Electoral Arrangements and Party System: the Case of Canada
| Date | 01 December 1970 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591297002300402 |
| Author | Edmond F. Ricketts,Herbert Waltzer |
| Published date | 01 December 1970 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
695
ELECTORAL
ARRANGEMENTS
AND
PARTY
SYSTEM:
THE
CASE
OF
CANADA
EDMOND
F.
RICKETTS
and
HERBERT
WALTZER
Miami
University
LECTORAL
ARRANGEMENTS - the
character
of
electoral
districts,
~-~
election
mechanisms,
and
the
proportion
of
votes
needed
to
win
- have
been
credited
with
influencing
party
systems
in
various
ways.
Bi-partyism
generally
is
related
to
the
use
of
the
single-member
district,
plurality
election
system
(SMD/PE) .
While
some
assert
that
party
dualism
is
caused,
or
at
least
reinforced,
by
the
use
of
this
election
system,
others
simply
note
that
bi-partyism
is
associated
or
coexistent
with
SMD/PE.
Multi-partyism
is
held
to
be
related
similarly
to
the
use
of
the
multi-member
district,
proportional
representation
election
system
(MMD/PR) .
Two
eminent
students
of
party
systems
-
Schattschneider
and
Duverger
-
appear
to
have
been
especially
influential
in
securing
acceptance
for
these
interpre-
tations.
Schattschneider,
writing
in
1942
about
Party
Government,
left
no
doubt
that
to
his
mind
the
&dquo;American
party
system
is
the
direct
consequence
of
the
American
election
system,
or
system
of
representation,&dquo;
explaining
that
the
wide-
spread
use
in
this
country
of
SMD/PE
operates
to
exaggerate
the
representation
of
the
winning
party
and
to
give
the
second
party
a
monopoly
of
opposition
by
dis-
criminating
harshly
against
third
parties.’
Duverger,
on
the
basis
of
a
much
broader
survey
of
party
systems,
came
to
a
similar
set
of
conclusions
in
his
Political
Parties.2
2
Saying
that
&dquo;the
party
system
and
the
electoral
system
are
two
realities
that
are
indissolubly
linked,&dquo;
he
offers
the
&dquo;formulae&dquo;
that
MMD/PR
encourages
multi-partyism
while
SMD/PE
encourages
two-partyism.
In
an
oft-quoted
statement,
Duverger
writes
that
&dquo;the
simple-
majority
single-ballot
system
favors
the
two-party
system.
Of
all
the
hypotheses
that
have
been
defined
in
this
book,
this
approaches
the
most
nearly
perhaps
a
true
sociological
law.
An
almost
complete
correlation
is
observable
between
the
simple-
majority
single-ballot
system
and
the
two-party
system;
dualist
countries
use
the
simple-majority
vote
and
simple-majority
vote
countries
are
dualist.&dquo;
He
persists
by
stating
that
SMD/PE
is
&dquo;capable
of
maintaining
an
established
dualism
in
spite
of
schisms
in
old
parties
and
the
birth
of
new
parties&dquo;
and
&dquo;of
re-establishing
dual-
ism
when
it
has
been
destroyed
by
the
appearance
of
a
third
party.&dquo;
Similarly
Duverger
asserts
that
MMD/PR
favors
multi-partyism,
its
&dquo;multiplicative
effect&dquo;
being
such
that
it
puts
&dquo;an
end
to
any
tendency
toward
a
two-party
system....&dquo;
Cautions
have
been
raised
against
unqualified
acceptance
of
the
association
of
SMD/PE
with
two-party
systems.
Wildavsky
has
voiced
criticisms
and
doubts
on
1
E.
E.
Schattschneider,
Party
Government
(New
York:
Farrar
and
Rinehart,
1942),
p.
69.
2
Maurice
Duverger,
Political
Parties:
Their
Organization
and
Activity
in
the
Modern
State
(2nd
English
ed.;
New
York:
Wiley,
1959).
This
paragraph’s
quotations
from
Duverger
are
to
be
found
successively
at
pages
205,
217, 226, 217,
248.
Italics
are
those
of
Duverger.
696
both
methodological
and
evidentiary
grounds,’
and
others
have
suggested
caveats
because
of
insufficient
evidence
to
support
the
asserted
relationship
or
because
of
the
disturbing
existence
of
historical
counter-evidence.4
There
has
been
challenge,
too,
of the
proposition
that
single-member
districts
are
&dquo;natural&dquo;
and
traditional
in
British
and
American
politics
and
hence
explain
the
&dquo;natural&dquo;
and
traditional
by-partyism
of
these
two
countries.5
Efforts
to
test
empirically
the
theory
of
causa-
tion
whereby
SMD/PE
produces
and/or
reinforces
bi-partyism
have
not
resulted
in
verification.a
There
have
been
certain
narrowing
amendments
to
the
view
that
SMD/PE
leads
to
bi-partyism.
