Duverger's Law and Poland

Duverger's Law and Poland

By Jason Andersen

 How political parties come into power or even emerge as a political power depends greatly on the electoral rules of the country. Countries technically may have scores of political parties however only a handful, if even that, will be represented in a countries elected government. Obviously, the parties with the most votes are the ones represented in government; however, the electoral rules of the country tend to determine how many effective parties there are.  The main question is if a country’s electoral rules are based on proportional representation or single-member-district-plurality, as far as determining the effective number of parties. Duverger’s law mathematically demonstrates how single-member-district-plurality rules tend to lend to just two effective parties while proportional representation rules tend to lend to a greater number of effective parties.

The example of Poland highlights how Duverger’s law holds true and is a classic example of a proportional representation state. In Poland’s most recent 2011 election, six political parties made it on the Polish ballots (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011). Poland does have a threshold limit of 5% of the total votes cast for party list and 8% for a coalition list, though national minorities' lists are exempt from thresholds requirements (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011). However, just from looking at the ballot results and total seats won, one would assume that there would be three effective parties. Civic Platform party won 45% of the seats, Law and Justice won 34%, Palikot's Movement won 9%, and the Polish People's Party and the Democratic Left Alliance each won 6% of the vote (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011).  Duverger’s law states that a countries total number of effective parties can be determined by calculating the inverse of the sum of the proportion of seats won squared by each parties, or Neff=1/∑(p2). As shown in the table below, when you run the election results through Duverger’s formula, Duverger’s law shows that Poland has approximately three effective parties. 

Parties	Seats	Proportion of Seats	P2
Civic Platform (PO)	207	45%	0.2025
Law and Justice (PiS)	157	34%	0.116488658
Palikot Movement (RP)	40	9%	0.007561437
Polish Peasant Party (PSL)	28	6%	0.003705104
Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)	27	6%	0.00344518
German Minority	1	0%	4.7259E-06
Total Seats	460	Number of Effective Parties	2.996657792

                As now shown, Duverger’s law hold true in that Duverger’s formula reflects the number of effective parties in Poland. As one could surmise, Poland runs off proportional representation rules. As far as how proportional representation works in Poland, Poland is broken up into forty-one constituencies in which each constituency elects seven to nineteen of the seats in the Sejm, this is known as the country’s district magnitude (National Election Commission, 2007).  The actual district magnitude determined much like the United States and the House of Representatives in that it is based on population with a fixed amount of seats, 460.  The formula Poland uses to actual disperse the seats based on the results of the election is known as the modified Saint-Lague method (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011). Unlike some countries, which use a list-method or a combination of methods, in Poland candidates are elected directly in an open or preferential method (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011). The only stipulation is that on the ballot for the Polish Sejm at least 35% of the candidates have to be women and at least 35% of the candidates have to be men (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011). Currently in the Sejm 23.91% are women (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011).

Bibliography

Inter-Parliamentary Union. (2011). Poland - Sejm. Retrieved November 1, 2012, from PARLINE database: http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2255_E.htm

National Election Commission. (2007, October 27). Election to the Sejm. Retrieved November 1, 2012, from Electoral Constituencies: http://wybory2007.pkw.gov.pl/SJM/EN/KOMITETY/0.htm

Blog 7: Duverger's Law

                According to Duverger’s law there is a correlation between an electoral district’s effective number of parties and its electoral rules. This law would predict that a country would either have two parties and single member district plurality rules, or more than two parties and proportional rules.¹ The study of the United Kingdom reaffirms this law.

