This article has a central organizing theme, which is the way duvergers law can be taken to be the canonical statement of what electoral. The impact of national electoral rules on district competition article pdf available in european journal of political research 541. As we shall see, duvergers work profoundly shaped the international political science research agenda and it did so in three distinct areas the study of party organisations, the consequences of electoral systems, and the concept of semipresidentialism. Citeseerx duvergers law and the study of electoral systems. I will refer to the first proposition as the law and to the second proposition as the hypothesis. Since its first publication in 1951, duverger s political parties has influenced an entire branch of political science devoted to the study of the political consequences of electoral laws. Hence polit ical parti es n the single great est cult classic book among studen ts of electoral syst ems n was a study first and forem ost about political parties an d party systems, not electo ral syst ems.
Duvergers law stipulates that in equilibrium, plurality of firstpastthepost electoral systems lead to the creation of a twoparty. Doubleballot majoritarian systems have large numbers of candidates, as predicted, but while the average outcome under plurality rule is generally consistent with two. This study tests the latter hypothesis through analysis of a comprehensive dataset covering indian parliamentary elections in the period 19522004. Existing scholarship regards india as an exception to this law at national level, but not at district level. Duvergers law duverger, 1959 deals with the impact of electoral systems on party proliferation, and we almost always think about electoral competition at the parliamentary level in terms of competition among political parties but we are not only interested in how many parties there are, but also in how the party space is organized. Duverger argued that singlememberdistrict electoral systems that require. The most famous argument in this regards is duvergers law, which establishes a direct causal relationship between the number of parties and the electoral system. The connection between electoral laws and party systems, washington university, st. In political science, duvergers law holds that pluralityrule elections such as first past the post structured within singlemember districts tend to favor a twoparty system, whereas the double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to favor multipartism. There is no absolute measure of the strength of the mechanical and psychological effects of electoral systems. This article considers the potential to use knowledge of expected electoral system effects to engage in electoral engineering.
Testing the mechanical and strategic modifying effects of electoral laws. Duverger s law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system. Duvergers law and the study of electoral systems lse. Duvergers law only makes sense as a scientific proposition if it is tested against a null hypothesis. His chief contributions there deal with what have come to be called in his honor duvergers law and duvergers hypothesis. This perspective lends itself to a rational actor framework that highlights the strategic choices made by voters and political elites. The law should be concerned with the distinctive impacts of electoral systems. No subject is more central to the study of politics than elections. In his famous study of the impact of electoral regimes on party systems, duverger suggested that twoparty systems are always found to be associated with singlemember constituencies where. This essay examines the two propositions known as duverger s law and duverger s hypothesis, both concerned with how electoral institutions shape party systems. Furthermore, interregion and interstate variations in the size of districtlevel party systems make it difficult to generalize about the application of duvergers law to the indian case. This study analyses districtlevel data from 6,745 singlemember district election contests from 53 democratic countries to test the evidence for duvergers law and hypothesis. In this paper, using the electoral results of 1993 and 1997, we study the 60 electoral districts and identify the. French political scientist maurice duvergers political parties 1951 is still highly regarded, not only for its classification of parties but also for its linking of party systems with electoral systems.
Since its first publication in 1951, duvergers political parties has influenced an entire branch of political science devoted to the study of the political consequences of electoral laws. This hypothesis can be tested using the following interaction model. The english, with their twoparty system, have expressed this phenomenon by the law of the cube. This article views electoral systems and electoral system change from an institutional perspective. Duvergers law and the size of the indian party system rekha diwakar abstract duvergers law postulates that singlemember plurality electoral systems lead to twoparty systems.
In this paper we look at the propensity of different voting rules to elect a condorcet winner centrist candidate cw. Yet, kenneth benoi t duvergero s l aw and the study of electoral systems 71 french politics 2006 4. In democracies, the socalled duvergers law states that restrictive electoral rules shrink the size of the party system duverger,1954. Duverger, maurice 1917 the encyclopedia of political. This essay examines the two propositions known as duvergers law and duvergers hypothesis, both concerned with how. The discovery of this tendency is attributed to maurice duverger, a french sociologist. Request pdf duverger s law and the study of electoral systems since its first publication in 1951, duverger s political parties has influenced an entire branch of political science devoted to. Duvergers law draws from a model of causality from the electoral system to a party system. Duvergers law at some point or another in their professional studies. Full text views reflects the number of pdf downloads, pdfs sent to.
Oxford handbook of electoral systems oxford handbooks. Political electoral systems are organized by governments, while nonpolitical elections may take place in business, nonprofit organisations and informal organisations. This essay examines the two propositions known as duvergers law and duvergers hypothesis, both concerned with. All across the globe, elections are a focal point for citizens, the media, and politicians long beforeand sometimes long afterthey occur. Duvergers laws political science bibliographies cite. To remedy potential misunderstandings regarding the implications of this essay, i have written a second piece entitled further gloss on duvergers law. Maurice duverger is a french political scientist and constitutional lawyer. A general model develops the argument and presents the concept of behavioralinstitutional equilibrium to account for the relation between electoral systems and party systems. Duverger s law and the size of the indian party system rekha diwakar abstract duverger s law postulates that singlemember plurality electoral systems lead to twoparty systems. The most comprehensive dataset and test of these notions to date, encompassing 219 elections in 87 countries since the 19th century, are presented.
The binomial electoral systems assigns two seats per district, thus forcing strategic coalition building on the part of the political parties. These propositions distinguish among three kinds of electoral systems, which, although far from a complete list of the systems in current use, are the only ones used widely enough to admit the. But in the formulations of duverger and his followers this focus becomes muddled up with some analytically separate competition space effects. Duverger seems to imply that under the plurality formula elite activity works through fusion, voterdriven effects through elimination. This essay examines the two propositions known as duvergers law and duvergers hypothesis, both concerned with how electoral institutions shape party systems.
Electoral systems, the rules about how voters preferences are translated into election results, profoundly shape not only the results of individual elections but also many other. Duvergers law and the size of the indian party sytem. He taught at the university of bordeaux, until 1955, and the university of paris, until retiring in 1985. Other articles where political parties is discussed. Duvergers law of plurality voting the logic of party. His book, political parties, first translated into english in 1954, has influenced both the party politics literature which continues to make use of his typology of party organization and the electoral systems literature. Duvergers law and the size of the indian party sytem core. A proportional representation pr system creates electoral conditions that foster the development of many parties, whereas a plurality system marginalizes smaller political parties, generally resulting in a twoparty system. The discovery of this tendency is attributed to maurice duverger, a french. An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined.
The study concludes that a narrow focus on electoral rules is inadequate, and that a more comprehensive set of explanatory variables is needed to explain the. The relationship between electoral systems and the number of parties contesting elections has become a classic topic of study in political science. A few recent contributions deserve to be mentioned. His works, translated into over 20 languages, are often located at.
Predicting the effective number of parties in plurality and pr systems parties minus issues equals one, european journal of political research, 1985, 341 52. Perspectives on the comparative study of electoral systems. Request pdf duvergers law and the study of electoral systems since its first publication in 1951, duvergers political parties has influenced an entire branch of political science devoted to. Duvergers law and the size of the indian party system. Duvergers law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system. Duvergers law and the study of electoral systems 2006 6 palgrave macmillan ltd dublin. As the title suggests, i address when voting for a third party may be a rational decision even absent the prospect of electoral victory. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process. Citeseerx document details isaac councill, lee giles, pradeep teregowda.