Andrew Kanis

PL SC 150-002

November 2, 2012

Blog 7

            According to Duverger’s law, the amount of effective political parties that a country has is directly related to the electoral rules that the country employs. Durverger states that a SMDP or Single member district plurality system is more likely produce a system in which two parties are dominate while a PR or proportional representation system is more likely to allow for more than two effective political parties. To analyze Duverger’s law we will be looking at the State of Finland and how it elects representatives to it unicameral legislature known as the Eduskanta.¹

            In order to calculate that number of effective political parties in Finland we will be using the equation N = 1/ ∑ p_i² where N is the number of effective parties. Based on this equation and after some calculation I came up with 6.45 effective political parties. This number seems high at first glance but upon further analysis, we can see that the National Coalition Party (KOK) got the most votes off all political parties at 20.4%.¹ In fact there were 4 parties that received more than 15% of the vote¹, since there is no clearly dominate party in Finland it is no surprise that they have a large number of effective parties.

            The Electoral system in Finland is a Proportional System.¹ In a PR system seats in the legislature are given out based on what percent of the vote a particular party received in a particular constituency. So for example in Finland, since the National Coalition Party received approximately 20.40% of the vote they will receive about 20.40% of the 200 seats in the Eduskanta. ¹ The same holds true for smaller Finnish political parties such as the Green League, which received about 7.3% of the vote and therefore will get about 7.3% of the 200 seats in the Eduskanta. ¹

            The election process in Finland makes use of 14 provincial constituencies, these 14 provincial constituencies each get a certain number of seats, between 6 and 33, and then these seats are then given out based on what proportion of the vote a party gets within that constituency. There is one exception to this system in Finland and that is the province of Aland which gets 1 seat and that seat is given out based on who gets the most votes in the Province. It is also a preferential system in which candidates are given a rank based on how many votes they get.  In order to vote in Finland one must be at least 18 years old and a citizen of Finland. In addition, there are no clear thresholds in Finland. ¹

            Since Finland has a PR system, and more than two effective political parties, Duverger’s law is supported. The case of Finland upholds Duverger’s idea that PR systems are more likely to allow more than two effective political parties to develop and to have political power.

Works Cited

1-"Finland." Inter-Parliamentary Union. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ipu.org/>.