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Electoral systems and party systems:

Electoral systems and party systems:. Further thoughts. The Department of Political Science Presents. Figuring out what's broke: Assessing the effects of ownership on political news content Dr. Kelly Blidook Department of Political Science Memorial University of Newfoundland

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Electoral systems and party systems:

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  1. Electoral systems and party systems: Further thoughts

  2. The Department of Political Science Presents Figuring out what's broke: Assessing the effects of ownership on political news content Dr. Kelly BlidookDepartment of Political Science Memorial University of Newfoundland Friday March 13, 2009 SN2033 2:30pm

  3. Reminder • Research paper outlines due in class on Tuesday, March 17th • These should contain: • A re-statement of the topic, including a thesis statement • The argument as you think it will develop, in point form • Papers due Thursday, March 31st

  4. Why electoral systems matter Translating votes into seats in parliament, they influence • Choices made available to voters • Who & what kind of people are elected • Strategies chosen by • Parties • Politically active or potentially • Number & kind of parties represented • Relative ease with which • Governments can be formed in parliamentary systems • Executives in presidential systems can find support for policies and programs

  5. Electoral systems and party systems: Do electoral systems • either determine the number of parties (stronger version) OR • influence the number of parties (more muted, weaker version) • If so, in what way?

  6. Duverger’s law In its simplest form: • Single member plurality (SMP) > two party system • PR > multiparty system But is it valid?

  7. Possible solutions: • Consider the argument: • Is it logically consistent? • Does it take into account the likely behaviour of parties and/or voters? • Consider historical sequences: • which came first? • Look at the data – look for correlations And….

  8. Other factors Consider whether there are other factors which explain the number of parties • Cleavage structure • District magnitude • Formal legal or effective thresholds

  9. Some evidence There is a relationship between electoral laws and the number of political parties: • Countries using plurality systems (SNP) have fewer parties • Countries using majority systems (double ballot/runoff) have more parties • Countries using PR have more still more

  10. Some data Laakso & Taagepera’s effective number of parties • Effective number of parties – a weighted measure, according greater importance to larger parties • ENEP = effective number of electoral parties (parties competing in elections) • ENPP = effective number of parliamentary parties (parties winning seats in the legislature)

  11. Electoral systems and the effective number of parliamentary parties

  12. Some qualifications • SNP can lead to multiparty competition: Canada as a case in point • PR will not necessarily lead to an extensive number of parties, e.g. • Austria • Spain • Greece And…

  13. Germany • 5% threshold does reduce the number of parties FRG goes from • 11 to 7 to 3 parties in parliament (1950s) • 4 parties in parliament from 1983-1990 • 5 since them

  14. Italy: how to get it wrong • Through 1992: PR in large districts > extended multipartyism • Change to single member plurality for ¾ of the districts and PR for the remaining ¼ > • More parties & clustered multipartyism: competition between two blocs ___________________________________Ulive (9 parties) Casa del Liberta (3 parties)

  15. When do electoral systems matter? • Impact of cleavage & cleavage structures • Impact of electoral loyalties: • If, a large portion of the electorate is strongly attached to parties, then fewer votes available for newer parties or shifts in the party balance • e.g. strong party identifications • or electorates of belonging created by class or religious allegiance • If voters weakly attached or disposed to switch, then new parties can emerge more readily • However, they may be able to do so under any electoral system

  16. Choosing an electoral system What do you want? • Decisiveness – one party with a majority? • Fairness or representativeness defined as • A representative or representatives to whom you can go? • Representation of major tendencies & shades of opinion? • Representation of all shades of opinion? • ‘Stable’ government • Representation of certain groups – e.g. women? But, you don’t always get what you want

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