Key
held
that
SMD/PE
may
foster
party
dualism
at
the
level
of
the
individual
election
district
but
that
there
is
no
basis
for
concluding
that
this
election
system
produces
or
supports
a
two-party
system
at
the
national
level.7
7
3
Aaron
B.
Wildavsky,
"A
Methodological
Critique
of
Duverger’s
Political
Parties,"
Journal
of
Politics,
21
(May
1959),
303-18.
4
V.
O.
Key,
Jr.,
in
Politics,
Parties
and
Pressure
Groups
(5th
ed.;
New
York:
Crowell,
1964),
describes
the
theory
that
SMD/PE
has
led
to
two-partyism
in
the
United
States,
but
warns
that
this
thesis
"has
not
been
adequately
tested
against
the
evidence"
(p.
209).
Sorauf
and
Goodman
have
reminded
their
colleagues
that
during
the
Third
Republic
the
multi-party
system
of
France
withstood
government
experiments
with
a
variety
of
electoral
systems,
including
single-member
districts.
See
Frank
J.
Sorauf,
Political
Parties
in
the
American
System
(Boston:
Little,
Brown,
1964),
p.
29;
and
William
Goodman,
The
Two-Party
System
in
the
United
States
(2nd
ed. ;
New
York :
Van
Nostrand,
1960),
pp.
30-32.
5
Maurice
Klain,
"A
New
Look
at
the
Constituencies:
The
Need
for
a
Recount
and
Reap-
praisal,"
American
Political
Science
Review,
49
(December
1955),
1105-19;
and
Ruth
C.
Silva,
"Compared
Values
of
the
Single-
and
the
Multi-Member
Legislative
District,"
Western
Political
Quarterly,
17
(September
1964),
504-16.
Klain
has
observed
that
multi-member
districts
were
widely
used
in
British
parliamentary
and
early
American
legislative
elections
and
that
they
are
still
used
in
American
state
legislative
(not
to
mention
local)
elections.
He
therefore
questions
the
validity
of the
theorem
"that
only
one-member
elections
foster
two-party
politics"
(p.
1117).
6
John
G.
Grumm,
"Theories
of
Electoral
Systems,"
Midwest
Journal
of
Political
Science,
2
(November
1958),
357-76.
Using
data
from
Western
European
countries,
Grumm
tested
Duverger’s
hypothesis
that
SMD/PE
induces
a
"mechanical
polarization"
by
overrepresenting
the
larger
parties
and
underrepresenting
the
smaller
parties
(in
the
relation
between
legislative
seats
won
and
voting
strength)
and
a
"psycholoaical
polari-
zation"
by
persuading
electors
not
to
"waste"
their
votes
on
smaller
parties
with
little
chance
for
election
victory.
He
found
"too
many
exceptions
to
the
proposition
that
small
parties
are
under-represented
and
that
larger
parties
are
over-represented,"
and
"almost
no
evidence
of
the
existence
of
the
hypothetical
’psychological
factor’
" (p.
374).
Also
see
Douglas
Rae,
The
Political
Consequences
of
Electoral
Laws
(New
Haven:
Yale
U.
Press,
1967).
Applications
of
the
hypothesis
of
"mechanical
polariza-
tion"
to
Canadian
party
politics
have
been
made
by
J.
R.
Mallory,
Social
Credit
and
the
Federal
Power
in
Canada
(Toronto:
U.
of
Toronto
Press,
1954),
chap.
8 ;
and,
Frederick
C.
Engelmann
and
Mildred
A.
Schwartz,
Political
Parties
and
the
Canadian
Social
Structure
(Scarsborough,
Ontario:
Prentice-Hall
of
Canada,
1967),
pp.
122-24.
J.
Murray
Beck,
however,
argues,
"The
tendency
of
the
system
to
under-represent
third
parties
has
not
been
especially
marked
in
Canada...."
See
his
"The
Democratic
Process
at
Work
in
Canadian
General
Elections,"
in
John
C.
Courtney
(ed.),
Voting
in
Canada
(Scarsborough,
Ontario:
Prentice-Hall
of
Canada,
1967),
p.
21.
7
Key,
op.
cit.,
states
(at
p.
209)
that
"the
single-member
district
and
plurality
election
can
at
most
encourage
a
dual
division
—
or
discourage
a
multi-party
division
—
only
within
each
representative
district.
Other
influences
must
account
for
the
federation
of
the
district
units
of
the
principal
party
groups
into
two
competing
national
organizations."
A
similar
critique,
suggesting
that
conditions
other
than
the
election
device
must
be
at
work
because
sectional
parties
have
not
developed
in
the
United
States,
where
surely
the
basis
for
such
parties
exists,
is
offered
by
Allan
P.
Sindler,
Political
Parties
in
the
United
States
(New
York:
St.
Martin’s
Press,
1966),
pp.
53-56.
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