scholarly journals Increasingly ‘Irrational’ Party Systems: Evidence that There Are Increasingly More Than Two Parties at the District Level

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 506-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
District Level ◽  
Number Of Parties

Recent work has noted an increase in the number of parties at the national level in both proportional and majoritarian electoral systems. While the conventional wisdom maintains that the incentives provided by the electoral system will prevent the number of parties at the district level from exceeding two in majoritarian systems, the evidence presented here demonstrates otherwise. I argue that this has occurred because the number of cleavages articulated by parties has increased as several third parties have begun articulating cleavages that are not well represented by the two larger parties.

scholarly journals Introducing new multilevel datasets: Party systems at the district and national levels

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 205316801881350
Author(s):  
Cory L. Struthers ◽  
Yuhui Li ◽  
Matthew S. Shugart
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
District Level ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
List Type ◽  
National Party ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties

For decades, datasets on national-level elections have contributed to knowledge on what shapes national party systems. More recently, datasets on elections at the district level have advanced research on subnational party competition. Yet, to our knowledge, no publicly accessible dataset with observations of the party system at both national and district levels exists, limiting the ease with which cross-level comparisons can be made. To fill this gap, we release two corresponding datasets, the National Level Party Systems dataset and the District Level Party Systems dataset, where the unit of analysis is the party system within either the national or district jurisdiction. More than 50 elections in the two datasets are overlapping, meaning they include observations for a single election at both the district and national levels. In addition to conventional measures such as the effective number of parties, we also include underutilized variables, such as the size of the largest party, list type, and the vote shares for presidential candidates in corresponding elections.

5. Winning and Losing Elections

2021 ◽  
pp. 146-180
Author(s):  
Peter John
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Rules Of The Game ◽  
Developing Strategies

This chapter assesses what politicians and members of political parties really care about: getting into office on the back of a successful election campaign. Rather than the general determinants of voting outlined in the previous chapter, this is about the choices voters and parties face within a particular system, so they can organize themselves to win. For that they need to play by the rules of the game, which includes developing strategies within electoral systems. The chapter then discusses the impact of electoral systems on that calculus, and how the number of parties is affected by the electoral system in place. It also looks at the factors that assist the winning of elections, and the extent to which the choices of parties and voters are affected by growing instability in the system. Overall, the chapter provides an overview of British political parties and party systems.

7. Elections and voting

UK Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 145-169
Author(s):  
Andrew Blick
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Different Types ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

This chapter looks at how voting helps people to take a direct role in politics. The chapter discusses the rules by which the electoral system operates. It discusses the different types of electoral systems used in the UK. It connects General Elections and the formation of government at the national level. The chapter then offers a number of theoretical perspectives from which to consider voting in terms of fairness, mandates, and effectiveness. The chapter looks at the impact of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 and how the integrity of elections is maintained. Finally, it looks at the plan to equalize the size and reduce the number of UK parliamentary constituencies.

The Electoral System, the Party System and Accountability in Parliamentary Government

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 744-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER KAM ◽  
ANTHONY M. BERTELLI ◽  
ALEXANDER HELD
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Party System ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Government

Electoral accountability requires that voters have the ability to constrain the incumbent government’s policy-making power. We express the necessary conditions for this claim as an accountability identity in which the electoral system and the party system interact to shape the accountability of parliamentary governments. Data from 400 parliamentary elections between 1948 and 2012 show that electoral accountability is contingent on the party system’s bipolarity, for example, with parties arrayed in two distinct blocs. Proportional electoral systems achieve accountability as well as majoritarian ones when bipolarity is strong but not when it is weak. This is because bipolarity decreases the number of connected coalitions that incumbent parties can join to preserve their policy-making power. Our results underscore the limitations that party systems place on electoral reform and the benefits that bipolarity offers for clarifying voters’ choices and intensifying electoral competition.

Predicting Party Systems from Electoral Systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rein Taagepera ◽  
Matthew Shugart
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Product Model ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Predictive Relationships ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Quantities Of Interest

The Seat Product Model matters to electoral and party systems specialists in what it is able to predict, and to all political scientists as one example of how to predict. The seat product (MS) is the product of assembly size (S) and electoral district magnitude (M, number of seats allocated). Without any data input, thinking about conceptual lower and upper limits leads to a sequence of logically grounded models that apply to simple electoral systems. The resulting formulas allow for precise predictions about likely party system outputs, such as the number of parties, the size of the largest party, and other quantities of interest. The predictions are based entirely on institutional inputs. And when tested on real-world electoral data, these predictions are found to explain over 60% of the variance. This means that they provide a baseline expectation, against which actual countries and specific elections can be compared. To the broader political science audience, this research sends the following message: Interconnected quantitatively predictive relationships are a hallmark of developed science, but they are still rare in social sciences. These relationships can exist with regard to political phenomena if one is on the lookout for them. Logically founded predictions are stronger than merely empirical relationships or predictions of the direction of effects. Finally, isolated equations that connect various factors are nice, but equations that interconnect pack even more predictive punch. Political scientists should strive for connections among connections. This would lead to a more scientific political science.

