Duverger's Law: Not for Spain

Since 1978[1], Spain has been slowly democratizing it’s government into what we know today.  Throughout this time it’s government has slowly evolved into a constitutional monarchy, with a clear constitution outlining the powers, a prime minister, and a monarch.

            A major facet of Spain’s  relatively recent democratic government is it’s electoral system, and I will focus on it’s compliance, or violation of Duverger’s Law. Duverger’s law states that “the effective number of parties in any electoral district is a function of the electoral rules.[2]” In other words Duverger believed that “proportional representation tends to lead to the formation of many independent parties…the plurality rule tends to produce a two-party system.”[3] Spain’s electoral system does not fall in line with Duverger’s law, to identify why this is, we must first analyze it’s electoral system, and observe the lack of correlation between proportional representation and independent parties.

           In the Spanish bicameral lower house, el Congreso de los Diputados, the three hundred and fifty seats are allocated proportionally, and is not a hybrid of any seperate systems. Each province receives two seats with the autonomus cities of Ceuta and Melilla both receiving one[4], then all remaining seats are allocated proportionally according to population. As such, the district magnitude varies from two to seven seats per province; this system of proportional representation may sound beneficial; however, it does have some major drawbacks. One draw back of this system is the propensity for overrepresentation in small provinces, and low representation in large provinces, this issue results in an increase in the traditional three percent political threshold. This three percent threshold is based on the D’Hondt method, a seat allocation method which slightly favors large parties, and also dictates Spain’s list structure. The D’Hondte method is used to “elect candidates from political parties in approximate proportion to the proportion of votes won by that party.”[5] List structure is an important part of an electoral system because it determines whether citizens will be able to independently choose their favorite leader, or if their candidate will be imposed on them. As Spain functions under a closed, or non preferential structure, they seek to “prevent the personalization of candidates to avoid the electoral clienteles, increase party cohesion, and stable governments, enhancing the dominance of party leaders over their parliamentary groups”[6] To facilitate this closed list structure, Spain’s 2.67 effective parties rate their candidates and voters cast votes for the party itself, the generally small contestation due to having so few effective parties significantly limits the division among constituents, however there are numerous small faction parties.

            In Spain’s electoral law preamble it states “Based on the proportional system, the main goal of the electoral system is to produce an absolute majority of seats for a party with one-third of the votes.” Through the adherence to this electoral law and the above stated formula, threshold, list structure, and number of parties, we now have a clear view of how the hybrid constitutional monarchy of Spain functions.

            In conclusion based on the findings, Spain does not adhere to Duverger’s law, there is a system of proportional representation however there are only approximately 2.7 effective parties (there are upwards of eleven different parties holding seats in the current senate).

                                                                                                                       

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[1] “Spanish transition to democracy” Wikipeida. Oct. 25, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democracy

[2] Political Science 150 “Comparative Government” Syllabus. Professor Kirk Hawkins.

[3] DUVERGER, M. (1984), “Which is the best electoral system?” in Lijphart, A. Grofman, B.(eds.), Choosing an Electoral System: issues and alternatives, Praeger, New York.

[4] “Elections in Spain.” Wikipedia . May 7, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electio

ns_in_Spain

[5] “D’Hondt Method.” Electoral Reform. 1 Nov 2012 <electoralreform.wikia.com>

[6] Ruel, Teresa. “Electoral Systems in Southern European countries- Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece- an introductory approach to the quality of democracy” Instituto de Ciências Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa. August 2010. Pg. 10 http://www.ecprnet.eu/databases/conferences/papers/881.pdf