Blog 7: Duverger's Law

J.C. Eastwood

Prof. Hawkins

PL SC 150

1 November 2012

Blog 7: Duverger’s Law

            The Commonwealth of Australia, has a legislative system much like that of the United States in which it has a bicameral system with a lower, House of Representatives and a higher, Senate inside what it calls the “Parliament”.  For analyzing purposes, we will be looking at just the lower, House of Representatives to determine how Duverger’s Law interacts with it (how many effective parties there are competing for power) and its electoral rules like district magnitude, formula, and what type of structure/thresholds the system in Australia has.

            In Australia, there are two major political powers, the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and the Coalition (Liberal, National, LNP, and CLP Coalition Parties) with some smaller parties that will occasionally play a large role in political action.  The equation (Neff = 1/∑(p^2)) could be used to determine how many effective parties there are in a country.  So, let’s analyze by grouping them into three groups.  In August of 2010, the last election according to Wikipedia, the ALP won 38% of the vote, the Coalition won 43.3%, and the other parties won 18.8%.  For purposes of the equation, we have to convert these numbers into decimals, so ALP (.38), Coalition (.43), and Other (.19).  Next, we square the number to make it ALP (.1444), Coalition (.1849), and Other (.0361).  After adding up these numbers and then dividing 1 by this number to find it’s inverse, we come to the number 2.74.  This number tells us that while there are two major parties in Australia, a third often plays a role as well.  According to Duverger’s Law, because Australia has SMDP, the political system allows for political decisions to almost always be made by the two major political parties.  This holds true for Australia.

            As far as electoral rules in Australia go, the district magnitude in Australia is 1 because according to ipu.org, it is made up of single-member districts that require a majority for the candidate to win.  In case of a majority not being present, Australia practices a form of voting known as preferential voting in which the lowest candidate will be taken off of the ballot and based on the order of preference of the voters another count will be made to determine the winner.  This is called a list structure with preferential voting.  All of the 150 directly elected members of the House are split up by population among the 6 states and 2 territories of Australia in single member electorates.  Because of the list structure with preferential voting in Australia, there is no set “threshold” that requires parties to receive a certain percentage of votes in order to be able to continue running.

            All in all, Australia has a bicameral legislature with its House of Representatives being elected based upon an SMDP system that doesn’t quite exclude third parties, but makes it harder for them to become a part of everyday policy making in that nation.  Also, Australia practices a form of list structure with preferential voting among it’s single member electorates that adds to the SMDP effect, but it also des away with a threshold requirement which, with its absence, makes many third parties’ very existence possible.

Works Cited

·      "IPU PARLINE Database: AUSTRALIA (House of Representatives), General Information." IPU PARLINE Database: AUSTRALIA (House of Representatives), General Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2015_A.htm>.

·      "Elections in Australia." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Feb. 2012. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Australia>.