Argentina

John Lazenby

Blog 7

Duverger’s law predicts that a proportional representation electoral system will yield more than two parties while a SMDP will yield only two. This blog will investigate if this law holds true based on the electoral system, and the effective number of parties in Argentina.

  Argentina uses a proportional representation system to elect its lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. There are 24 multi-member constituencies and 257 seats, so the average district magnitude is a little less than 11 representatives per district. They allocate the seats in their proportional representation system using the d’Hondt method. The system is not a hybrid, so all of its seats are allocated using proportional representation. There is a threshold set at 3% of the total vote in a single district (Inter-Parliamentary Union). They use a closed list structure (Election Guide).  By using the formula we learned in class, the inverse of the sum of the share of seats squared, one learns that there are four effective parties in Argentina. Because there are four effective parties in Argentina, and Argentina uses a proportional representation system, Duverger’s law holds true in Argentina as it predicts that a proportional representation system will yield more than two effective parties.

Works Cited

Inter-Parliamentary Union, http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2011_B.htm, viewed 11/2/12

Electionguide, http://electionguide.org/election.php?ID=1944, viewed 11/2/12