Germany and Duverger's Law

         Duverger’s Law, which states that “the effective number of parties in any electoral district is a function of the electoral rules: Single Member District plurality (SMDP) rules produce two effective parties, while proportional representation rules allow for more, depending on whether or not there are multiple social cleavages,”[1] holds true in democratic countries, including Germany.  Germany has multiple effective parties and its electoral rules allow for this.

First off, it needs to be established that Germany has a multi-party system, which can be proven by calculating the effective number of parties.   In the 2005 election in Germany, the Social Democratic Party received 34.2% of the vote and 222 seats, the Christian Democratic Union received 27.8% and 180 seats, the Free Democratic Party received 9.8% of the vote and 61 seats, the Left Party received 8.7% of the vote and 54 seats, the Green party received 8.1% of the vote and 51 seats, and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria received 7.4% and 46 seats.[2] Using this information, by taking the percent of seats won by different parties, squaring each percent, adding the squared percents together, and then dividing one by the sum of the percents we can calculate the number of effective parties. It turns out that Germany has four effective parties.

However, Germany is not either a Proportional Representation (PR) system or an SMDP system, but rather is a hybrid of the two.  There are 299 constituencies in Germany, and each constituency has one representative in the Bundestag.[3]  This accounts for 299 of the 598 directly elected seats.  These 299 seats are elected by plurality.  This means that, in every election, each voter has two votes, one of which is a vote for whom should win one of these 299 seats.[4]  The voter chooses from a list of candidates who they want to vote for.  For the rest of the 598 seats, they are distributed based on a PR system.[5]  There is a list of parties voters can choose from and the seats are distributed based on the number of votes each party receives in each of the 16 multi-member constituencies.[6]   However, the threshold parties must pass in order for their votes to count and to win any seats is 5%.[7]  If a party does not receive at least 5% of the national votes then they receive no seats in the Bundestag.  The list of candidates for each party, for this part of the election, is a nonpreferential list.[8]  This means that the voters have no say in the order of the party member candidates on the list and that they party officials choose the order.

However, despite Germany having four parties, it is apparent from the aforementioned statistics that there are two dominant parties: the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Union.

All in all, the case of Germany reinforces Duverger’s law.  Germany, as predicted, is a multi-party system that has multiple effective parties because of its hybrid PR, SMDP electoral system.

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[1] Hawkins, Kirk. Syllabus. Blog 7: Duverger’s Law.

[2] "IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), Elections in 2005." IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), Elections in 2005. Inter-Parliamentary Union, 12 Sept. 2012. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2121_05.htm>.

[3] "IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), General Information." IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), Electoral System. N.p., 12 Sept. 2012. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2121_A.htm>.

[4] "IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), Electoral System.

[5] "IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), Electoral System.

[6] "IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), Electoral System.

[7] "IPU Parline Database: Germany (Deutscher Bundestag), Electoral System.

[8] Class lecture. 31 Oct. 2012.