How many parties?

COMPARATIVE POLITICAL PARTIES AND PARTY SYSTEMS Empirical analysis - Week 3: How many parties? Fedra Negri, Ph.D. Student in Political Studies, University of Milan Party aggregation and the number of parties in India and the United States. Chhibber & Kollman, 1998.  Puzzle: India and United States are federal countries with SMSP electoral systems  The # of parties at district level is expected to be 2 (under the H of Duvergerian eq.). However, moving from district to national level, the M+1 rule doesn’t always hold. Party aggregation and the number of parties in India and the United States. Chhibber and Kollman, 1998.  Argument: The # of parties at national level is affected by the degree of political and economic centralization  In SMSP electoral systems, as the national government centralizes authority, the # of parties at national level is expected to decline and approach 2. Party aggregation and the number of parties in India and the United States. Chhibber and Kollman, 1998.  Empirical Analysis on the United States Party aggregation and the number of parties in India and the United States. Chhibber and Kollman, 1998.  Results: Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties. How the Measures You Choose Affect the Answers You Get, Stoll, 2008.  Puzzle: Empirical studies tend to support the general proposition that the more social cleavages a country has, the more political parties that country will have, ceteris paribus (electoral system & institutional regimes). However, while measures of institutional variables have gradually been refined, social cleavages variable received little attention.  Research question: Are the measures of social cleavages variable valid representations of the concept?  Operationalization:  ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Social cleavages based or group based? Only one social cleavage or many cleavages? If one social cleavage, which? How many social cleavages/groups or how much are these cleavages/groups polarised? District level or national level? Are social cleavages exogenous to the political process? Measurement: 16 different measures. Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties. How the Measures You Choose Affect the Answers You Get, Stoll, 2008.  Common hypotheses: ◦ H.1: A model including latent diversity is superior to a purely institutional specification (electoral system + latent diversity). ◦ H.2: An interactive model specification is superior to an additive one (electoral system + latent diversity + electoral system*latent diversity). ◦ H.3: Increasing latent diversity will lead to an increase in the number of electoral parties, although only for sufficiently permissive electoral systems when an interactive model specification is employed. ◦ H.4: The conditional marginal effect of latent diversity on the number of electoral parties increases as electoral system permissiveness increases. That is, when employing an interactive model specification, the coefficient on the interaction term between latent diversity and electoral system permissiveness is positive. Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties. How the Measures You Choose Affect the Answers You Get, Stoll, 2008.  Empirical analysis: Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties. How the Measures You Choose Affect the Answers You Get, Stoll, 2008.  Different measurements of the variable latent diversity: Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties. How the Measures You Choose Affect the Answers You Get, Stoll, 2008. Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties. How the Measures You Choose Affect the Answers You Get, Stoll, 2008.  Results: H. 1 is verified; H. 2 is verified; H. 3 is verified; H. 4 is verified. Electoral rules and the size of the price: how political institutions shape presidential party systems. Hicken & Stoll, 2008.    Puzzle: It happens that multiple candidates from the same side of the political spectrum compete against each other in presidential elections, thus opening the door to victory for a candidate of the opposing side. Research question: What are the factors affecting the # of candidates competing in presidential elections beside the electoral system (M+1 rule) and the social heterogeneity? Argument and expectations: ◦ Horizontal centralisation (presidential power > legislative power) + Vertical centralisation (national government's power > local governments‘ power) = Size of the presidential prize. ◦ HC is expected to be + correlated with the # of presidential candidates when HC is low, correlated when HC is moderate (strategic entry + strategic voting) and unrelated when HC is high --> It should have 2 inflection points (III degree polynomial). ◦ The same for VC. Electoral rules and the size of the price: how political institutions shape presidential party systems. Hicken & Stoll, 2008. Dependent Variable: ENPRES (Laasko & Taagepera, 1979) Independent Variables: • Vertical centralization (this variable appears as I, II and III degree polynomials) • Horizontal centralization ��� � = • • • • � �= �� Central government revenue as % of GDP Central government revenue as a % of total government revenue Index of de Jure Presidential Powers (Shugart & Carey, 1992; Frye, Hellman & Tucker, 2000). It ranges from 0 (minimal power) to 24 (maximal power). When used, this variable appears as I, II and III degree polynomials. 2 dummy variables coding the type of political regime (Parliamentary, presidential or mixed). Parliamentary regime is the baseline. Electoral rules and the size of the price: how political institutions shape presidential party systems. Hicken & Stoll, 2008. Controls: • Restrictiveness of the presidential electoral system. • • • Social heterogeneity • Region • Restrictiveness of the presidential electoral furmula * Social heterogeneity Models • • Dummy variable = 1 if the electoral formula is SP; 0 otherwise (run-off election, STV etc.). Ethnic fractionalisation index (similar to effective number of ethnic group by Neto & Cox, 1997) 1 =1 − 5 dummy variables = 1 the country belongs to Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa or Other. Advances Industrial Democracies is the baseline. Linear in variables models. Electoral rules and the size of the price: how political institutions shape presidential party systems. Hicken & Stoll, 2008.  Results: Expectations concerning HC are met. Electoral rules and the size of the price: how political institutions shape presidential party systems. Hicken & Stoll, 2008. Results: Expectations concerning VC are not confirmed using central government revenue as % of GDP as IV; confirmed using central government revenue as a % of total government revenue.