Duverger's Law in India

            Duverger’s Law suggests that states with single-member districts and plurality voting rules lend themselves to having two party systems. Continuing my case study of India, I looked at the lower house of India’s Parliament (the Lok Sabha) and determined that this does not hold true in this case.

            The Indian Constitution states that the Lok Sabha can have up to 552 members. Up to 530 seats can represent the states, up to twenty can represent union territories, and the President can nominate up to two members to represent the Anglo-Indian community. There are currently 545 members. Other than the two selected by the President, all members are elected in single-member districts by a simple majority vote (Inter-Parliamentary Union). Due to this, there is no party list or vote threshold —at least not for the lower house; India is a hybrid system because its upper house, the Rajya Sabha is elected by proportional representation. As its lower house functions under a SMDP system, the district magnitude is naturally one (there are 543 elected seats and 543 districts, with the last two seats coming from nominations).

            There are currently thirty-eight different political parties that hold seats in the Lok Sabha (Lok Sabha). Using the formula given in glass, Neff = 1/∑(p²), I calculated the proportion of seats each party holds. I squared the results, added them together, and divided the number one by this sum to determine that there are 5.12 effective political parties in India. This is well above the predicted two effective political parties that Duverger’s Law predicts in an SMDP system.

            I don’t think that India necessarily disproves Duverger’s Law; rather, it is the exception to the rule. I think that this is because India, as a democracy with a population of over one billion people, is incredibly diverse. It would incredibly difficult to streamline everyone’s beliefs into two distinct political parties. For this reason, India has developed strong, regional parties that can cater to many different beliefs. With over 500 constituencies, it’s natural that many parties would find support concentrated in a few districts (which explains why there are so many different political parties popularly elected). However, only some parties are going to have a large, national followings. Because it’s so difficult to achieve a majority, parties must combine to form coalition governments.

REFERENCES

Inter-Parliamentary Union. India: Lok Sabha (House of the People). http://www.ipu.org/parline-  e/reports/2145_A.htm (accessed November 1, 2012).

Lok Sahba. Fifteenth Lok Sahba. http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/Members/partywiselist.aspx         (accessed November 1, 2012).