Duverger’s Law states that electoral rules that are based on proportional representation will yield more than two parties which can include weaker parties that would not exist under the consolidating effects of single-member district plurality election which produce two effective parties. Norway’s proportional representative system and the presence of multiple parties within the state support this law of parties.

Norway’s most recent legislative elections were held in September of 2009. Electoral rules in Norway demonstrate the proportional representation electoral system based on party-lists. This means that on the ballot the party will list candidates nominated by the party and the voter will choose letting the candidate on the top of the list get the seat (Parliament of Norway). This is known as a closed or non-preferential list structure since the party chooses the preferred candidate to head the list. The 2009 election results and subsequent seat allocation allowed for seven parties to have a presence in parliament. According to the current election threshold, a party must receive 4% of the vote in order to be considered for seats in parliament (Parliament of Norway). This means that several parties who received votes were not considered to receive any seats, explaining why the number of parties present in parliament is seven as opposed to the 25 total parties that were on the ballot. However, the calculated effective number of parties is even fewer than the actual the number of parties represented in Parliament when using the formula eff= 1/(SUM(p^2)), or the inverse of the sum of the proportion of votes for each party, p, squared.

In 2009, the percent distribution of votes was as follows: Labour Party 35.4%, Progress Party 22.9%, Conservative Party 17.2%, Socialist Left Party, 6.2%, Cenre Party 6.2%, Christian People’s Party 5.5%, Left Party 3.9%, Red Party 1.3%, and an additional 16 parties whose total percentage added up to 2.6% (Kingdom of Norway Legislative Elections). Using these data and the formula for effective number of parties, there are approximately 4.6 effective parties in Norway. According to the current election threshold, a party must receive 4% of the vote in order to be considered for seats in parliament (Parliament of Norway). This means that all parties from the Left Party down did not receive any opportunity to receive seats which is why the number of parties present in parliament is seven as opposed to 9 or even 25.

The 19 counties of Norway’s 19 counties are divided into 19 constituencies for electoral purposes. Each constituency has a varying number of seats possible based on the population of the county in question. There are an additional 19 seats termed “members at large”, for a total of 169 seats, which are filled based on the leveling system (IPU Parline Database: Norway). This second tier of extra seats is allocated to ensure that the proportionality of a party’s representation is not less than the number of votes it received from the electorate. In other words, it really is a way to level out any discrepancies that may arise from the Sainte-Lague method of seat allocation that Norway uses to appoint the main body of 150 seats (Parliament of Norway). The Sainte-Lague method is a quotient based system that uses the formula  quot= V/(2s+1) , where “V” is the number of votes received and “s” is the number of seats allocated (beginning with 0 for the first round of calculations). The party with the highest quotient will receive the first seat and the quotient for that party will be recalculated using the current number of seats won for the new “s” value (Sainte-Lague Method).

The electoral system of Norway provides opportunity for many different parties to receive seats in parliament because it uses party-list proportional representation rules to allocate seats. This system allows parties that receive relatively low percentage of votes to still receive a small amount of representation. Duverger’s law commenting on the effective number of parties as a result of the system of electoral rules is supported by the correspondence of within Norway of PR rules and seven parties with representation. Because Norway’s electoral rules and their election threshold of only 4%, there is increased opportunity for small parties to compete for seats and as such the small parties do not feel pressure to coalesce in order to gain representation, hence the survival of multiple parties.  

"Kingdom of Norway Legislative Elections." Adam Carr's Election Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/n/norway/norway2009.txt>

Note: I obtained the link to Adam Carr’s Election Archive from ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

(<http://aceproject.org/regions-en/countries-and-territories/NO/links/election-results-norway>.)

"IPU PARLINE Database: NORWAY (Stortinget), Electoral System." IPU PARLINE Database: NORWAY (Stortinget), Electoral System. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2239_B.htm>.

"Parliament of Norway." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Norway>.

"Sainte-Lague Method." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Sept. 2012. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Lague_method>.