In the Netherlands, the House of Representatives is roughly divided as follows: left-wing parties sit on the left, right-wing parties sit on the right. But if you mix up all MPs and they sit in random places, research shows that this counteracts polarization.
“Seats of political groups must be placed together by drawing lots”, said Caroline van der Plas yesterday during her HJ Schoo lecture. “Experience from the Icelandic parliament shows that this counteracts polarization and promotes cooperation between parties.”
To pull straws
In Iceland, lots are drawn every 4 years when a new parliament takes office. Notes with the numbers 1 to 63, the number of seats in the Icelandic House of Representatives, go into a large pot. Every parliamentarian draws a ticket and knows where he or she will be for the next 4 years.
Associate Professor Alessandro Saia from the University of Bologna in Italy has conducted extensive research into the effect of the Icelandic room layout. He can be brief about this: “It turns out that physical proximity also creates political proximity.”
A meeting in the Icelandic parliament in 2016
Less voting with party
“It appears that parliamentarians in Iceland vote less often in line with their party.” In the scientific literature, parties that always vote the same as one bloc are a pillar for polarization.
Saia also found that politicians sitting next to each other copy each other’s language. This effect does not apply to politicians who sit in front of or behind each other. “Logical, because you have more interaction with the people sitting next to you.”
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House of Representatives is semicircle
In the Netherlands, the House of Representatives sits in a semicircle, divided into blocks. At the front of each block, in the center of the circle, there is room for two Members of Parliament. The lines are getting longer. There is room for six members in the back row.
Would it be possible in the Netherlands, such an arbitrary classification? Mathematician Frits Spieksma has already researched this, together with two colleagues. They designed a mathematical model that can make room divisions. “You can put all kinds of conditions in that model. Then a classification rolls out that meets all those conditions,” he says.
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Don’t sit next to your own party
“First you had to decide how far apart party members of the same parties should sit. Can’t they just sit next to each other? “Or not in front of and behind each other?”, says Spieksma.
Two years ago, the researchers set the condition that a member of parliament may not be surrounded by members of the same parties. “So not diagonally in front or behind.”
New elections
And indeed, it rolled a room layout that met the requirements. “I think it could be the same after the elections in November. The only condition is that there are enough different parties in the Chamber and that the largest party is not too big.”
Whether the rest of the political community shares the same opinion as Van der Plas remains to be seen. “We did offer this model to the presidium of the House of Representatives 2 years ago, which did not need it at the time.”
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2023-09-05 15:31:21
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