Extract

Duverger8217;s law predicts that two parties will capture all the votes in district-level elections in countries...

8226;What is 8220;Duverger8217;s Law8221;?

Duverger8217;s law predicts that two parties will capture all the votes in district-level elections in countries with single-member, simple-plurality rules. It relies on the assumption that district-level elections are characterised by strategic voting 8212; that voters prefer not to waste their votes if meaningful and potentially consequential votes can be cast.

8226;Does it hold in India?

There are, however, significant exceptions to Duverger8217;s law in assembly elections in India. In a large number of districts, more than two parties often secure most of the votes. We attribute this to the federal nature of the Indian polity and argue that in states where either more than two national parties or a combination of national and regional parties compete for votes, more than two parties can get votes at the district level because voters can look to both levels of government for addressing their concerns. However, if only two parties or multiple regional parties vie for control of the state government, Duverger8217;s law stands. Almost a third of the constituencies have more than three effective parties competing in elections to the state assembly.

8226;How do voters behave?

Voters care about national politics because the parliament makes important decisions on taxation, the allocation of resources 8230; Localities depend on state governments for the benefits from government programs8230;Voters and candidates may therefore wish to have a voice in both state and national policy.

8226;What does this mean?

We can expect that first, if there are two parties, be they regional or national or a combination of national and regional party, that compete for control of a state government, the effective number of parties at the district level will be two. However, if there are more than two parties that compete for control of the state, then more than two parties would get votes at the district level if they represented a combination of national- and state-level interests.

8226;How can this be tested?

This reasoning generates testable hypotheses:

a if there are more than two regional and national parties competing for control of the state government, the effective number of parties at the district level could be greater than two;

b and if there are more than two national parties that vie for control of a state government, more than two parties could get votes at the district level,

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c but if there are more than two purely regional parties that compete in a state then the effective number of parties at the district level should remain close to two since voters do not have to choose between policy interests represented by different levels of government 8212; state and national.

8226;What does testing the data show?

The results confirm our hypothesis 8230; Furthermore, the occurrence of assembly elections during a national election year increases the effective number of parties by 0.2448230; interactions between national and regional politics can add up to 0.53 to the effective number of parties.

8226;How could this be happening?

It could be a result of voter preferences on national policy or a function of voters deserting preferred local parties for parties seen as competitive nationally.

Extracted from 8220;Duvergian Dynamics in the Indian states8221;, available at ppq.sagepub.com