Hi,
I was just wondering how other countries (I am an American, by the way) have multiple political parties.
I was reading about Duverger’s Law which describes pretty accurately why America only has two real politcal parties.
I’m not looking for a debate about the merits of each system of government, but what are the particular aspects of other democracies’ (Canada, Europe, Japan, etc.) that allow them to have more than two political parties.
Thanks.
In looking at your site, the counter-examples listed tend to be parliamentary systems which require the building of ruling coalitions. Systems in which parties other than the major two only have to capture a few seats in order to have the potential of affecting have the option of concentrating on capturing seats in areas where they have greater support.
Well, I’m an American, too, but I can explain it, it some ways.
One thing that seems to help for having a multi-party system is PR (proportional representation). The chief reason why Israel (for instance) has so many parties is that it only takes 1.5% of the vote to enter the Knesset.
One tendency (even when there are multiple parties) worldwide is for the chief focus to be only on two parties, or on two groupings of parties. For instance, in Britain, the elections are still Conservative vs. Labour, in spite of the LibDems, SNP, PC, UKIP, BNP, Greens, SA, and other parties. Likewise, French elections are Gaullists (currently in the form of the UMP) vs. Socialists, and German elections are CDU/CSU/FDP vs. SPD/Greens.