Thought experiment #1: No political parties

[the_lyniezian]

I don't know if this should be moved, as it's to some degree political, but also ASB. This I hope will be one in a series of such thought experiments.

Just suppose for a moment that an existing de facto democratic nation had the rule imposed upon it by the ASBs, that there were to be no political parties and they were prohibited, in any formal or informal sense from forming.

The questions that might arise would be:

1. How would a government form with no obvious coherent alliances?
2. How would candidates campaign without any party policy backing them?
3. For nations with proportional representation, how would they have to change and what system might they adopt?

If you like, reference it to your own home country. I'd hope on this forum for non-US-centric discussion, of course...

Any ideas? Would it even work?

[Jasen777]

Well for a US-centric comment -

Some local races are non-partisan, but everyone knows if a candidate is a Republican or a Democrat anyways. Even if ASBs prevented parties there'd still be labels. For instance you could have a self-described "conservative" vs. a "progressive," etc.

Governance may be more chaotic without party discipline, maybe more subject to short term public pressure or influence of political stars?

[NomadicSky]

George Washington warned us about political parties. Did we listen...obviously not.