Duverger's Law

            Duverger’s Law explains that the number of parties in an electoral district is determined by the electoral rules. In other words, proportional representation will allow for more parties to form while single member district plurality generally produces two main parties. In order to determine whether or not this is true, I have decided to examine the country Kazakhstan, which operates under proportional representational rules. If Duverger’s Law holds true, we should find that there are many effective parties in Kazakhstan as opposed to just two large parties gaining all of the seats within Kazakhstan’s lower chamber. 

            First, it is important to examine the electoral rules of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s lower chamber operates under a proportional representation system with votes distributed proportionally to parties that obtain at least seven percent of the total votes, meaning that there is a seven percent threshold imposed (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2012). Seats are allocated through a closed list electoral system where citizens vote for a certain party (Election Guide 2012). If a party is able to gain over seven percent of the total vote, they will proportionally be assigned seats in the chamber. The districts magnitude is 107 seats. The seats are filled for five-year terms.  98 of the 107 are elected in general elections with all of the above-mentioned electoral rules. The Assembly of Kazakhstani Nation elects the nine other seats (Elections in Kazakhstan 2012).

            Even with all of these electoral rules, it should still stand that the effective number of parties would be greater than two in Kazakhstan. In other words, more than two parties should be allotted seats in the chamber if Duverger’s Law is correct. After using the formula to calculate the effective number of parties, I found that the recent election in Kazakhstan had 3 effective parties with one party winning a massive majority of the votes. This would suggest that Duverger’s Law applies to a certain extent. It is true that there are not two large parties in Kazakhstan, which would entirely disprove Duverger’s Law. However, it appears that there is only one with any real sway as the other two parties only won a very small portion of the seats (eight seats and seven seats). This suggests that the proportional system has not really allowed for smaller parties to flourish in Kazakhstan despite the proportional representational system. I believe that this is because of the seven percent threshold imposed on parties that restricts smaller parties from representation in the lower chamber of parliament. In the case of Kazakhstan, there were four other parties that received small percentages of the votes. This means that a certain percentage of the population has no representation in the chamber at all. I believe that Duverger’s Law would hold truer if this threshold were not imposed and if the parties that just received a small percentage of the vote were still allotted at least one seat in the chamber.

            I believe that in most cases, when thresholds are not imposed, proportional representation would indeed lead to multiple parties because voters would have a desire for “their representative” to gain a seat in the chamber. This certainly would have been the case in Kazakhstan where multiple parties that received less the seven percent of the vote did not receive representation despite there obviously being voters who desired representation. However, it is important to note that three parties did receive representation in the lower chamber suggesting that in the case of Kazakhstan, half of Duverger’s Law appears to be at least partially true.

REFERENCES

Election guide. http://www.electionguide.org/election.php?ID=2034 (accessed October 31, 2012).

Election in kazakhstan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Kazakhstan (accessed October 31, 2012).

INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION. KAZAKHSTAN mazhilis (house of representatives). (accessed October 31, 2012).