[EM] Re: British Election and Duverger's Law

[Araucaria Araucana]

On  6 May 2005 at 00:52 UTC-0700, Alex Small wrote:
> Long time no post.  I'm wrapping up the writing on my dissertation,
> but I couldn't resist jumping in to post on the British election.
>  
> The Liberal Democrats are putting in their strongest showing since
> the 1920's.  What's interesting from the non-partisan standpoint of
> this list is that Britain uses plurality voting from single-member
> districts, and yet the LibDems got 22% of the popular vote at last
> count and approximately 9% of the seats.  The usual rule of thumb is
> that plurality voting from single-member districts encourages the
> formation of a 2-party system.  That's certainly the case in the US,
> both nationally and in the 50 states (which can be seen as 50
> different units to compare).
>  
> The appeal of the LibDems is even more surprising when you consider
> that it's a parliamentary system.  The stakes in a legislative race
> are even higher, so at first glance I would think that there's even
> more of an incentive to vote for one of the 2 major parties.
> Finally, while most of the other parties in the British Parliament
> are regional/ethnic parties representing Wales, Northern Ireland,
> and Scotland, the LibDems are more about issues and ideology rather
> than ethnic/regional identity.
>  
> Now, it may be tempting to explain these results solely in terms of
> current events: Tony Blair has alienated elements of the left and
> center, and the Tories are such an abysmal mess that even Gray Davis
> has lost respect for them.  But the LibDems have persisted despite
> the fact that they've been the third party in size for 80+ years.
> I'm more surprised by their persistence over time than I am by their
> current popularity.
>  
> Does anybody know why Duverger's Law has been so stubbornly resisted
> in Britain for 80+ years?  I'd be genuinely curious to know.
>
> Alex

Duverger's "Law" is not absolute, and I think it assumes some party
stability and regional homogeneity.  Extracting from the top of the
wikipedia entry (which ought to be imported into electowiki):

,----[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law ]
| Duverger's Law is a principle which asserts that a
| first-past-the-post election system naturally leads to a two-party
| system. The discovery of this principle is attributed to Maurice
| Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded
| it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course
| of further research, other political scientists began calling the
| effect a ülawý.
| 
| While there are indeed many FPTP systems with two parties, there are
| significant counterexamples: Scotland has had until recently
| first-past-the-post and similar systems but has seen the development
| of several significant competing political parties. Many
| commentators regard the United Kingdom's Liberal Democrat party,
| since the 2005 General Election, as forming a 'third party' and
| creating a three-party system. Canada and India have multiple
| regional parties. Duverger himself did not regard his principle as
| absolute: instead he suggested that first-past-the-post would act to
| delay the emergence of a new political force, and would accelerate
| the elimination of a weakening force - proportional representation
| would have the opposite effect.
| 
| Additionally, William H. Riker noted that strong regional parties
| can distort matters, leading to more than two parties nationwide,
| even if there are only two parties competitive in any single
| district. He pointed to Canada's regional politics, as well as the
| U.S. presidential election of 1860, as examples of often temporary
| regional instability that occurs from time-to-time in otherwise
| stable two-party systems (Riker, 1982).
`----

In the US 1860 election, there was not only regional instability, but
the Whigs were disintegrating and the Democratic and fledgling
Republican parties (and others) were scrambling for dominance in a
highly charged race.

This entry appears to be very recently updated, BTW.

Monk
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