Parties, Party Systems, and

Social Cleavages
Big questions for today

 Why have political parties? What function do

they play?
 Why do some countries have more parties
than others?
 Why do some issues become salient in some
countries (and at some times) but not others?
 Economics versus moral values?
 The rise of post-materialism, environmentalism?
Big questions for today, cont.

 Return to Aristotle and our basic questions

about redistribution and democracy:
 Why don’t the poor vote to expropriate the rich?
Overview

 Why parties?
 Cleavages in democracies since the 19th
century
 The impact of social cleavages on party
systems
 The role of electoral institutions
 Putting it all together
Political Parties

A political party can be thought of as a group of

people that includes those who hold office and those
who help get and keep them there.

Why do we need political parties to structure political

life, even in non-democracies?
Political Parties

Political parties serve several purposes:

They structure the political world.
Remember our discussion of social choice instability.
In particular, they structure the legislative process.
They recruit and socialize the political elite
They mobilize the masses
They provide a link between the rulers and the
ruled.
Party Systems

Political scientists often categorize

democracies in terms of the type of party
system that they exhibit.
They typically distinguish between party systems
based on the number and size of the parties they
contain.
Party Systems
A nonpartisan democracy is a democracy with no official political
parties.
A single-party system is one in which only one political party is legally
allowed to hold power.
A one-party dominant system is one in which multiple parties may
legally operate but in which only one particular party has a realistic
chance of gaining power.
A two-party system is one in which only two major political parties
have a realistic chance of gaining power.
A multiparty system is one in which more than two parties have a
realistic chance of gaining power.
Counting Parties
Effective Number of Parties
It is a measure that weights the number of parties by the
share of votes or seats they get.
So a party that is large is counted more than a party that is
very small.
The idea is to down-weight the Monster Raving Loony
Party, the Beer-Drinkers’ Party, etc.
Among full democracies, the range is from the United
States (around 2) to Brazil (18).
Types of social cleavages

A quick tour of social cleavages:

Urban-rural cleavage
Confessional cleavage
Secular-clerical cleavage
Class cleavage
Post-materialist cleavage
Ethnic and linguistic cleavages
Regional cleavages
Social Cleavages and Party Systems

 Can we explain the number of parties by

examining social cleavages?
Social Cleavages and Party Systems

 Can we explain the number of parties by

examining social cleavages?
 Count the number of cleavages?
 Examine whether they are reinforcing or cross-
cutting?
A closer look at social cleavages

 What is a social cleavage anyway?

 Where do they come from?
 Primordialist vs. constructivist viewpoint
A closer look at social cleavages

 Primordialists vs. constructivists

 Is ethnicity socially constructed?
 What about the class cleavage?
Social Cleavages and the number of
parties
A classic argument: The more social cleavages there
are in a country and the more that these cleavages are
cross-cutting, the greater the demand for distinctive
representation and the greater the demand for
political parties.
Electoral Institutions

Social cleavages create the demand for political

parties.

But electoral institutions determine whether this

latent demand for representation actually leads to the
existence of new parties.

Specifically, non-proportional electoral systems act

as a brake on the tendency for social cleavages to be
translated into new parties.
How does this work?

 Mechanical effect
 Strategic effect
 Strategic voting
 Strategic entry
Mechanical Effect

The mechanical effect of electoral laws refers to the

way votes are translated into seats.

When electoral systems are disproportional, the

mechanical effect:
punishes small, geographically dispersed parties (Liberals)
or large, geographically concentrated parties (Labor)
Rewards large, geographically dispersed parties
(Conservatives) and small, geographically concentrated
parties (SNP, Bloc)
Strategic Effect
The strategic effect of electoral laws refers to how the
way in which votes are translated into seats influences
the “strategic” behavior of voters and political elites.

When electoral systems are disproportional, their

mechanical effect can be expected to reward large parties
and punish small parties.

As a result, voters have an incentive to engage in

strategic voting and political elites have an incentive to
engage in strategic entry.
Strategic Effect

The strategic voting essentially means voting for

your most preferred candidate who has a realistic
chance of winning.

Strategic entry refers to the decision by political

elites about whether to enter the political scene under
the label of their most preferred party or under the
label of their most preferred party that has a realistic
chance of winning.
A Strategic Entry Game
Strategic Entry Game
There are two left-wing parties (L1 and L2) and one right-
wing party (R).
If both left-wing parties compete in the election, then the
right-wing party will win for sure.
If only one left-wing party runs, then the right-wing party
will lose.
A Strategic Entry Game

Strategic Entry Game

The worst possible outcome for the left-wing parties
is if the right-wing party wins (0).
The best possible outcome for each left-wing party is
if they win (1).
The second best outcome for each left-wing party is
if the other left-wing party wins (λ, where 0 < λ < 1).
A Strategic Entry Game

As you can see, both L1 and L2 face incentives

for one of them to drop out of the race.
They face incentives for strategic entry.

But how do they coordinate on which one of

them should drop out?
The coordination game is asymmetric and therefore
has distributional consequences.
A Strategic Entry Game
One way to solve this coordination problem is for the two
small parties to merge into a single party.
Example: The Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party
merged to creat the Liberal Democratic Party in the UK in 1988.

The more disproportional the electoral system, the

greater the incentive for small parties to merge or to form
coalitions.
This incentive not only encourages mergers between
small parties but it can also deter the entry of small
parties in the first place.
Duverger’s Law

 What is it?
 How does it work?
 Why does India have so many parties? Why
do different parties compete in different
regions of Canada?
 Why are third parties so rare in the United
States?
Explaining the number of parties

 There seems to be an emerging consensus in

the literature about an interaction effect.
How would you test this?
Does proportional representation affect the
salience of non-economic issues?

 Religion
 Immigration
 Environment, climate change?
Endogenous electoral rules

 Functionalist arguments about social

heterogeneity
 Colonial and historical legacies
 Strategic elites
 Boix
 Calvo
 Strategic fools?