Hoorcollege 7: Party Systems: Supply side

Question 1

Aside from cleavages, what can also influence a party system

Answer 1

1. Electoral system
2. How parties compete

Question 2

Duverger argument

Answer 2

FPTP leads to two party and proportional systems to multi party. Not only institutional, but psychological (voting for a third party is useless).

Question 3

Proportionality

Answer 3

Translation from votes to seats

Question 4

Two different kinds of electoral systems

Answer 4

1. Single member constituencies: FPTP, two round systems
2. Mixed systems: proportional systems, closed and open lists

Question 5

FPTP

Answer 5

1. Single representative for a single constituency
2. The candidate that wins the most votes in the constituency is the winner

Question 6

Consequences of FPTP proportionality

Answer 6

1. Highly disproportional because the votes for parties translate into the amount of seats in the constituency
2. When there are less issues the level of disproportionality is lower
3. There tends to be an underrepresentation of low geographically concentrated parties; bias results
4. With fragmentation and the rise of new parties the voting system functions as a high threshold

Question 7

Proportional open list

Answer 7

1. High proportionality
2. High number of political parties
3. Very open party system
4. Very open to changes in voters
5. Fragmentation
6. Difficult government formation

Question 8

Proportional with majoritarian results/closed

Answer 8

1. Ratio of votes to seats is low (not a lot of seats for amount of people)
2. To prevent fragmentation
3. Smaller parties less succesful nationally
4. Regionally concentrated parties do better

Question 9

What do electoral systems do?

Answer 9

Translate votes into seats. Important implications for which parties get into parliament and how cleavages are represented.

Question 10

Two ways of counting parties

Answer 10

1. Quantitative
2. Qualitative

Question 11

Quantitative approach

Answer 11

Give each party a weighted score according to their electoral results. How relevant these parties are according to their electoral results. Can be used to assess party fragmentation, see changes in number of effective parties.

Question 12

Party competition as a way of counting

Answer 12

Need to look at how relevant a party is.

Question 13

When is a party relevant?

Answer 13

1. Coalition potential: come into a coalition
2. Blackmail potential: prevent a coalition

Question 14

What is important for party competition according to Sartori?

Answer 14

1. the number of parties
2. the nature of competition (centrifugal/centripetal)
3. the degree of polarisation

Question 15

The combination of important elements of how parties compete produces different party systems:

Answer 15

1. Two party system: competition is towards the centre, the centre is the battleground for seats and votes (centripetal)
2. Moderate pluralist systems: many parties with a limited degree of polarisation compete for the centre with alternating or different coalitions depending on outcome
3. polarised pluralist systems: a multiparty system where party competition is defined by the extremes (anti-system parties). Communists and fascists made the party competition towards the extremes. Mainstream parties needed to radicalise to maintain votes. The centre is occupied by a party (centrifugal)

Question 16

Does Sartori still make sense? (important elements of party competition, party systems it produces)

Answer 16

1. No, there are no anti-system parties anymore.
2. No, almost all party systems are multi-party systems nowadays.
   Anti-establishment populists could be added to anti-system, but they don’t want to overthrow the nature of competition, they challenge it.

Question 17

Mair’s view on party competition

Answer 17

Party competition matters, but forming a government is what the party system is really about.

Question 18

Three assests of government formation and competition (Mair)

Answer 18

1. Alternation
   - Wholesale: like UK where Labour and Tories switch governments
   - Partial: few parties that stay in office with a few switches.
   - Non-alternation: the same parties stay in charge
2. Innovation: whether or not the party or combination of parties has governed before in that particular format
3. Do new parties have access to get into office?
   These assets determine how closed or open a party system is

Question 19

Closed party system

Answer 19

1. Wholesale alternation/no alternation
2. Familiar governing formula
3. Limited access to government for new parties

Question 20

Open party system

Answer 20

1. Partial alternation/mix partial and wholesale
2. Innovative governing formula
3. Open access to government for new parties