Duverger's Law and France by Randall Raban

Duverger’s Law

            According to Duverger’s law, the number parties in an electoral district can be explained based on the electoral rules. In this blog post I argue that Duverger’s law holds true in this regard. In this post, I will present evidence that supports Duverger’s law based on a brief study of France’s electoral process. First, I will discuss the number of effective political parties in France (as calculated using Neff). Second, I will give a brief description and analysis of the electoral rules that are in place in France.

Effective Number of Parties

            An element of Duverger’s law suggests that an electoral district that has a single-member-district-plurality (SMDP) system tends to weaken or eliminate smaller political parties, leaving two large parties to compete against each other (Duverger 1954). In France, a country that uses a single-member-district-plurality system, the effective number of political parties (as calculated using Neff) is 2.85. According to data collected from the results of the French National Assembly Election in June of 2012, the Socialist Party and the Union for a Popular Movement Party accounted for more than 82% of the vote (Wikipedia). This means that the remaining 18% of the votes were divided among the remaining 15 political parties; not one of them received more than 3%. The presence of these two dominating parties in France supports Duverger’s law that a SMDP system leads to a two-party system.

Electoral Rules

            France is divided up into 577 electoral districts. Each district is allowed to elect one representative. Thus, one person in each of the 577 districts is elected to fill one of the 577 seats in the French National Assembly. This is known as France’s electoral magnitude. The representatives of each district are elected based on a modified form of plurality known as a two round runoff or majority system (King). In this process, there are two rounds. In the first round, any party who receives higher than 12.5% of the vote advances to the second round, while any party failing to receive this minimum percentage is eliminated. This minimum percentage of votes is a consistent threshold throughout all 577 districts (Inter-parliamentary Union). If a party receives a majority vote in the first round (50% + 1 vote) then that party is declared the winner without holding a second round. In the second round, each citizen casts another vote for the remaining parties until a single party receives a majority of the vote. Once a party has won the majority vote in a district they are at liberty to place one of their representatives in the seat pertaining to that specific district. Information concerning whether or not France uses an open list or a closed list was not available; therefore, it is not clear how each party selects which member will actually fill the seat.

Conclusion

            Based on the data and information given above, it is evident that the electoral system that is established in France supports Duverger’s law. As a result of France being based on a variant form of a SMDP system, the smaller parties cannot effectively compete for seats in the French National Assembly. Instead, the competition mainly is kept between the two largest parties in the country. Upon examining the electoral rules of France and the system that is in place, it is fair to conclude that Duverger’s law holds true.

 

REFERENCES

Duverger, Maurice. 1954. Political parties: Their organization and activity in the modern state. New York: Wiley.

King, Charles. Electoral Systems. http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/kingch/Electoral _Systems.htm (accessed November 1, 2012).

Inter-parliamentary Union. France: Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly). http://www.ipu. org/parline-e/reports/2113_B.htm (accessed November 1, 2012).

Wikipedia. Elections in France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_France (accessed November 1, 2012).