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Question: What is ‘Duverger’s Law’? In general, how useful is it for explaining party systems? Does its usefulness vary across different countries? If so, why?
Important Key concepts:
Single-Member simple plurality (SMSP
Single-Member (1 Person or candidate)
Simple plurali...

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Understanding Duverger’s Law and its usefulness in different Political System Understanding Duverger’s Law and its usefulness in different Political Systems

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Abstract This research primarily focuses on readings from Political Parties and Party Systems by Alan Ware. I’ve also utilized an essay titled “The Two-party System and Duverger's Law:An Essay on the History of Political Science” by William H. Riker. Hershey’s provides us with a depiction of how political parties emerge and function throughout the course the United States existance. Ware provides insight on the numerous of party systems globally and how these different party systems function in society. Finally, Riker’s essay is referenced in this essay to provide some insight on Duverger’s law and the effectiveness of Duverger’s law when it comes to explaining party systems. In addition to the two readings above, I have utilize information presented in lecture in order to further enhance my understanding of Duverger’s law and how it applies to different party systems.

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Understanding Duverger’s law Duverger’s law is committed to the idea that in respect to the pattern of social cleavages in a country, the simple-majority system leads to a two-party system in which Duverger deems favorable (Ware Pg 191.) In terms of understanding how Duverger’s law affects election turnouts depends on a plurality voting system in which the winner is the candidate with the most votes or first past the post (Shaw 9/07/2017). Duverger’s law is not quite useful in terms of explaining different party systems. With the wide acceptance of Duverger’s law, different party systems do not necessarily serve a purpose when it comes to explaining Duverger’s law nor the execution of the law. It is often thought that because of Duverger’s law, third parties often have a hard time winning elections within a two-party system. Duverger’s law is very much against different party systems such as runoff majority voting and proportional representation voting. As a result, the usefulness of Duverger’s law varies from country to country. For the purpose of this paper, I will discuss the usefulness and criticism of Duverger’s law and how Duverger’s law affects American, Australian, Austrian, and French politics. In regards to understanding Duverger’s law, it is pertinent that we understand the factors that cause the simple majority single-ballot system to favor the two-party system. The first factor to prove Duverger’s theory is the idea that a candidate that receives the majority of the vote would receive the majority of representation in the legislature. In result, this will leave less representation in the legislature for third party candidates. The second factor is more of a psychological factor in which voters who did not vote for that major candidate will feel like their vote was wasted thus encouraging them to vote for candidates in major parties over third parties (Ware pg. 191). Duverger offers a second argument that discusses the reasons why multipartyism

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emerge. Duverger’s law is useful in order to understand the institutional approach to explaining party systems or at least why the two-party system is favorable. Duverger’s general consensus on proportional representation is an overall dislike for the party system primarily because his law behind the single-majority ballot favors two-party systems and a proportional representation system allows multiple winners to obtain some sort of representation. Duverger claims that proportional representation causes a shift away from two partyism (Ware Pg 191). Although Duverger’s views towards proportional representation is essentially negative, Duverger does discuss the possibilities for smaller political parties to come together and affiliate with one of the majority parties due to misrepresentation reasons. The misrepresentation of smaller parties that obtained some sort of representation due to the PR system may be measured in a way in which their political agenda is not getting accomplished despite their newfound representation. Smaller parties would then join the majority parties in order to produce a larger representation in hopes of pushing their policy agenda potentially resulting into a two-party system. Based on the definition of Duverger’s law, it is reasonable to assume that the law is quite useful to nations who of course utilize a two-party system. Examples of these nations include the United States, Jamaica, and Malta. However, in respect to other party systems, Duverger’s law does not necessarily answer nor support many party systems. In this care the runoff majority system and the proportional representation system. A proportional representation system as an electoral system in which the electorate is represented by a percentage of votes each candidate received (Shaw 9/07/2017). Proportional representation is achieved by two different methods; party-list proportional representation and by single transferable vote (Shaw 9/07/2017). As mentioned earlier, Duverger has expressed explicit concerns of the proportional representation

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system and how this system is a hindrance towards the two-party system. Proportional representation is directly opposite of Duverger’s law as it typically shifts towards multipartyism also known as Duverger’s hypothesis. Countries that use the proportional representation system include Australia, Belgium, and Austria. Duverger’s hypothesis is that proportional representation leads to multipartyism. A counterexample to Duverger’s hypothesis is Australia and their transformation from a two-party system to a three party system. If Duverger’s hypothesis was correct, it is reasonable to believe that more political parties would have emerged in Australia if proportional representation truly leads to multipartyism. Austria is also a perfect example of how proportional representation has not lead to multipartyism. Austria has maintained the plurality and proportional representation system post World War II and is often still considered a two party system. In this case, it is reasonable to assume that proportional representation can lead to multipartyism, but this is not always true. As an alternative, the rational choice theory in relation to political science has been proven to be useful and as an incentive for the creation of new parties when it comes to the proportional representation system (Riker Pg. 759). Duverger also proposes some negatives views when it comes to the runoff majority voting system. The runoff majority voting system, is a system where three or more candidates with two ballots to be casted. The first vote is to see who gets the majority of votes, the top two candidates with the most votes move on to a second ballot in which whoever wins a plurality of votes wins the race (Riker pg. 754). The runoff majority voting system differs between the simple-majority voting system by the emergence of more political parties fighting to gain representation compared to a two party system in which the majority parties face each other as an

