postcode in Irela nd), whereas the Northside is more marginalised and working class

The biggest cause for Sinn Feins rise is the housing crisis. With high house prices and ridiculous rents, Ireland has a very serious problem at the moment with homelessness, especially in Dublin, on the rise. FG/FF response is seen as inadequate and out of touch, and it doesn't help that many of their TD's are landlords too. Lot of Irish people are basically fed up with both those parties and Sinn Fein is seen as the alternative. It also helps them that memories of the Troubles are starting to fade, and they are very strong among young voters who don't remember them. Also recent years have seen a growing resentment of the British government  post-Brexit and a sense that a United Ireland is achievable so they might also help them a little bit

Even though I'm not Irish, everything that I have read about the situation has basically said their growth in the Republic right now is in spite of rather than thanks to the Dream of a United Ireland. As you said, the rent and personal economic situation has sent people in search of an opposition, and SF said the right stuff last election. This, like in most countries, affects the urban and less established populations more than the average, which again helps SF since those groups are less likely to have memories about The Troubles. Let us not forget that modern SF only got elected to the Dáil in 1997 when peace was in sight.

This is of course in contrast to Northern SF where growth at the expense of SDLP is because of a promised potential for a United future. Most of Northern Ireland by now realizes that the UK doesn't care about what goes on in NI 99% of the time, and that the residents have to solve their own problems, especially in light of Brexit. Which is precisely why party strength there has shifted with generational turnover. History though tells us that the Republic cares only a tiny bit more about the North that the UK, so Northern SF's solution to a lack of British attention is a coped one. It might take a SF government in the Republic though to expose this glaring wedge between the younger post-Troubles socialistic/reformist SF, and the older core committed to Nationalism above all else.

[MayorCarcetti]

For the Irish posters:

Is the rise of Sinn Fein in the polls chiefly coming from the parts of the ROI outside of the greater Dublin metropolitan area, or is it coming from all parts of the country?

I've always gotten the sense that there's a bit of antimosity against Co. Dublin from other regions of the ROI (Met one or two from the West who consider Dubliners "West Brits", etc) and was curious if that is 1) real, and 2) bleeds into Irish politics.

Not really, they're doing just as well in Dublin as they are outside of it. The Northside is one of their strongest areas. The 'West Brits' traditionally tend to be from the more affluent South side (D4 is famously a posh postcode in Irela nd), whereas the Northside is more marginalised and working class

The biggest cause for Sinn Feins rise is the housing crisis. With high house prices and ridiculous rents, Ireland has a very serious problem at the moment with homelessness, especially in Dublin, on the rise. FG/FF response is seen as inadequate and out of touch, and it doesn't help that many of their TD's are landlords too. Lot of Irish people are basically fed up with both those parties and Sinn Fein is seen as the alternative. It also helps them that memories of the Troubles are starting to fade, and they are very strong among young voters who don't remember them. Also recent years have seen a growing resentment of the British government  post-Brexit and a sense that a United Ireland is achievable so they might also help them a little bit

Even though I'm not Irish, everything that I have read about the situation has basically said their growth in the Republic right now is in spite of rather than thanks to the Dream of a United Ireland. As you said, the rent and personal economic situation has sent people in search of an opposition, and SF said the right stuff last election. This, like in most countries, affects the urban and less established populations more than the average, which again helps SF since those groups are less likely to have memories about The Troubles. Let us not forget that modern SF only got elected to the Dáil in 1997 when peace was in sight.

This is of course in contrast to Northern SF where growth at the expense of SDLP is because of a promised potential for a United future. Most of Northern Ireland by now realizes that the UK doesn't care about what goes on in NI 99% of the time, and that the residents have to solve their own problems, especially in light of Brexit. Which is precisely why party strength there has shifted with generational turnover. History though tells us that the Republic cares only a tiny bit more about the North that the UK, so Northern SF's solution to a lack of British attention is a coped one. It might take a SF government in the Republic though to expose this glaring wedge between the younger post-Troubles socialistic/reformist SF, and the older core committed to Nationalism above all else.

I think it's a hindrance and a help. There is still the stench of the IRA to Sinn Fein and it's why they're not doing even better. Doubt still lingers as to how involved the two still are, and their elected representatives do not help themselves by making touchy comments or publicly singing rebel tunes. However I definitely think among younger voters that Ireland's declining relationship with the UK has shored up their base somewhat. There does seem to be a real distaste of the British establishment among them - see the response on Twitter (not the best barometer I know) to the Queen's death. 'The Brits are at it again' is becoming a popular phrase now. That sort of culture shift definitely is playing into Sinn Fein's hand.