                The United Kingdom’s electoral system in the House of Commons is run on a system of single member district plurality (SMDP).² This means that the country is geographically separated into districts of relatively equal population. Each district is represented by a single official who is elected based off of the plurality rule (the winning candidate is the one who just receives the most votes, not necessarily a majority).³ District magnitude denotes the number of legislative seats allotted to each district within a legislative system.⁴ The district magnitude of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom is one; there is only one official, or one legislative seat, per district, hence the single member district part of SMDP. The allocation of seats from the popular vote is governed by the formula of plurality. This means that whoever wins the most votes will win the seat. It is a winner-takes-all system. Another aspect of an electoral system is the list structure. An open, or preferential, list means the voters choose the order in which candidates of a party are elected, contrasting a closed list where other officials choose this order.⁵ The United Kingdom has an open list structure, in that voters can vote for the specific candidate they want to hold the legislative seat. There is no threshold in the United Kingdom, meaning that the political parties do not have to get a minimum percentage of votes for those votes to count or for that party to maintain its party registration. Any party can have candidates run for office no matter its size. The United Kingdom’s electoral rules tend to favor larger parties, making Duverger’s law very plausible.

In looking at the last legislative election in the House of Commons in 2010, the Conservative Party received 36% of the votes, but got 47% of the seats. The Labour Party had 29% of the vote and received 40% of the seats. However, the Liberal Democrats closely followed with 23% of the votes and only received 9% of the seats.⁶ Just this shows that the United Kingdom has two main parties, but it can be seen mathematically as well. With a formula using the percentage of legislative seats held by every party, it is found that the country has 2.57 effective parties. This means that there are two main parties, but there are several others that very marginally affect the country’s politics.

The two effective parties of the United Kingdom are arguably a result of its SMDP system. Because the seats are allocated based on plurality rules, larger parties are favored and two main parties emerge. The Conservative Party and the Labour Party clearly dominate politics in the United Kingdom. Because of these SMDP rules, the percentage of votes for small parties translates into a smaller percentage of seats, whereas the opposite occurs for the two larger parties, thus giving those two parties a considerable amount of political power.

The study of the United Kingdom supports the claim of Duverger’s law. As it predicts, this country has single member district plurality and also has two effective political parties.

                 

¹”Duverger’s Law.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law

²“United Kingdom House of Commons: Electoral System.” Inter-Parliamentary Union. http://www.ipu.org/parline-     e/reports/2335_B.htm

³ “Single Member Districts.” Fair Vote: Program for Representative Government. http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=765

⁴ “District Magnitude and Political Parties.” Ace: The Electoral Knowledge Network. http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/pc/pcc/pcc04/pcc04a

⁵ “Open list.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_list

⁶ “Elections 2010.” BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/results/

Blog 7: Duverger's Law

Blog 7: Duverger’s Law

            According to Maurice Duverger and Gary Cox, the effective number of political parties in a country depends entirely on the electoral rules.  They both support the claim that when electoral rules dictate that when there is one member of the legislature for every district and he or she wins with plurality vote (receiving the most votes, regardless of whether or not it is actually fifty percent) instead of majority vote (over fifty percent) then there will end up being only two effective parties.  However, if the districts each elect multiple members of the legislature and they are chosen through a proportional representation system (a party will receive roughly the same percentage of seats as they do percentage of votes) then there will be more than two effective parties (Shively 231).

            To test Deverger’s Law, I chose to continue my study of Colombia.  Colombia has a bicameral legislature with a Chamber of Representatives and a Senate.  For this study I focused on the Chambor of Representatives which has 164 members elected with a proportional representation system (Wikipedia) and calculated the number of existing effective parties.  To find this number I took the percentages of seats each party won, squared them, found the sum of those numbers, and found one divided by that answer to find that Colombia has 5 effective political parties, which does support Duverger’s Law.

            To find out more, I looked into Colombia’s electoral rules, starting with the district magnitude to find out how many seats were allotted to each electoral district.  The Chamber has 164 seats in total and 33 districts.  I divided the number of seats by the number of districts to find that roughly 5 members of the Chamber were allotted to each district.  However, I also found out that only 2 members are actually assigned to each the district.  The rest depends on population.  The district will receive 1 more representative for every 250,000 more people it has after the first 250,000, so the system favors more heavily populated areas. 

