IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v17y2016i3p366-386.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Second order electoral rules and national party systems: The Duvergerian effects of European Parliament elections

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Prosser

Abstract

The effects of electoral rules on party systems have been well known since Duverger first proposed his famous law. Often considered ‘second order’ in terms of issues and voting behaviour, many European Parliament elections are held under different electoral rules to national elections. This article examines the consequences of these differences and hypothesizes that where a more permissive electoral system is used for European Parliament elections, the size of the party system at European Parliament elections will grow towards what we would expect from the European Parliament electoral rules in isolation, and that this will lead to a subsequent growth in the size of the national party system. Using multi-level mixed-effect growth curve modelling support is found for both these hypotheses.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Prosser, 2016. "Second order electoral rules and national party systems: The Duvergerian effects of European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 366-386, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:17:y:2016:i:3:p:366-386
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116516633300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116516633300
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116516633300?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carles Boix, 1999. "Setting the rules of the game: The choice of electoral systems in advanced democracies," Economics Working Papers 367, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    2. Josep M. Colomer, 2005. "It's Parties That Choose Electoral Systems (or, Duverger's Laws Upside Down)," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53, pages 1-21, March.
    3. Hobolt, Sara B. & Spoon, Jae-Jae & Tilley, James, 2009. "A Vote Against Europe? Explaining Defection at the 1999 and 2004 European Parliament Elections," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 93-115, January.
    4. Josep M. Colomer, 2005. "It's Parties That Choose Electoral Systems (or, Duverger's Laws Upside Down)," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53(1), pages 1-21, March.
    5. David M. Farrell & Roger Scully, 2005. "Electing the European Parliament: How Uniform are ‘Uniform’ Electoral Systems?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 969-984, December.
    6. Kreuzer, Marcus, 2010. "Historical Knowledge and Quantitative Analysis: The Case of the Origins of Proportional Representation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(2), pages 369-392, May.
    7. Boix, Carles, 1999. "Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(3), pages 609-624, September.
    8. Marsh, Michael, 1998. "Testing the Second-Order Election Model after Four European Elections," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 591-607, October.
    9. Sophia Rabe-Hesketh & Anders Skrondal, 2012. "Multilevel and Longitudinal Modeling Using Stata, 3rd Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 3, number mimus2, March.
    10. Riker, William H., 1982. "The Two-party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 753-766, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jessica Fortin-Rittberger & Berthold Rittberger, 2014. "Do electoral rules matter? Explaining national differences in women's representation in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(4), pages 496-520, December.
    2. Konstantinos Matakos & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2015. "Strategic electoral rule choice under uncertainty," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 329-350, March.
    3. Selim Ergun, 2010. "From plurality rule to proportional representation," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 373-408, November.
    4. Selim Jurgen Ergun & M. Fernanda Rivas & Máximo Rossi, 2019. "Satisfaction with democracy in Latin America: Do the characteristics of the political system matter?," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, vol. 83(9), pages 353-383, July.
    5. Eduardo Álvarez-Miranda & Camilo Campos-Valdés & Maurcio Morales Quiroga & Matías Moreno-Faguett & Jordi Pereira, 2020. "A Multi-Criteria Pen for Drawing Fair Districts: When Democratic and Demographic Fairness Matter," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-26, August.
    6. Xefteris, Dimitrios & Matakos, Kostas, 2009. "An Economic Model of Strategic Electoral Rule Choice Under Uncertainty," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 917, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    7. Josep Colomer, 2014. "Equilibrium institutions: the federal-proportional trade-off," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 559-576, March.
    8. Camille Bedock, 2017. "When Electoral Competition Determines Disproportionality Majority Bonus and Regional Elections in France and Italy," CEVIPOL Working Papers n°1 / 2017, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    9. Cusack, Thomas R. & Iversen, Torben & Soskice, David, 2007. "Economic interests and the origins of electoral systems," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions, States, Markets SP II 2007-07, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    10. Christian Walter Martin & Nils D. Steiner, 2016. "Economic globalization and the change of electoral rules," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 355-376, December.
    11. Camille Bedock & Peter Mair and Alex Wilson, 2012. "Institutional Change in Advanced European Democracies: an exploratory assessment," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 11, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    12. David A. Bateman & Dawn Langan Teele, 2020. "A developmental approach to historical causal inference," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 253-279, December.
    13. Bishop, Matthew Louis & Corbett, Jack & Veenendaal, Wouter, 2020. "Labor movements and party system development: Why does the Caribbean have stable two-party systems, but the Pacific does not?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    14. Camille Bedock & Peter Mair and Alex Wilson, 2012. "Institutional Change in Advanced European Democracies: an exploratory assessment," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 11, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    15. Carey, John M. & Masoud, Tarek & Reynolds, Andrew S., 2015. "Institutions as Causes and Effects: North African Electoral Systems during the Arab Spring," Working Paper Series rwp16-042, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Santucci, Jack, 2017. "Bad for Party Discipline: Why Unions Attacked the Single Transferable Vote in Cincinnati," SocArXiv aqn5y, Center for Open Science.
    17. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    18. Carlos Scartascini & Mariano Tommasi & Ernesto Stein, 2010. "Veto Players and Policy Trade-Offs- An Intertemporal Approach to Study the Effects of Political Institutions on Policy," Research Department Publications 4660, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    19. Carol Mershon, 2020. "Challenging the wisdom on preferential proportional representation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(1), pages 168-182, January.
    20. André Blais & Jean-François Laslier & François Poinas & Karine Straeten, 2015. "Citizens’ preferences about voting rules: self-interest, ideology, and sincerity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 423-442, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:17:y:2016:i:3:p:366-386. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.