Political science: TestAS practice testlets

In a democracy, citizens elect representatives, but the rules that turn votes into seats differ greatly between countries, and they have large effects on the party system and on how governments are formed.

Under a majority or plurality system, the country is divided into constituencies, each of which elects one representative. In the simplest form, used for elections to the British House of Commons, the candidate with the most votes wins, even without an absolute majority; this is called first past the post. Such systems create a close link between representatives and their local area and often produce clear majorities for one party, which makes government formation easy. However, votes for losing candidates have no effect, and a party with a large national share of the vote may win few seats if its support is spread evenly. The political scientist Maurice Duverger observed that plurality systems tend to produce two-party systems, a tendency known as Duverger's law.

Under proportional representation, seats are distributed in proportion to the parties' shares of the vote, usually on the basis of party lists. Such systems represent smaller parties and a wider range of opinions, but they rarely give one party a majority, so governments are usually coalitions. Many proportional systems set a threshold: parties below a minimum share of the vote receive no seats, which is meant to prevent the fragmentation of parliament.

Germany uses a mixed system that is proportional in its overall result. Each voter has two votes. The first vote elects a constituency representative by plurality; the second vote goes to a party list and determines the share of seats each party receives in the Bundestag. Parties generally need at least five percent of the second votes to enter parliament. The system aims to combine the local link of the majority system with the fairness of proportional representation. Because no party has won an absolute majority of seats on its own for decades, German governments have almost always been coalitions, and the negotiation of coalition agreements has become a central part of German politics.

The following table shows the result of an invented election under a proportional system with a five-percent threshold and a parliament of 96 seats, in which seats are divided among the qualifying parties in proportion to their votes.

The European Union is neither a federal state nor an ordinary international organisation. Its member states have transferred some of their powers to common institutions whose decisions are binding and, in many areas, take precedence over national law. Understanding how the EU makes laws requires knowing its main institutions.

The European Commission, based in Brussels, consists of one commissioner from each member state, led by a president. It is meant to represent the interests of the Union as a whole, and it has the almost exclusive right to propose new legislation. It also monitors whether member states apply EU law correctly and can take them to court if they do not.

Two institutions decide on legislation. The European Parliament is directly elected by the citizens of the member states every five years; since 2024 it has 720 members, who sit in political groups rather than national delegations. The Council of the European Union, often simply called the Council, consists of ministers from the national governments, meeting in different compositions depending on the subject, for example the agriculture ministers for agricultural policy. It must not be confused with the European Council, which brings together the heads of state or government, sets the general political direction and does not pass laws.

Under the ordinary legislative procedure, which applies in most policy areas, the Commission makes a proposal, and Parliament and Council must both approve the same text for it to become law. The Council usually decides by qualified majority. A qualified majority requires two conditions: at least 55 percent of the member states must vote in favour, and they must represent at least 65 percent of the EU's population. A decision can therefore be blocked either by a large number of small states or by a smaller number of large ones; a blocking minority must, however, include at least four states. In sensitive areas such as foreign policy and taxation, the Council must decide unanimously, which gives every member state a veto.

The Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg ensures that EU law is interpreted and applied in the same way in all member states. Critics speak of a democratic deficit, because the directly elected Parliament cannot propose laws itself and much of the Council's work takes place behind closed doors; defenders point out that the Council consists of democratically accountable national governments.