One political phenomenon that has raised debates in the political community has been the number of parties that occur in a given country’s party system. With political parties being the connection between the issues of the people and the policy that is enacted, the importance of proper representation of these parties to the people is fundamental to the democracy of the nation. For this reason, it is important to consider why countries have differing number of parties despite that fact that each country is considered a democracy. That is, why are there varying numbers of parties across democratic nations? The answer to this question lies within the type of electoral system that a given country operates under. In examining this theory, one can identify the dependent variable as the number of parties in a given country and the independent variable as the type of electoral system used by a country. Out of simplicity, the two types of electoral systems will be Majoritarian or the “winner-take-all” system and the Proportional Representation (PR) system.
It can be seen that under a PR system the seats in the governing body are distributed based on a percentage of the vote, i. e. a party winning 10% of the vote wins 10% of the seats. Where as, in a majoritarian system seats are distributed according to majority vote in districts, thus giving all the district’s seats to the top vote getter (Lijphart, 1999).
The Essay on On Proportional Representation System Parties Vote
Electoral systems are the oldest and arguably the most important institution of a democratic nation. The right to vote is quintessential to democracy itself, however, how that vote is translated into political power depends on what type of electoral system is being used. For example in a proportional system (PR), 40% of the vote will translate into 40% of the seats in the legislature. This does ...
Therefore, under a PR system more than two parties can win representation, thus providing a system in which more than two parties can exist.
Consequently, under a majoritarian system it is nearly impossible for more than two parties to gain any representation because of the “winner-take-all” characteristic, thus providing a system in which only two parties can exist. Since, it is nearly impossible for a small third party to win representation, people feel that voting for a third party within majoritarian system is basically throwing away one’s vote. Therefore many people who would be the third parties supporters under a PR system will instead opt to support one of the two major parties that is the closer representation of their priorities, thus further lessening the third party’s viability (Bianco, 2001).
On the other hand, one alternate explanation as to why countries have differing numbers of parities is that the social divisions or cleavages within a country are more focused and defined then in others. That is the more divisive a country is such as between religious and secular government, or between rural and urban populations the more parties there will be to represent the needs of these differing people. However, one can see that by developing a research design that this alternative is merely permitted by the PR structure of a nation.
In researching this theory that PR systems results in more than two parties and majoritarian systems result in only two parties, one can set up a most similar systems research design. The research design would be similar to as follows: Country Number of Parties Electoral System Social Cleavages.
