Suchergebnisse

Attempts to predict the number of political parties emerging in democracies have usually relied on one of two apparently incompatible approaches: the institutional approach, exemplified by M. Duverger's law & hypothesis ("The Influence of Electoral Systems on Political Life," International Social Science Bulletin, 1951, 3, 314-352), which focuses on the nature of the electoral system & the number of seats per district; & the ideological approach, which focuses on the nature & extent of social cleavages. A synthesis of these two approaches is attempted. It is argued that electoral system & cleavage type interact to affect number of parties, with the electoral system determined in part by cleavage type. Empirical testing of this approach for 22 postwar democratic polities over the years 1945-1980 supports this formulation & also a more specific model in which the number of parties minus the number of issues equals one. Within this framework, Duverger's law emerges as a special case for polities with a single issue dimension. 3 Tables, 1 Figure, 32 References. Modified HA