Blog Post 7

Emily Bashaw

Blog Post #7

            According to Duverger’s Law, the effective number of parties in any electoral district is a function of the electoral rules. This means that with the effective number of parties equation, one can find how many effective parties exist in any given country. Many countries like Germany and the United States have various effective political parties, but China really only has one.

            In China, the nine registered parties are the Communist Party of China, the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang, the China Democratic League, the China Democratic National Construction Association, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, the China Zhi Gong Party, the Jiusan Society and the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League. Although China has many registered and recognized political parties, the Communist Party of China is the only party that holds power because of how all-inclusive it is (Gittings). Using the formula Neff=1/∑(p²), the answer goes completely to the Communist Party of China. I took the sum of the percentage of seats that went to each party and squared it (all to the Communists), divided one by that number and got the effective number of parties: one. In a country that used to be a multi-party system, the only effective party now in mainland China is the communist party.

            The Chinese voting system is absolute majority. The National People’s Congress is elected by the people in various electoral districts like in America and the winner is determined by majority vote (IPU). The Chinese system of government is certainly not a hybrid system, but instead is completely and effectively a one party system of government. In the 2008 election, all of the nine above mentioned parties were allowed to run for election, but only the Communist party found success with all 2,987 seats going to members of the Communist Party of China (LeFraniere). So officially China is a multi-party body, but in effect it is only a one party government.

            It was hard to ascertain exactly how many districts China is effectively divided into, but there are four municipalities under the central government and three thousand elected officials, so the district magnitude is around 750. This may seem like a large number, but given the amount of people in China, this is a relatively small amount (IPU). There is no certain threshold for the nine recognized parties; the eight minority allied parties will be recognized as long as there is enough support for them so that China can continue to claim to be a multi-party government, but beyond that there is no specific percentage. The list structure of government offices is closed and non-preferential.

            Although China claims to be a multi-party system of government, by finding the effective number of parties, it is proven that it really is not, given that all seats up for election always go to the dominant Communist Party of China.

Work Cited

"CHINA." Inter-Parliamentary Union. Inter-Parliamentary Union, May 22 2012. Web. 2 Nov 2012.

Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market. (2005). Oxford University Press.

Sharon LaFraniere. "Alarmed by Independent Candidates, Chinese Authorities Crack Down". The New York Times. Retrieved December 5, 2011.