            However, because the percentage of votes cannot match up exactly with the percentage of seats, there must be a formula for calculating who the extra seats go to.  The formula Colombia uses is the largest remainder (IPU Parline Database).  With this method, the percentages are rounded down at first and seats are distributed.  Then the rest of the seats are distributed based on which party has the greatest remainder. For example, if one party receives 25.9% of the vote and another receives 22.3%, the first party would be given 25% of the seats and the other would be given 22%.  Then, if there was one seat left, it would be given to the first party which had a remainder of .9% while the other had a remainder of only .3%.  This method is very efficient at making the distribution as close as it possibly can be. 

            Proportional Representation makes it difficult to have the people vote for individual candidates, most countries that use this system have the people vote for a party.  Each party then has a list of candidates and when it receives the number of seats it is allowed to fill, it simply begins at the top of the list until it has enough candidates to fill the spots it receives.  However, in some countries have a preferential list structure where the people are still allowed to vote for a specific candidate within the party list.  Colombia has a non-preferential list, where the party does not allow the people to vote for specific people within the party list.  Should a vacancy arise in the Chamber between elections, the party simply picks the next person on the list (IPU Parline Database). 

            Because the proportional representation system allows for very small parties to gain a spot, some governments, in order to make the election process more simply, have a threshold where unless a party can receive a certain percentage of the votes, it cannot win any seats in the legislature.  Colombia does not have a threshold.  In 2010, one of the parties only received .1% of the vote and it was still granted one of the seats.  The only way a party cannot get a seat is if it cannot get a percentage of the vote that is high enough to get it a seat (Wikipedia). 

            According to the information calculated and found, Colombia proves Duverger’s Law to be correct.  Single Member District Plurality Systems result in a system with only two effective parties while Proportional Representation Systems result in multiple parties having an effect in the legislature. 

           

           

           

 Works Cited

Colombia: House of Representatives. Inter-Parliamentary Union.  http://ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2067_B.htm. Web. 31 October, 2012.

Elections in Colombia. Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Colombia. Web. 31 October 2012.

Shively, W. Phillips. Power and Choice: An Introduction to Political Science. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. 2012

Blog 7

Brittney Griffith- Durverger's Law      
  According to Duverger's law a country will have a set number of effective parties
based on the established rules for that country's elections. If a country has SMDP rules
they will have two major effective parties. For countries with proportional representation
or some form of proportional representation they will have more. I will apply Duverger's
law to the country of Greece.
Greece is a a type of proportional representational form, they claim to be what is
called a “reinforced proportionality.” This type of proportional representation comes with
two extra rules. One, to obtain seats in the parliament the party must obtain at least three
percent of the vote. Two, the party that wins the largest amount of votes receives fifty
extra seats in parliament. This is why I would say Greece is like a hybrid system, because
it does have a party that wins but also has multiple parties that still have seats in
parliament.
Greece has six major parties that received seats in the election of 2009, according
 to vote and the NEFF equation, Greece has 3.4 major effective parties. I do think that
 Greece does abide by Durverger’s law, it is a type of proportional representation and
 does have more than two parties that are effective. I’d say the major effective parties of
Greece are the (In order of most powerful), Panhellistic Socialist Movement, New
Democracy, Communist Party, and the Popular Orthodox Rally, Coalition of the Radical
Left, and lastly the Ecologists Greens. Each have seats and representation in parliament (WIKI).
Electoral rules for Greece are apt have changed over the years but as of now this
is how they stand. District magnitude, or M, is the amount of votes that are divided out to
each district. Seats in Greece are distributed according to the Hagenbach-Bischoff
System, but also fifty of the seats remain for the winning party. The formula is a mixture
 of plurality and proportional representation like mentioned in the previous paragraphs.
 The Threshold is the amount of votes a party needs to obtain a seat in parliament. In
Greece the threshold is that parties need three percent of the vote (IPU). The List
structure in Greece is set up by candidate not by party. So the voter goes in picks the
candidate he or she wants and the votes are distributed accordingly.
In conclusion, I would say Greece follows and does match Durverger’s law very
closely, their electoral rules and system have some differences but overall they match the
points outlined.

Sources:
"Elections in Greece." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Greece>.
"Greece Electoral Rules." IPU PARLINE. Parline Database, n.d. Web. <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/Modlist.asp>.