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Comment by busterarm | Hacker News Reader

> Canada uses a first past the post system for federal elections, which usually boils down to a two party state equilibrium

To be fair, that two-party equilibrium is the thing that keeps every minor political crisis from causing no-confidence votes and failed governments because all of the special interests involved break the coalition.

Other Parliamentary governments that don't have this kind of equilibrium end up with minor political parties holding massively outsized influence and concessions just to keep them in the coalition. See Denmark (this is pretty much the subject of every season of Borgen).

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The only time a Finnish government coalition has failed due to a loss of confidence was in the early 80s. Prime ministers occasionally change mid-term and minor parties sometimes leave the coalition, but the coalition always continues until the next regular elections.

And the reason for this stability is trivial. If a party leaves a coalition and the coalition loses parliamentary majority, that party is effectively a major party. Potential prime ministers are rarely stupid enough or desperate enough to give small parties that kind of power. Instead, they prefer making the coalition a bit wider by adding another small party or two.

We also have the Swedish People's Party, which specializes as a reliable coalition partner. They are willing to collaborate with pretty much anyone. As long the coalition agrees to uphold the rights of the Swedish-speaking minority, they will give it another 4-5% support without too much drama.

Finland is also just about the most ethnically, religiously, demographically and linguistically homogenous nation you could pick from.

That affords you the social cohesion to avoid these things. Much moreso than Denmark and orders of magntitude moreso than Canada.

You just generally agree with each other more, in your own socially-distant, Finnish way. Kippis!

Also the comments about the Swedish-speaking minority interest are a bit weird in historical context -- Swedish used to be the dominant language in Finland until the Swedish-speaking nobility decided to promote the Finnish language and identity. It isn't exactly weird that their remnants today would be able to promote their own interests...

Your perception of Finland is stuck in the 20th century. Today's Finland is roughly 10% immigrants. If the current trend continues, the fraction should increase to ~15% by 2030. That would be comparable to the US.

As for the Swedish-speaking minority, it's mostly a result of colonization in the middle ages. Swedish became the dominant language in some coastal areas, while the rest of present-day Finland spoke a variety of Finnic languages. During both Swedish and Russian rule, Swedish was used as the administrative language, and the elites used it among themselves. But even among the elites, Swedish was often not their native language.

> Finland is also just about the most ethnically, religiously, demographically and linguistically homogenous nation you could pick from.

Considering it has pretty much had effectively two primary languages for the past several hundreds years that seems like a stretch? Two of the most famous Finns of all time like Linus Torvalds or Mannerheim didn't even speak Finnish as their first language. Not exactly a sign of "linguistic homogeneity"..

Australia is a good counter example.

We use preferential voting and haven't had a minority government, that is a government formed by coalition as the result of an election since 2010. We still typically have 2 major parties and 3-4 minor parties that can (but by no means always) hold the balance of power, particularly in the senate. It means that the govt has to compromise more often to get bills passed, but the minority parties rarely hold legislation hostage (barring things like the Housing Future Fund, which was a dog's breakfast).

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