I've heard Italy used as such an example before, but wonder whether the problem could be mitigated by choosing a different proportional voting system. For example, elections for the Chamber of Deputies use closed party lists (whereas other countries manage with open lists, or no lists).

Which political problems in Italy do you think would go away if they switched to a less proportional system? Wouldn't the same divisions and deal-making just end up happening within parties rather than between parties?

Some things I dislike about what I saw in Italy's system:

* It gives small parties disproportionate amounts of power at times: "do what we say or we leave the coalition and the government falls".

* It gives parties disproportionate power, since they pick the candidates on their lists.

* I think have a person represent a geographic area and be beholden to it has some benefits.

Mostly, it's the government stability problem, as lots of fractious parties, some of which are personal projects rather than longer-term movements just don't offer much continuity.

Replacing "Joe Manchin" with "small coalition partner" still sounds like an improvement :).

The US has plenty of defects too. Not sure what really stands out as a good one to me that exists in the real world. Australia seems to have some good bits...but maybe that's just because I'm not familiar with it.

Parliamentary systems with proportional representation, but the research does show they are better over all --- both theoretical and empirical. The situation in Italy is unfortunate, but I don't think it is a good reason for the US to rest on its laurels.

Yep, and to add, we have proof there is no perfect system: http://tech.mit.edu/V123/N8/8voting.8n.html

(Not to suggest we shouldn't move on from the very flawed FPTP!)

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem often gets brought up in such discussions, but less commonly mentioned is the fact that it only applies to ranked voting systems and not score-based / cardinal voting systems. It also says that a voting system can't produce a total ranking of all options (which is a stronger requirement than just picking a single winner), and it assumes "independence of irrelevant alternatives"[0] which seems rational but doesn't reflect how humans actually behave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alt...