1. LAW, POLITICS AND WESTERN SOCIETY
JESIE Summer School
III
The electoral system and
the political parties
Dr. Edoardo Bressanelli
Lecturer in European Politics. KCL

2. Today’s class: structure
Voting behaviour: what drives voters’ choice?
The electoral system: pros and cons
The party system: slowly changing?
Multilevel government and new parties
Concluding notes

3. Why do people vote for a party?
Elections are the key feature of democratic systems. Elections may not be sufficient for democracy, but without elections democracy is inconceavable (‘minimal’ definion of democracy)
Class-based voting
Also known as structural or cleavage voting
The foremost cleavage is the economic one and voters’ occupation is a strong predictor of their voting choices
Research shows that is is declining in Great Britain, as well as elsewhere in Europe (see next slide)

4. Class voting?
Source: Denver (2007) The 1964 General Election: Explaining Voting Behaviour Then and Now

5. Valence voting
- Valence issues are those on which the end goal is generally agreed (distinct from positional issues on which the nature and substance of the problem is disputed).
- Parties compete on competence and issues rather than grand ideas
- Retrospective judgement of parties
- Linked to increasing influence of media, spin doctors and rise of personality politics

6. Is leaders’ importance growing?

7. Turnout in UK elections
Source:

8. The rules of the game: the electoral system
The major distinction is between majoritarian and proportional systems.
Majoritarian systems
Single-member plurality (used in the UK)
Polity divided into single-member constituencies
Candidate with most votes wins – note: not majority of votes
Highly disproportionate (the winner takes all)

9. Disproportionality: the 2010 elections
Party
% of UK-wide vote in 2010
% of seats in Commons in 2010
Deviation from proportionality (DV)
Conservatives
36.10%
47.20%
-11.10%
Labour
29.00%
39.70%
-10.70%
Liberal Democrats
23.00%
8.80%
14.20%
SNP
1.70%
0.92%
0.78% PC
0.60%
0.46%
0.14%
DUP
1.20%
-0.60% SF
0.76%
-0.16%
SDLP
0.40%
-0.06%
APNI
0.10%
0.15%
-0.05%
Green
1.00%
0.85%
Others
7.10%
6.95%
Total
100.00%
22.80%

10. Disproportionality: looking around
Source: from Gallagher (2008). The higher the score the greater the mismatch. Zero=perfect proportionality

11. Proportional systems
Basic aim is to produce a ‘fairer’ relationship between votes and seats
List systems
Multimember constituencies
Used for European Parliament elections in England, Wales and Scotland (note: Single Transferable Vote in Northern Ireland)
District size can vary e.g. Netherlands is just one constituency
Each party is awarded seats in proportion to the number of votes cast
Closed lists and open lists

12. Implications of electoral system: what’s best?
Party systems – majoritarian systems foster two-party systems (Duverger, 1954). Related to the above, parliaments are more fragments in countries that use PR systems so single-party executives are less common. Evidence shows that PR systems tend to produce more socially representative parliaments. A common assumption is that representatives in systems where there is a choice of candidate (as opposed to just a party) will be more responsive to the interests of the electorate as they, rather than the party, are accountable to voters

13. The British two-party system
The British party system is normally taken as the textbook model of a two-party system

14. Why a two-party system?
Electoral Law: Single-member districts combined with plurality (first-past-the-post) formula
2) Social Cleavages: Clarity and dominance of the social class cleavage over others

15. The Westminster party system 1945-1970
High proportion of votes absorbed by Labour and the Conservatives up to 1970 (90%-plus).
Electorally balanced.
Battle for ideological centre ground.
Single party government.
A regular alternation in power of the major parties ( =Labour; =Cons; =Labour; =Cons)

16. The Westminster party system from 1974
The average share of the vote of major parties remained below 75% since Feb
Gradual rise of the minor parties. Really started in February 1974 :
The old Liberal Party ran candidates at most British seats for the first time since 1945 and enjoyed a huge leap in support (from 7.5% to 19.3%)
- The SNP and PC broke through in their respective parts of the UK (SNP got 19% of vote in Scotland in 2010, and PC got 11.3% of vote in Wales).

17. Party system change
Note: UK general elections. The aggregate score for the two main parties is 67.3 in 2015

18. The European Union

19. Moving up and down: new partisan arenas (1)
The 2014 elections for the European Parliament

20. ...and new parties UKIP (UK Independence Party) Strongly Eurosceptic
Used to be a single-issue party, but then expanded its agenda
Very strong performance in EP elections
Failed to get a strong breakthrough in Westminster in 2015

21. The United Kindom and its nations

22. Moving up and down: new partisan arenas (2)
Parliamentary Session
Period
Parties in Executive
First Minister
Labour-LibDem
Donald Dewar
Henry McLeish
Jack McConnell
SNP (minority)
Alex Salmond
SNP
Nicola Sturgeon
Composition of the executive in Scotland

23. The 2015 general elections: map of the results

24. Final notes
The British system used to be the textbook case of a «two-party system»
In more recent years, a number of changes are putting the two-party system under strain
There is some pressure to reform the electoral system, making it more proportional
In other arenas (sub-national and supra- national) other parties challenge the Conservatives and the Labour