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effort to win the plurality of votes. Countries that use the runoff majority voting system include France, Haiti, and Ukraine. Although Duverger’s law may not be in favor of the runoff majority voting system, this system does prove to be beneficial in terms of strengthening third parties. Through the use of this political system, politicians often find it beneficial coming in second or third place in runoff elections as this provides a motivation to create third parties that can actually be competitive in the political field. However, the simple-majority single ballot system does not share the same incentive as the runoff majority voting system due to how rare it is for a third party to come in first past the post (Riker pg. 759). It is also reasonable to apply Duverger’s hypothesis on multipartyism with the runoff majority system. Although the runoff majority system often provides incentives for creating different third parties in hopes for representation, France is a primary example of how the runoff majority system did not lead to multipartyism in the French Republic. The main political parties of the fifth French Republic include the Republican party and the Socialist party with smaller third parties such as the MoDem, The French Communist party,and New Centre emerging in hopes to gain political representation. This is a result of the runoff majority system providing the incentive for these smaller parties to form. As the previous examples provided insight as to how Duverger’s law affected other party systems, it is essential that I discuss how Duverger’s law affects the simple-majority single ballot system, the beneficial factors of the law, and how Duverger’s law affected countries who have adopted this political system such as the United States, Jamaica, and Malta. This law is often used as a means to explain how third parties often fail in two party systems. The United States who is in a Single-Member Simple Plurality system (SMSP) elects a single member who wins by virtue or receiving more votes than anyone else. (Shaw 9/07/2017) In retrospect to third parties,

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it is often difficult for these parties to reach first past the post and lacks the ability to succeed in a two-party system. For example,the People’s party of 1891, was a third party in competition of the established majority parties the Republican and Democrat party. Despite the newfound support from the Farmer’s Alliance, this party was unable to perform as well as the established parties. Throughout U.S history, third parties come and go; this is explained by plurality voting which increases the likelihood of third parties to reduce in size due to the inclination of voters connected to a national political system (Ware Pg.192). In American politics, the two party system has proven to be quite useful and can even be held responsible for the advancements of the United States with policies such as the Louisiana purchase under the Jefferson administration a member of the Democratic-Republican party. The two-party system can also explain the success of Andrew Jackson's second presidential run and a not so pround moment of American history, the Indian Removal Act. The single-member simple ballot system is still a superior voting system in American politics and Duverger's law can explain the reasons why third parties in modern American politics tend to fail at winning presidential bids. A modern example in American politics would be the recent 2016 presidential election when Libertarian and Green party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein ran against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Each candidate ran on the premises of the alignment of their own party ideologies, but also on the idea that a majority of the American people did not necessarily favor the candidate of choice from the two majority parties in hopes that this would result into more Americans voting for a third party candidate. Duverger's law explain why this was not the case. Although a majority of Americans did not favor Clinton nor Trump, they still decided to vote for one or the other in order to not "waste their vote" on a candidate that does not have the possibility of winning the

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election. The 2016 presidential election serves as an perfect example of the psychological factor that Duverger warns us about and what keeps us entrenched in a two-party system. Although their are other factors that contributes to the lack of success third parties have when running for presidential elections such as the ability to actually get on the ballot in all fifty states, third parties in the United States often see success to a certain extent in state and local elections. It is important to note that the single-member simple majority system will always favor two party systems and the factors that contribute to this success according to Duverger, is mechanics (the tendency to vote for someone who has a good shot at winning) and psychological factors such as voting for someone who has a fair shot of winning in order to feel like your vote actually counted. Duverger’s law which has been quite successful and mutually beneficial to nations such as the United States, has actually proved to have a complete opposite effect on countries such as Canada and India. According to a recent study, out of 121 plurality elections studied, 10 canadian elections have shown 10 percent of votes allocated to a third party (Riker pg 760). Now, according to Duverger, this should have not been the case. The explanation for this occurrence is due to the regional differences in Canada as opposed to the United States. Canada which is split up into provinces, have political parties who may be considered the majority party in certain provinces such as Quebec and Ontario for example and considered a third party nationally. Another primary difference between the United States and Canada and as to why Duverger’s law affects these two countries differently is because Canada has a more decentralized form of government and the United States has a strong centralized government. (Riker Pg.760) The India counterexample is far more complex. India has been toying around with the single-member

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simple majority system around the time when Duverger has formed his law on the plurality system and how it favors two-partyism. Duverger said that the two-party system gives smaller third parties the incentive to join the majority parties in hopes to obtain more representation. Although it is quite evident that third parties in the United States follows this practice, the exact opposite has happened in India. Third parties in India has emerged and disappeared from the 1950’s until present time, but about five third parties who remain. These parties have never been able to obtain fifty percent of the vote which leaves many to wonder why Duverger’s law has taken so long to work in India. (Riker pg. 760). Riker himself provides a very interesting theory as to why these third parties remained in a two-party system. Riker claims that the reason why the effects of Duverger’s law is not clear in India is because the Congress party (the major party in India), obtains a median range of voters that fall on an ideological spectrum. The Congress party who almost always fails to obtain a majority vote ends up winning elections by becoming the condorcet winner (Riker, 1976). Riker then talks about how the only time the Congress party fails to win elections is when elites and non elites create opposing political parties. When these parties dismantle, the Congress party starts winning elections again by once again becoming the condorcet winner. Riker has proposed a model in which explains the ineffectiveness of Duverger’s law in India.. Riker proposes this model: “rational participants who wished to maximize political satisfaction...tastes, a multiparty equilibrium was consistent with plurality elections” (Riker 1976 pg. 761). Not only does Duverger’s law prove to be unusefull in terms of other party systems, but has had some staggering effects with countries that has adopted the two party system.

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Works Cited Riker, W. H. (1982). The Two-Party System and Duvergers Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science. The American Political Science Review, 76(4), 753. doi:10.2307/1962968 Ware, A. (2009). Chapter Six 2. The Institutional Approach . In Political parties and party systems (pp. 190-192). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shaw, D (2017). Verbal Lecture and Notes....