Comparative Political

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The Measurement of Hyperfractionalization

John K. Wildgen
Comparative Political Studies 1971 4: 233
DOI: 10.1177/001041407100400205

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 RESEARCH NOTE

THE MEASUREMENT OF
HYPERFRACTIONALIZATION

JOHN K. WILDGEN
Louisiana State University (New Orleans)

he
two
purpose of this note is to compare, by means of several
coefficients useful in the analysis of electoral results and
distribution of seats among groups in deliberative bodies. These
examples
th
measur
are quite convenient in that they can summarize, by means of a sin

coefficient, complicated distributions which defy concise verbal descr‘

tions.
Such measures have potentially wide application in expanding o
empirical and theoretical knowledge regarding the allied concepts
cleavage, stress, and other aspects of conflict. Moreover, these measur
have valuable mathematical properties in that they are a function of wha~
for purposes of this note we can call electoral competition-that is, the
number of parties running and the relative equality of electoral support H
received by the parties (in the analysis of deliberative bodies we would
merely substitute &dquo;seats&dquo; for electoral support or votes).
These coefficients, by themselves, tell us nothing about the level of
conflict in a given political system. But they do enable us to measure levels
and forms of choice-dispersion at the polls, and insofar as elections are
formal reflections of conflict we can learn much about the overall state of
a political system.
From another point of view the measures described below can be used
in time-series, enabling a researcher to see how form and levels of
disagreement covary with other aspects of a political system.

[233]

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The same measures may be used cross-nationally as well in conjunction

with other variables to test their explanatory power along a variety of
investigative paths.
However, our present purpose is much more modest and is restricted to
an introduction to the formulae and a brief discussion of some of the
differences between the two measures.
In a research note previously published in this journal, Professor
Douglas W. Rae (1968: 413-418) suggested substituting his notion of
&dquo;fractionalization&dquo; for the &dquo;theoretically wasteful&dquo; concept of multipar-
tism. Rae pointed out the several weaknesses of multipartism as an
analytic concept: (1) its cutting points are arbitrary, (2) its categories are
crude and consequently lump together widely diverse political systems,
and (3) the concept of multipartism seems to have little theoretical value.
Rae’s alternative-fractionalization-is an objective measure rather than
a typology. It represents the answer to the same question upon which

discussions of multipartism center: to what extent are cleavages in a given

society manifested in support for diverse political movements? More
specifically, Rae’s measure of fractionalization tells us the probability that
any two randomly selected voters disagree in their voting choice. Of course
the measure employed by Rae, referred to as Fa, where &dquo;a&dquo; refers to any
set of political actors, can be generalized to treat not only voters (Fe) but
other sets of actors such as members of a parliament (Fp). As Rae made
clear in an earlier work (1967: 80-81), one of the most interesting uses of
the F coefficient lies in determining the relationship between electoral
laws and the eventual representation of parties in legislatures. For
example, Rae plotted Fe against Fp in 115 elections and demonstrated
that electoral systems tend to defractionalize parliamentary systems. That
is, electoral laws tend to favor larger parties by giving them representation
above the proportion of the vote they received.1
One of the main advantages of Rae’s measure of fractionalization, or
simply F, is its ease of calculation.
Rae’s formula is as follows:

Where: t stands for the proportion of members or voters associated

with the Ith party.
Table 1 gives fractionalization values for several hypothetical election
outcomes. An examination of Table 1 should make clear a number of

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TABLE 1
HYPOTHETICAL FRACTIONALIZATION VALUES

properties of the F coefficient. First, it is sensitive to not only the number

of parties running but also to the relative share of the votes won by the
respective parties. This is demonstrated by the second and third examples
of the coefficient. Both hypothetical party systems are &dquo;two-party&dquo; but
the fractionalization scores reflect the much more competitive situation
existing in the third example, where the two parties are in a standoff. A
second point which emerges from an inspection of Table 1 is that a
proportionate increase in party competition does not bring about a
proportionate increase in F. Note that the fourth example gives an F value
of .75 for a hypothetical situation in which four parties are tied. It seems
plausible that this situation is twice as competitive as the second situation ;
in which only two parties equally share the citizens’ preferences.
Effectively, the fourth situation reflects a dispersion of the vote twice as
great as that of the second. Yet despite this 100% growth in dispersion
there is only a 50% growth in F. This property of F is due to the nature of
what F measures: the probability that members of randomly selected pairs
of voters will disagree in their respective choices of parties. As is obvious,
the probability of disagreement in an M party system is at a maximum
when all parties are tied. If we calculate maximum values of F starting
with M equal to 1 and then increment M by integer values it will be found
that Fm ax assumes values according to the following formula:

Figure 1 illustrates the results of substituting the values 1 through 11I

for M. On the X axis we have represented hypothetical election outcomes
in which the parties running have all received 1/M votes. That is, all parties
are tied. On the Y axis we have a scale of
possible F values, running from
0.0 to 1.0. As the plot demonstrates, values of F approach 1.0