[Samof94]

What has made the Morena party so popular despite literally not existing before 2018?

[WalterWhite]

Why did Turkey decide to lower interest rates as a result of inflation last year?

[CumbrianLefty]

Why did Turkey decide to lower interest rates as a result of inflation last year?

Mostly down to Erdogan's "interesting" ideas on economic matters.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In relative terms, what is probably the most "clientelistic" European country, politically?

[Battista Minola 1616]

In relative terms, what is probably the most "clientelistic" European country, politically?

I am not an expert on all countries of course, and I am not entirely sure what you mean by "clientelistic", but what I've read about state capture and vote buying in Romania seems to trump everyone else (even Bulgaria, DPS notwithstanding).

[Oryxslayer]

What has made the Morena party so popular despite literally not existing before 2018?

AMLO is personally popular, that was the foundation.

Since his election, the party has absorbed the old PRI machine and electorate without actually converting the official PRI institutions. They just got many old PRI guys and talked/presented ideas/campaigned like they were late-dictatorship PRI. Cause that is part of the whole AMLO appeal: rose-tinted nostalgia with slight modifications for modern leftism. The oldest PRI voters are still loyal - like in most counties those who built a political identity aren't quick to change. But comparatively new voters with only nostalgia see today's PRI as corrupt from what they did last decade.

Nothing captures this better than this poll (just grabbed from the 2024 election thread) of CDMX state election in 2024.



Mexico City was a PRD stronghold for much of it's history since the return to democracy. It won both the poor and rich sides of the city to varying degrees. MORENA officially could initially be seen as a successor to PRD when AMLO ran for those parties, and they basically swept Mexico city in the 2018 Deputy Elections. Sheinbaum headed CDMX until the nomination after all. But since getting into power AMLO has not exactly been what urbanites hope for, and instead has shifted towards nostalgia and the Southern poorer states with machines, aka politics usually rejected by upwardly mobile urban voters. So in 2021 the city returned only 11/24 FPTP seats to AMLO's coalition, dividing the city between the opposition roughly along income lines. MORENA losing control here after making the previous mayor their presidential candidate will nicely signify the evolution in coalitions.

[CumbrianLefty]

In relative terms, what is probably the most "clientelistic" European country, politically?

I am not an expert on all countries of course, and I am not entirely sure what you mean by "clientelistic", but what I've read about state capture and vote buying in Romania seems to trump everyone else (even Bulgaria, DPS notwithstanding).

Maybe more interesting, the most "clientelistic" Western European country - Belgium, possibly?

[Sol]

What's the deal with the Peak District? Why is it so undeveloped despite being next to a bunch of big cities--is it just downstream effects of topography?

[Samof94]

What has made the Morena party so popular despite literally not existing before 2018?

AMLO is personally popular, that was the foundation.

Since his election, the party has absorbed the old PRI machine and electorate without actually converting the official PRI institutions. They just got many old PRI guys and talked/presented ideas/campaigned like they were late-dictatorship PRI. Cause that is part of the whole AMLO appeal: rose-tinted nostalgia with slight modifications for modern leftism. The oldest PRI voters are still loyal - like in most counties those who built a political identity aren't quick to change. But comparatively new voters with only nostalgia see today's PRI as corrupt from what they did last decade.

Nothing captures this better than this poll (just grabbed from the 2024 election thread) of CDMX state election in 2024.



Mexico City was a PRD stronghold for much of it's history since the return to democracy. It won both the poor and rich sides of the city to varying degrees. MORENA officially could initially be seen as a successor to PRD when AMLO ran for those parties, and they basically swept Mexico city in the 2018 Deputy Elections. Sheinbaum headed CDMX until the nomination after all. But since getting into power AMLO has not exactly been what urbanites hope for, and instead has shifted towards nostalgia and the Southern poorer states with machines, aka politics usually rejected by upwardly mobile urban voters. So in 2021 the city returned only 11/24 FPTP seats to AMLO's coalition, dividing the city between the opposition roughly along income lines. MORENA losing control here after making the previous mayor their presidential candidate will nicely signify the evolution in coalitions.

Older voters also can remember the old PRI and find the events of 1994 a shock as the guy they expected to be President was murdered.