Duverger's Law and the Meaning of Canadian Exceptionalism

1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (7) ◽  
pp. 835-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRIAN J. GAINES
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
National Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
District Level ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Plurality Rule ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Canadian Provinces ◽  
Duverger's Law ◽  
Electoral Law

Duverger's law is an unusually simple and specific elaboration on exactly how political institutions “matter”: It proposes that plurality rule elections result in two-party competition. Canada is commonly thought to violate the law at the national level, but to match its predictions at the district level, and thus not to constitute a genuine counterexample. In fact, analysis of a vast data set of Canadian election returns reveals that these elections are multicandidate events, district by district, year after year. An explanation for this multipartyism may lie in the complicating factor of federalism, because Canadian provinces often feature strikingly different national and provincial party systems. Generally, the Canadian case illustrates that theories relating party systems to electoral law but not to other institutions are unrealistically parsimonious.

scholarly journals Relationship Between Regional and National Level of Electoral Competition and Parameters of Party System Structuring in the Countries of the Visegrad Group

2019 ◽  
pp. 132-139
Author(s):  
Oleksandra Cholovska
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Political Process ◽  
National Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Regional Elections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Visegrad Group

The vast majority of party and electoral researches, including the countries of the Visegrad Group,  focuses on the impact of elections and electoral systems on the institutionalization of parties and party systems, predominantly at the national level. However, the proposed article broadened this analysis mainly at the national level, in particular by analyzing regional elections and regional party systems. This is due to the fact that party-electoral interconnection is not one-tier, but instead is determined territorially, including territorial or administrative heterogeneity during elections. In other words, the study aims to show how region and regional elections (in the format of party system regionalization) affect the national political process, and, conversely, how national elections (in the format of party system nationalization) influence the regional political process in the context of the countries of the Visegrad Group. In this regard, the indicators of voter turnout, electoral volatility, influence of regional parties and coalitions, peculiarities and consequences of electoral blocsʼ and coalitionsʼ formation, parameters of territorial and socio-political cleavages and constructions of electoral systems and formulas were the directories of this relationship, both at national and regional levels, in the proposed study. Their use at the example of the Visegrad countries has made it possible to argue that the relationship between regional and national level of electoral competition and the parameters of the structuring of party systems in the analyzed region is largely reflected in nationalization processes at both national and regional level. Although it is theoretically found that such a relationship is bilateral and counter-dependent on the processes of regionalization of national elections and national electoral systems, or instead on nationalization of regional elections and regional party systems. Keywords: national elections, regional elections, party systems, nationalization and regionalization of party systems, the countries of the Visegrad Group.

Electoral and Party Systems

2019 ◽  
pp. 48-78
Author(s):  
André Blais ◽  
Shaun Bowler ◽  
Bernard Grofman
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The U.S

Electoral laws are often regarded as the key factors structuring party competition. Yet, despite having very similar electoral systems, reflecting a shared colonial legacy, the United States (U.S.) and Canada have had very different party systems. For the past 100 years, the U.S. is perhaps the most consistently two-party system among the world’s major democracies, but during this same period Canada has experienced considerable variation in the number of parties represented in Parliament at the national level. This chapter addresses both the causes and consequences of this puzzling divergence in party systems in the two countries. We also compare a number of other features of the two nation’s electoral institutions, including campaign finance rules, rules for constituency boundary drawing, bicameralism, and the mechanism for the selection of the executive, with particular attention to the U.S. Electoral College and its alleged link with two-partyism. We also examine the policy consequences of the divergence in party systems and look at the way in which party competition in the two countries may affect voter turnout.

Continuity and Change in the 1993 Canadian General Election

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Antony Swayze
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
General Election ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Regional Data ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Novel Approach

AbstractThis research note considers the complex relationship between the electoral and party systems in Canada from 1921 to 1993. By drawing on Douglas Rae's theoretical model, the note demonstrates that the electoral system exerts a powerful influence on the party system and makes the case that important regional information is often washed out in national-level results. Furthermore, a novel approach is taken to the measurement of regional data in a federal election—a comparison of the indices of fragmentation of the regions and the country provide an interesting explanation for some of the stunning changes in parliamentary representation in 1993. In interpreting the 1993 Canadian general election in this framework, the author argues that although the results in parliament seem to indicate momentous changes in Canadian politics, the voting patterns are, nonetheless, consistent with Canadian political history.

Electoral Systems and the Number of Parties in Postcommunist States

1999 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Standard Pattern ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
Party Institutionalization ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Over Time

Scholars studying electoral systems have consistently found that single-member plurality elections tend to constrain the number of parties operating in a polity to a much greater extent than multimember proportional representation systems. This article tests this hypothesis in the post-communist context by examining the effects of proportional representation and single-member district elections on the number of parties in five postcommunist states. It is shown that some postcommunist states, most notably Poland and Hungary, have followed the standard pattern of party consolidation over time in reaction to incentives of electoral systems, while others, most notably Russia and Ukraine, have not. The author argues that the different effects of electoral systems can be attributed to different levels of party institutionalization found in postcommunist states.These findings have policy implications. Under conditions of extreme party underdevelopment, the electoral system that promotes the use of party labels—proportional representation—may be more effective than the plurality system in constraining the number of parties, provided a legal threshold is used. This runs counter to the conventional wisdom that plurality elections offer the greatest constraint on the number of parties.

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