Party systes: 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

How should we understand party systems?

Answer 2

1. Electoral systems (Duverger)
2. Counting parties (Disproportionality (Gallagher Index)
   * Quantitatively
   * Qualitatively
3. The nature of party competition

Question 3

Duverger Argument

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Proportionality

Answer 4

translation from votes to seats
–> Gallagher Index to measure Disproportionality
Uses a formula to calculate the differences between percentage of votes + number of seats
Single Member plurarilty (first past the post) –> most disproportional
Proportional –> the least disproportional
Sliding scale.

Question 5

2 different kinds of electoral systems

Answer 5

1. Single Member constituencies :
   FPTP
   2-round systems
2. Mixed systems:
   proportional systems, closed + open lists

Question 6

FPTP

Answer 6

1. Single representative for a single constituency (kiesdistrict)
2. Candidate that wins most votes in constituency is winner

Question 7

Consequences of FPTP proportinality

Answer 7

1. Highly disproportional –> because votes for parteis translate into amount of seats in 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 + rise of new parties the voting system functions as high threshold.

Question 8

Proportional open list

Answer 8

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 9

Proportional with majoritarian results/ closed

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What do electoral systems do?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Two ways of counting parties

Answer 11

1. Quantiative
2. Qualitative

Question 12

Quantitative approach

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Party competition as way of counting

Answer 13

Need to look at how relevant a party is

Question 14

When is a party relevant?

Answer 14

1. Coalition potential: come into a coalition
2. Black-mail potential: prevent a coalition

Question 15

What is important for party competition according to Sartori//

Answer 15

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

Question 16

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

Answer 16

1. Two party system: competition is towards the centre (centripetal). The centre = battleground for seats and votes
2. Moderate Pluralist systems: many parties with 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 extremes (anti-system parties)

Question 17

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

Answer 17

1. No: there are no anti-system parties any more
2. No: almost all party systems are multi-party systems nowadays.
   Anti-establishment Populists could be added to anti-system,
   but they do not want to overthrow the nature of competition, they just challenge it.

Question 18

Mair’s view on party competition

Answer 18

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

Question 19

3 assets of government formation and competition (Mair)

Answer 19

1. Alternation 2. innovation 3. new parties acces to office?
   These assets determine how closed or open party system is.
   Alternation:
   * wholesale: Like the UK where Labour + Tories switch governments.
   * Partial: few parties that stay in office with a few switches
   *Non-alternation: same parties stay in charge.
   innovation: whether party or party combination has governed before in that particular format.

Question 20

Closed party system

Answer 20

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