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.

Ghana's political parties: how ethno/regional variations sustain the national two-party system

2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minion K. C. Morrison ◽  
Jae Woo Hong
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Organisation ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Complex Varieties ◽  
Election Results

This paper analyses Ghanaian electoral geography and its accompanying political party variations over the last decade. After re-democratisation in the early 1990s, the Fourth Republic of Ghana has successfully completed multiple elections and party alternation. Due to its single-member-district-plurality electoral system, the country has functioned virtually as a two-party system, privileging its two major parties – the NDC and the NPP. However, close examination of election results in the last parliamentary and presidential elections reveals that notwithstanding the two-party tendency, there is a dynamic and multilayered aspect of electoral participation in Ghanaian politics. Ethnic-based regional cleavages show much more complex varieties of electoral support for the two major parties, especially in light of fragmentation and concentration. Electoral support in the ten regions varies from strong one-party-like to almost three-party systems. Yet this lower, regional level tendency is not invariable. Regional party strengths have shifted from election to election, and it was just such shifts that made the party alternation possible in 2000. Employing traditional and newly designed indicators, this paper illustrates the patterns of electoral cleavage and regional party organisation, and how these ultimately sustain the party system at the national level in Ghana.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 942-964
Author(s):  
Karen E. Ferree
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Institutional Expectations

South Africa’s post-apartheid election outcomes demonstrate how contextual factors interact with electoral rules to shape party systems. South Africa’s national electoral system represents one of the most permissive in the world, combining parliamentary rules with an extreme form of proportional representation. These rules were selected to encourage broad representation of parties in the National Assembly. However, South Africa’s party system consistently defies expectations, with a low effective number of seat-winning parties at the national level and dominance by a single party, the African National Congress (ANC). Provincial and municipal outcomes also confound simple institutional expectations. In addition to describing electoral rules and party systems at all three levels of South Africa’s political system, this chapter argues that contextual factors like the salience of racial divisions and the ability of the ruling party to shape institutions and resource flows critically interact with electoral institutions to shape party system outcomes.

Social Diversity, Electoral Systems, and the Party System

2017 ◽  
pp. 134-158
Author(s):  
Robert G. Moser ◽  
Ethan Scheiner ◽  
Heather Stoll
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Census Data ◽  
National Level ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Key Aspects

Scholars commonly argue that in democratic societies, the size (or fragmentation) of party systems is a linear function of social heterogeneity, in interaction with political institutions such as the electoral system. This “interactive hypothesis” has generated a large body of research, mostly in support of its fundamental claims. Despite the prominence of this literature, there is also a growing body of research that casts doubt on the interactive hypothesis. Although societies exhibit a variety of different types of heterogeneity, from religious to socioeconomic diversity, which vary within countries by subnational region, political scientists typically characterize countries’ heterogeneity almost exclusively according to measures of national-level ethnic diversity. This chapter uses original census data to show just how misleading such a characterization can be. We conclude with the implications for theories that seek to relate heterogeneity to key aspects of democratic party systems.

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.

Party System Nationalization and the Provision of Public Health Services

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Hicken ◽  
Ken Kollman ◽  
Joel W. Simmons
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
National Level ◽  
Health Indicators ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Public Health Services ◽  
Public Benefits ◽  
Immunization Rates ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Using Data

In this paper, we examine consequences of party system nationalization. We argue that the degree to which party systems are nationalized should affect the provision of public benefits by governments. When political competition at the national level occurs between parties that represent specific sub-national constituencies, then the outcomes of policy debates and conflicts can lead to an undersupply of nationally focused public services. We test our argument using data on DPT and measles immunization rates for 58 countries. We find that low party system nationalization is a barrier to improvements in these health indicators. Specifically, a substantial presence of regionalized parties hinders states’ convergence toward international heath standards.

Continuity and Change in Philippine Electoral Politics: A Re-Evaluation

1976 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-234
Author(s):  
James A. Curry
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Machine Model ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Drop Outs

One of the more recent drop-outs from the world's electoral club was the Philippines, a nation with a remarkably stable two-party system stretching, in the years since independence, over some twenty-five years. With the imposition of martial law in September 1972, the curtain was drawn, at least temporarily, on the longest running democracy in Southeast Asia. The purpose of this study is neither to praise nor bury the pre-1972 Philippine electoral system, but rather to look more closely at some recurring patterns which emerged during this period—patterns which, it will be argued, conform to a “machine model” of politics.

A Statistical Model for Party-Systems Analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturas Rozenas ◽  
R. Michael Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Index Value ◽  
Party Vote Shares ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Index Measure

Empirical researchers studying party systems often struggle with the question of how to count parties. Indexes of party system fragmentation used to address this problem (e.g., the effective number of parties) have a fundamental shortcoming: since the same index value may represent very different party systems, they are impossible to interpret and may lead to erroneous inference. We offer a novel approach to this problem: instead of focusing on index measures, we develop a model that predicts the entire distribution of party vote-shares and, thus, does not require any index measure. First, a model of party counts predicts the number of parties. Second, a set of multivariate t models predicts party vote-shares. Compared to the standard index-based approach, our approach helps to avoid inferential errors and, in addition, yields a much richer set of insights into the variation of party systems. For illustration, we apply the model on two data sets. Our analyses call into question the conclusions one would arrive at by the index-based approach. Software is provided to implement the proposed model.

You Have to Know Where to Look in Order to Find It: Competitiveness in Botswana's Dominant Party System

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Stephanie Burchard
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
National Level ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Multiparty Systems ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Sub Saharan

Dominant party systems are defined by a lack of party alternation at the national level; however, dominant party systems do not inherently preclude electoral competition at the macro level, the micro level, or both. Nonetheless, little systematic work has documented the competitiveness of elections under a dominant party system. This article describes the nature of competition under one of sub-Saharan Africa's most enduring dominant party systems, Botswana. By examining electoral outcomes at the constituency level, this article demonstrates that elections in Botswana produce significant levels of competition, especially when compared to other sub-Saharan countries. Furthermore, electoral competitiveness appears unrelated to the party system at large: namely, competitiveness is no less or greater under dominant party systems than under multiparty systems.

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.

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