Political systems have evolved to enable large groups of people and whole societies to make decisions, but many misconceptions exist about how they work and how they can be optimized.  The primary aim of political systems should be to enable the sustained progress needed to solve the never ending stream of problems that always lie ahead.

Political systems that are capable of making  this sustained progress must meet Popper's criterion: "Good political institutions are those that make it as easy as possible to detect whether a ruler or policy is a mistake, and to remove rulers or policies without violence when they are."   This ties into Popper's conception of fallibility or error-correction, which points out that we make progress in growing our knowledge by testing new ideas or explanations and abandoning those that don't work.  Because the future is inherently unpredictable, there is no way of predicting what solutions to our problems will work beyond the near future let alone indefinitely.  Utopian designs rigidly adhered to can only ever end in a hellish dystopia.

The most important element in decision-making processes is the creation of new options or solutions to the problems being faced.  Good policies, like good explanations, are hard to vary; and are developed through conjecture and criticism, not through the weighing of options favorable to different interest groups.  Coalition-style governments, where the balance of power often rests with smaller parties, are not ideal as they make it difficult to change bad policies through the electoral process.  Plurality voting systems are more desirable because they often result in a dominant party that must be sensitive to the public mood, as small changes in voter preference can send them out of power - which aligns with Popper's criterion.