Blog 7

Justin Pace

Pl Sc 150 Sec. 2

Prof. Kirk Hawkins

November 1, 2012

Blog 7: Duverger’s Law

            According to Duverger’s law, Proportional electoral systems will have more than two effective parties. This holds true in the case of Finland.

            Finland’s Parliament is unicameral and has 200 seats. Every four years there is a Parliamentary election and legislators are elected according to the D’Hondt method of proportional election rules (“FINLAND: Electoral”). According to the D’Hondt method, seats in Parliament are allocated according to party-list proportional representation. The D’Hondt method tends to favor slightly larger parties over scattered, small parties (“D’Hondt”). Finland is divided into 15 electoral districts with the number of seats proportional to the population in each district. The average district magnitude is 13.3, but the number of seats is not equal in each district (Jääskeläinen 11). “For the distribution of seats within each list, candidates are ranked according to the number of personal votes they have received,” so Finland’s list structure is preferential. In one district there is only one seat and so it is elected by majority vote (“FINLAND: Electoral”). There is no official threshold in Finland (“Parliament”).

            Looking at the most recent Parliamentary elections in April 2011, we will calculate the number of effective parties in Finland. This formula says that the number of effective parties is equal to one divided by the sum of the parties (receiving at least one seat in Parliament) times the square of percent of the number of seats that each party received. In Finland in 2011 there were nine parties that received at least one seat in Parliament. Using the formula, I found that there were 6.45 effective parties in Finland (“FINLAND: Last”).

            In the case of Finland, Duverger’s law proves true. Countries in which representatives are elected proportionally tend to have more than two effective parties.

Works Cited

"D'Hondt Method." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Oct. 2012. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Hondt_method>.

"FINLAND: Electoral System." IPU PARLINE Database. N.p., 2011. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2111_B.htm>.

"FINLAND: Last Elections." IPU PARLINE Database. N.p., 2011. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2111_E.htm>.

Jääskeläinen, Arto. "Finnish Election System." Ministry of Justice Finland, 17 Sept. 2012. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. <http://www.om.fi/Satellite?blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobcol=urldata&SSURIapptype=BlobServer&SSURIcontainer=Default&SSURIsession=false&blobkey=id&blobheadervalue1=inline;%20filename=OMTH%2072%202010%20Finnish%20Election%20System_%20Overview_32%20s.pdf&SSURIsscontext=Satellite%20Server&blobwhere=1277813557371&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&ssbinary=true&blobheader=application/pdf>.

"Parliament of Finland." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Oct. 2012. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Finland>.