Form of government, electoral system, and party system fragmentation: A global comparison
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20578911231166689 |
| Author | Serkan Ünal,Abdullah Metin,Carsten Anckar,Bilgehan Tekin |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
Form of government, electoral
system, and party system
fragmentation: A global
comparison
Serkan Ünal
Cankiri Karatekin University, Turkey
Abdullah Metin
Cankiri Karatekin University, Turkey
Carsten Anckar
Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Bilgehan Tekin
Cankiri Karatekin University, Turkey
Abstract
This study aims to determine the characteristics of party systems within the context of electoral
systems, forms of government, and continents. There is no study in the literature that quantita-
tively reveals the relationship between the party system and forms of government.
Furthermore, this study differs from other studies in that it deals with the relationship between
the electoral system and the party system on a global scale. In the study, the effective number
of parties (ENEP and ENPP) was calculated for the last three legislative elections of the countries
governed by presidential, president–parliamentary, premier–presidential and parliamentary forms
of government, using the Laakso–Taagepera Index. The dataset was then analyzed with ANOVA
and post-hoc tests. The study revealed that party systems do not differ significantly from forms
of government, that is, forms of government do not determine party systems. Similarly, party sys-
tems do not significantly differ in terms of the continents, that is, there are no continental party
Corresponding author:
Serkan Ünal, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations, Cankiri Karatekin
University, UluyazıCampus, IIBF, Cankiri 18100, Turkey.
Email: serkanunal33@yahoo.com
Original Research Article
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2024, Vol. 9(2) 308–323
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/20578911231166689
journals.sagepub.com/home/acp
system characteristics of the forms of government. Also, the study confirmed that it is the elect-
oral system that determines the party systems.
Keywords
effective number of parties, electoral system, form of government, Laakso–Taagepera index, party
system
Introduction
The first major theoretical work on the classification of party systems is generally attributed to
Duverger (1964), who divided parties into single-party, two-party, and multi-party categories,
taking into account the rate of votes. Following Duverger, a number of authors, such as Blondel
(1968; Dahl, 1966: 332; Golosov, 2010b; Sartori, 1976; Siaroff, 2000; Ware, 1996), developed cat-
egories based on the number of parties. Rokkan (1970) shifted the basis of the party system from the
percentage of votes to the number of seats. This means that the electoral system becomes very
important in the emergence of the party system.
The argument that plurality electoral systems generate two-party systems and proportional elect-
oral systems multi-party systems is old (e.g. Riker, 1986: 22–23). Duverger (1964: 206–255) pro-
vided two explanations for why two-party systems should emerge in units with plurality elections.
The mechanical effect refers to the rules that apply when shares of votes are transferred to shares of
seats. In a plurality system, only the candidate receiving the largest share of the votes receives a seat
in parliament, which means that smaller parties have no real chance of gaining representation. The
psychological effect, again, refers to the fact that as voters are aware of how the electoral system
operates, they refrain from voting for candidates for smaller parties and instead concentrate their
votes on the two largest parties.
The relationship between electoral system characteristics and party system fragmentation has been
assessed in numerous studies (e.g. Anckar, 2002; Croissant and Völkel, 2012; Ferland, 2014; Laakso
and Taagepera, 1981). Space does not allow a thorough exposition of findings from these studies;
suffice it here to say that in general, the claim that plurality electoral systems have fewer parties than
proportional systems wins support. However, this is far from a rule without exceptions, as demonstrated
notably by countries like India, Canada, and, nowadays, Britain.
The researchers examining the party system with regard to the effective number of parties (ENP)
have provided clearer data in order to understand the party systems and party system changes of the
countries. To reach this aim, Kesselman (1966), Rae and Taylor (1970), Wildgen (1971), Laakso
and Taagepera (1979), Molinar (1991), Dunleavy and Boucek (2003), and Golosov (2010a) formulated
ENP as a party system fragmentation index. The Laakso–Taagapera Index (L-T Index) has become the
most widely used index over time. This study is based on this index that counts the political parties in a
country according to their relative strength instead of their actual numbers.
The use of the L-T Index in the literature show a great variety when used to determine the party
system competitiveness (Brambor et al., 2007; Chhibber and Nooruddin, 2004; Kuenzi and
Lambright, 2005; Laakso and Taagepera, 1979; Lijphart, 1994; Mozaffar and Scarrit, 2005;
Neto and Cox, 1997; Paskhina and Telin, 2017; Schleiter and Voznoya, 2014; Taagepera and
Shugart, 1989) comparison of party systems (Lijphart et al., 1999). The index has also been
employed in the following contexts: changes in a party system (Quinn, 2013); the effects of elect-
oral misconduct on a party system (Donno and Roussias, 2012); the relationship between a party
Ünal et al. 309
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