apologies - i've been a terrible thread host, been away for almost a week.
i dont think it's a problem just with the two party system. as wellard points out, it's present here in australia, and while we have two major parties (labour and liberal), there are several smaller parties (democrats, one nation, greens, independents) represented at the state and federal levels.
i read an interesting
article in a magazine called "policy" where a sociologist put forth a theory that basically said that the natural end point for democracy is a blown-up beauracracy laden with pork barrel policies. it's fairly well thought out and accurately describes the major democracies in the world with which i am familiar (thick and dull, but worth the read).
the point being that what azred describes may be an inherent weakness of democracy.
[img]graemlins/hidesbehindsofa.gif[/img] (and before anyone calls me an america basher or makes some silly statement about it's the best form of govt in the world, blah blah blah, i'm not advocating tearing down the system. rather, i'm suggesting an objective evaluation in the hopes that we can learn from it. [img]smile.gif[/img] )