TY - JOUR
T1 - Duverger and the territory
T2 - explaining deviations from the two-party-competition-law
AU - Bochsler, Daniel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - According to Duverger’s Law, plurality voting systems lead to two-party competition. However, many results of national parliamentary elections deviate from this rule. In contrast to previous research, which argues that in countries with territorial splits, regional two-party systems aggregate to national multi-party systems, this article shows that this explanation accounts for only a small proportion of the empirical exceptions to Duverger’s Law. Instead, this article distinguishes three explanations for Non-Duvergerian outcomes at the national level. The three mechanisms relate to the level of electoral constituencies, to the aggregation of constituency results, and to the interaction between constituency- and aggregation effects. This article assesses the explanatory power of each of the three explanations on an extensive sample of election results from plurality vote systems, linking national to constituency-level results.
AB - According to Duverger’s Law, plurality voting systems lead to two-party competition. However, many results of national parliamentary elections deviate from this rule. In contrast to previous research, which argues that in countries with territorial splits, regional two-party systems aggregate to national multi-party systems, this article shows that this explanation accounts for only a small proportion of the empirical exceptions to Duverger’s Law. Instead, this article distinguishes three explanations for Non-Duvergerian outcomes at the national level. The three mechanisms relate to the level of electoral constituencies, to the aggregation of constituency results, and to the interaction between constituency- and aggregation effects. This article assesses the explanatory power of each of the three explanations on an extensive sample of election results from plurality vote systems, linking national to constituency-level results.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073806197&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17457289.2019.1658195
DO - 10.1080/17457289.2019.1658195
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85073806197
SN - 1745-7289
VL - 32
SP - 501
EP - 520
JO - Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties
JF - Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties
IS - 3
ER -