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Figure 1. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF PARTIES TIED AND

MAXIMUM VALUES OF F

asymptotically-the relationship between a given fractionalization situa-

tion and its corresponding F value is not linear. Indeed, once above a value
of .80 Rae’s F loses much of its value as a tool for comparing party
systems cross-nationally, regionally, or within a nation in a time-series. Of
course it still retains its utility in describing the probability that a pair of
voters will disagree. However, if our interest lies in the relationship of the
voter to the party, rather than in the voter to another voter, it would seem
advisable to seek another index. In effect what we need is an index which
will increase linearly with the dispersion of the vote among several parties.
I will not speculate on the number of possible alternatives we might
have. I will limit myself to suggesting one suitable measure which seems to
have some desirable properties in that it is linear, has a meaning easy to
grasp, is relatively simple to compute, and has been used in political
science previously.
In an analysis of French grass roots politics Mark Kesselman (1966:
969) employed a measure which uses the same data as does Rae’s but
which subjects the data to different treatment. Rather than squaring the
decimal proportion of votes won by a party, Kesselman multiplies the
proportion by its natural logarithm.
Table 2a compares the values of F and I for several hypothetical
election outcomes. Figure 2 presents similar information graphically. An
examination of this table reveals that I, like F, is sensitive not only to the

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number of parties receiving votes, but also to the distribution of those

votes. However, unlike F, a doubling in the number of parties among
which the votes are equally dispersed will double the value of I.
Furthermore, like F, I reaches its maximum value when all parties are
tied. In an M party system, in which all parties are tied, I takes on values
according to the following formula:

In those elections which we might call modal-in that they approach a

fractionalization level of .69, which Rae found to be the mean value for
elections held in twenty democracies for the period 1945-1965-there
appears to be limited practical significance to the choice between F and I.
In Table 2b we have presented both F and I coefficients for fifteen
elections held during the 1960s. In these elections the two coefficients
correlate highly, having a product-moment correlation of 0.97, accounting
for nearly 95% of the variance. The regression equation relating the two
coefficients for the elections in question is: I 13.431F - 5.0 3 =

The coefficient I would seem to have maximum utility in those

electoral systems affected by what we might call for lack of a better word
&dquo;hyperfractionalization.&dquo; Along these lines appropriate examples for
comparing F and I might be drawn from Italian elections, due to the
generosity of Italian electoral legislation toward small parties and groups
of voters.
TABLE 2a
COMPARISON OF HYPOTHETICAL FRACTIONALIZATION
AND MULTIPARTiSM VALUES

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Figure 2. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF PARTIES TIED AND

MAXIMUM VALUES OF I

The first example is taken from an analysis of preference voting in an

Italian autonomous region. In this election (modeled after the system used
for the election of members to the Chamber of Deputies) voters first
selected the party of their choice by marking its symbol printed on the
ballot. Then they were allowed the option of giving preference votes to 3
of the 35 candidates nominated by their party. In Italian parties
characterized by clientelistic practices the preference vote race is intense
and largely analogous to a strongly contested American primary. Through
the analysis of preference voting much can be learned about internal
politics within a party and the relationship of individual candidates to the
electorate. With this in mind, preference votes for candidates of the
Christian Democratic party (DC) were collected for each of the region’s 74
comuni (the lowest level of aggregation for electoral data), F and I
coefficients were calculated for each comune, and the two were correlated.
The results are summarized in Table 2c.
As Table 2c indicates, there is a tendency for the relationship between
F and I to weaken in analyses of hyperfractionalization. Accounting for
this, however, presents no great difficulty. An inspection of F’s standard
deviation demonstrates its lack of variability due to its asymptotic nature.
It might be objected here that the election in question is an extreme

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TABLE 2b
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN F AND 1 IN FIFTEEN
DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS

example. However, the 47-member district for the Chamber of Deputies

composed of Roma, Viterbo, Latina, and Frosinone could provide an even
more extreme example.

Nonetheless, even in less dramatic cases of hyperfractionalization

possibly important differences between F and I emerge. In Table 3, the
results of Italy’s postwar political elections are presented. We have allowed

TABLE 2c
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN F AND I FOR ANALYSIS OF
CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PREFERENCE VOTING IN 1963
VALLE D’AOSTA REGIONAL COUNCIL ELECTION

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the small PRI (Italian Republican party) and PDIUM (Italian Democratic
party of Monarchical Unity) to stand by themselves rather than include
them in the &dquo;others&dquo; category. This is due to the fact that these parties
have an importance to Italian politics disproportionate to their size, in that
the PRI is a regular member of government coalitions and the PDIUM
frequently makes bargains in exchange for its external support of Italian
governments. As such they are important to any analysis of the party
in
phenomenon Italy.
In Table 4 we present a comparison of the F and I scores computed for
the Italian elections in question along with some standard statistical
parameters. From an examination of this table, one can see the divergent

