France's Odd System

Payden McRoberts

PL SCI 150

Professor Hawkins

November 1, 2012

Blog 7: Duverger’s Law

            Does the effective amount of parties in a country coalesce based on its electoral rules? Duverger’s Law states that the number of parties is a direct result of the rule systems for the electorate in the lower chamber of the legislature in any given country. Thus, according to Duverger, if a nation espouses single-member district plurality (SMDP), it should have only two effective parties, while proportional representation systems should allow for multiple effective parties. France is a challenging nation when it comes to testing this law, because it has three effective parties, even though its electoral system is SMDP (Inter-Parliamentary Union). However, upon closer inspection, it is clear that the mathematics used to calculate the effective number of parties are slightly skewed due to the coalition of “Other left-wing parties.”

            France’s legislature, the Assemblée Nationale, is elected by 577 electoral districts, or constituencies. Each of the 577 constituencies elects a single representative, giving it a district magnitude of 1, and making it an SMDP system (Inter-Parliamentary Union). These elected officials, or deputés, are elected directly in a two-round vote. In the first round, a candidate is elected if he or she garners an absolute majority of the vote, after which, any candidates who gained at least 12.5 percent of the vote are capable of running in the second round, which is decided by a simple majority (Inter-Parliamentary Union).

            This formula for choosing elected officials supports the formation of large parties or party coalitions, as it requires a majority in any one constituency to gain even a single seat. While this may allow for the empowerment of certain small, regionally-based parties, it is still clearly an SMDP formula. The system is not a hybrid, because there are no elements of proportional representation involved in the selection process. In addition, as an SMDP system, the electoral system in France has an open list ballot, where each vote goes toward the candidate themselves, and the candidate list order is not chosen by the party. There are no thresholds—any party may run in the elections, though to make it to the second round, a party does need to receive at least 12.5 percent of the vote in the first round (Inter-Parliamentary Union).

            Thus it is clear that the French Assemblé Nationale follows the forms of a single-member district plurality system. Duverger’s Law would predict that the parliamentary system of France should have only two effective parties. However, using the data provided by the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Parline Database, I have found that there are in reality three effective parties, using the effective party formula. Below is a table representing the fourteen different parties that received seats in the most recent election and the number of seats that they won between the two rounds, as well as the proportion of seats that they won.

           

Party	# of Seats	Proportions
Socialist Party	258	.45
Union for a Popular Movement	185	.32
Other left wing parties	21	.04
Europe-Ecology-The Greens	16	.03
Other parties of the right	14	.02
New Centre	11	.02
Left Radical	11	.02
Left Front	10	.02
Radical Party	6	.01
Regionalist	2	.003
The Centre for France	2	.003
National Front	2	.003
Centrist Alliance	2	.003
Far Right	1	.002

            The effective number of parties in a country can be expressed in the following formula:

N_eff = 1 / Σ(proportions)²

Which gives us

N_eff = 1 / (.45) + (.32) + (.04) + (.03) + 4(.02) + (.01) + 4(.003) + (.002) = 3.23

            It would seem, in this case, that France’s system has three effective parties, rather than two, which would disprove Duverger’s Law. However, upon closer inspection, it is easy to see that the Socialist Party and Union for a Popular Movement have the lion’s share of the seats, whereas the third party by proportion is actually a coalition of “Other left wing parties.” Thus, even though the math states that there are three effective parties, these calculations are skewed by the other left wing parties’ grouping into a single party. Thus, Duverger’s Law is proved by the system in France, which follows SMDP rules, causing the presence of two major parties.

REFERENCES

Inter-Parliamentary Union. Parline database: France. http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2113.htm (accessed November 1, 2012).