TABLE 3
RESULTS OF ITALIAN ELECTIONS 1948-1968
POPULAR VOTE (in percentages)

a. PCI-PSI coalition
b. Left-wing splinter of PSI
c. Coalition of PSI rump and PSDI
d. Coalition of PNM and PMP

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TABLE 4
COMPARISON OF FRACTIONALIZATION AND
MULTIPARTISM SCORES IN THE ITALIAN ELECTIONS
OF 1948,1953,1958,1963,1968

interpretations possible through the choice of either I or F. The

fractionalization scores demonstrate no pattern beyond a rise in fraction-
alization after the election of 1948-which in the Italian case was largely
due to the decision of the Italian Socialist party (PSI) to break out of its 1
1948 electoral alliance with the Communists. Indeed, the fractionalization
scores indicate extraordinary stability in the tendency of Italians to

disagree in the choice of political parties.

Turning to the I scores we note the same rise in the dispersion of the
vote following 1948, but also slight but unbroken tendency towards
convergence in electoral choice. Whether this convergence is important or
not is beyond the scope of this note. But from an examination of F scores
alone, the question would not have arisen.
It might also be pointed out that there is an interesting difference in the
coefficients of variation in the two scores. The I distribution is more than
twice as unstable as the distribution of the F scores. This also might lead
some to investigate whether or not Italians are becoming less entrenched in

their enthusiasm for multiple parties. Is there then-employing the exotic

vocabulary necessary to the analysis of Italy-a slight transition from
&dquo;polarized pluralism&dquo; to bipartitismo imperfetto?
As the above makes clear, the coefficient I has some useful properties.
It is by no means a replacement for Rae’s measure of fractionalization.
Conceptually it is a measure of voters’ tendencies to converge or diverge

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relative to parties or candidates, while Rae’s measure concentrates on the

voter’s relationship to other voters. As such Rae’s measure is much more
suitable as an index of tension and cleavage in a society. The fact that it
tends to level off beyond a certain point is probably an accurate reflection
of the reasonable assumption that once a certain plateau of disagreement is
reached a little more or a little less is of no consequence. But in highly
fractionalized societies where there are no practical limits to the expansion
of the ballot, the I coefficient seems a superior tool because of its greater
variability. Because of this variability, or sensitivity, it seems more
appropriate to use I when one is trying to differentiate among hyperfrac-
tionalized electoral systems. The F coefficient is most suitable for
discovering similarities among systems, but in certain circumstances when
one is trying to generalize from levels of fractionalization to systemic
characteristics the use of F could be misleading. For example note on
Table 2b the cases of France and Finland. Finland has a slightly higher F
score, denoting a greater probability of disagreement among Finns than
among Frenchmen. However, France has a higher I score which seems
more in accord with the characteristics of the two polities in question.

Naturally we admit that this anomaly could be merely fortuitous-or the

result of such intervening variables as the proximity of the Soviet Union to
Finland. Yet if we take a more likely example, the case of Germany and
Japan, we again find an anomaly. Germany and Japan are virtually tied on
the F coefficient with a minimal 0.002 edge to Germany. The F score here
furnishes no clues to the appreciably different electoral environments of
Germany and Japan. But an examination of the I scores indicates a
somewhat different range of choices of being made by the Japanese
electorate, which supports by large pluralities a hegemonic party (Liberal
Democrats) that is opposed by several notably smaller parties. The German
system is quite different, there not being (any longer) a hegemonic party
which can command comfortable majorities, nor on the other hand several
hopelessly outclassed smaller parties.

SUMMARY

In this brief analysis of the comparative merits of F and I it was our

hope to illustrate several points, some methodological, some theoretical:

(1) Like F, I has the advantage of being relatively easy to compute.
(2) Unlike F, I has no upward limit and its maximum values (in the
analysis of support for parties in elections) are linearly related

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to the number of parties equally sharing the total vote in a given

election.
(3) I is more sensitive to differences in the distribution of the vote.
This is especially true when there is an above average dispersion of
the vote.
(4) I is not a replacement for F. F is essentially a rate-a measure of the
degree to which disagreement is found. I, on the other hand, tell us
how disagreement converges upon political parties-how equally
disagreement is distributed. As such it is useful for estimating the
shape of disagreement. Thus F is a most suitable measure for
estimating the amount of cleavage in a political system. I is more
appropriate for estimating the different electoral and institutional
consequences of equal rates of cleavage.

NOTES

1. Rae’s regression equation was Fp 0.95F

e - 0.0004. =

2. The author has two small FORTRAN programs which calculate both Rae’s F
and Kesselman’s T. One is designed for normal batch processing and the second is a
conversational program suitable for time-sharing systems. Both are available upon
request.

REFERENCES

KESSELMAN, M. (1966) "French local politics: a statistical examination of grass

roots consensus," Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev. 60 (December): 963-973.
RAE, D. (1968) "A note on the fractionalization of some European party systems."
Comparative Pol. Studies 1 (October): 413-418.
(1967) Political Consequences of Electoral Laws. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
———

Univ. Press.

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