The Number of Political Parties: A Reexamination of Duverger's Law

Author(s): William H. Riker

Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Oct., 1976), pp. 93-106
Published by: Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, City University of
New York
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/421293
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 Research Note

The Number of Political Parties

A Reexamination of Duverger's Law

William H. Riker*

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the theory that explains the variation
in the number of candidates for office in single-member constituencies with
plurality voting. In other words, I shall reexamine and amplify Maurice
Duverger's law-the statement that "the simple majority, single ballot system
favors the two-party system."'1
Many scholars have found this law attractive because it explains the structure
of institutions as logically derived from rational choice by individuals.2 Mac-
rostructure is thus made to depend on easily explainable and intuitively plausi-
ble microbehavior, a neatness of fit common enough in economic theory, but
seldom arrived at in political theory. The argument is that supporters of a third
party desert to one of the two larger parties because they recognize that
continued support of their favorite results in "wasting" their votes, and may
even contribute to the victory of their most despised. For example, suppose a
plurality election in a single-member district at time t- 1 has produced the result:
10,000 votes for A, 9,000 votes for B, and 2,000 votes for C; and suppose that
typically the supporters of C prefer C to B and B to A. For them to continue at
timet to support C appears, ceteris paribus, to guarantee the success of A and to
be a "waste" of their second choice.
There is considerable indirect empirical support for this theory. The tendency
toward two parties is especially strong in the United States, where the President
is elected by a plurality of sorts in what is almost a single-member district. In
Great Britain, most elections are by plurality in single-member districts; and,
despite the persistence of third parties, most constituencies usually have serious
candidates from only two parties. Strong third parties in England have typically
been one of the two major parties in some geographic area, such as the Irish
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Comparative Politics October 1976

Nationalists and Labour before 1920. As Duverger pointed out, a remarkable

feature of the British system is the speed with which the three-party system
created by the rise of Labour was replaced in most constituencies in the 1920s
by something fairly close to a two-party system. More generally, in a study of
107 elections in Europe and North America between 1945 and 1964, Douglas
Rae found that, of 30 elections held in single-member districts by plurality vote,
all but seven produced a two-party legislature. (The exceptions were in Canada,
where the third parties are mainly geographic.) Conversely, of the seventy-
seven elections held under proportional representation, seventy-three resulted
in legislatures with more than two parties.3 Duverger's own analysis of Euro-
pean and American experience prior to 1950 is similarly overwhelming: the
only exceptions he ultimately admitted were Denmark before 1920 and Canada
as of the time he wrote (about 1950).4 And even these were explained away as
geographic expressions of several "second parties."
Approaching a test of the theory by looking at what voters do rather than at
the party systems developed from their actions, W. Phillips Shively found that
there was some support in British experience for the proposition that, as the
chance that a party can win declines, voters are less likely to continue (or start)
voting for it. (As applied to third parties, this proposition is a kind of behavioral
version of Duverger's law.) The support he found was so small, however, that
he concluded that this motive had a trivial impact on outcomes.5 Shively's
research note inspired Duff Spafford to test the more refined proposition that, as
the competition between the two major parties intensifies, voters are less likely
to continue (or start) to vote for a third party. This proposition captures the spirit
of the Duverger argument better than does Shively's. Furthermore, Spafford
found very strong but temporally limited support for it in British voting.6
Nevertheless, in spite of Duverger, Rae, and Spafford, the evidence for the
law is not overwhelming. There are, of course, many trivial exceptions,
wherein the nation as a whole has more than two parties because the pair of
parties offering candidates varies from constituency to constituency-a situa-
tion which violates the crude phrasing of the law but not the spirit of the
argument about wasting votes. But there is a more serious exception when in
any given constituency there are likely to be three or more candidates. In India
(which was only beginning to have popular national elections at the time
Duverger wrote and which was not included in Rae's survey), in five national
elections there have consistently been more than two candidates in over three-
quarters of the constituencies, even though most of them are single-member.
This is an egregious exception that by itself raises questions about the validity of
Duverger's law. While this law is probably correctly stated for the range of
behavior observed in the West, it seems to need revision and generalization to
account for the Indian counterexample.
Once we question the applicability of the law to a particular political system,
we question other features as well. For example, the motives described in the
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 William H. Riker

law are said to wipe out third parties; yet third parties persist. Clearly, they are
constantly created as well as constantly destroyed. It may be, of course, that
they always arise accidentally. If so, then the motives of the law eliminate these
accidents in order to maintain the two-party system. On the other hand, it is
equally possible that the third parties are created and destroyed by forces within
the system itself. If so, Duverger's law is misleading, for it tells only half the
story.
Altogether, therefore, we face some problems with the law. One elementary
revision is necessary to reconcile it with the facts of Indian experience. A more
complicated revision Is desirable to explain why third parties are created as well
as destroyed. The task of this essay is to find appropriate revisions.

Our procedure is to construct a model of the system of political parties. We then

imagine some hypothetical behavior in this model and observe the conse-
quences. If both the behavior and the consequences are similar to actual events,
it is reasonable to infer that the analogous behavior results in analogous
consequences in the real world. For this model, therefore, we want voters who
respond to rational motives and party systems that vary mainly in the number of
parties, thereby capturing the two features with which Duverger's law is
concerned.
For this model we start with 1 .. .n voters, who are influenced only by forces
endogenous to the system, thereby avoiding the exogenous accidents of the real
world. We assume that all eligible voters vote-so outcomes are never depen-
dent on which voters choose to vote-and that new voters at time t are exactly
the same in number andpreference structure as the voters deceased since time
t- 1. Thus, no elections are decided by intergenerational variations in numbers
or tastes. Furthermore, each voter has a preference ordering over all parties, and
this ordering can change only in accordance with a fully specified set of rules. In
actuality, the main content of politics is the rhetoric and drama to persuade
voters to change their minds. As a result, voters are sometimes moved from
party to party in apparently random and accidental ways. But in the model,
there is no such random behavior.
These assumptions concerning individuals partially determine the party
system: third parties are endogenous since they cannot arise from external
changes of taste and personnel. This consequence makes it harder to reformu-
late Duverger's law because we must explain why parties are created as well as
destroyed by internal-and related-forces. But at the same time, if the law can
be so formulated, it will be much stronger because it will explain why the
system survives internal as well as external threats.
In still another way, the parties in the model are not quite like those of the real
world. The current formulation of the theory is ambiguous because it relates
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Comparative Politics October 1976

voting in a single constituency to the structure of politics in all constituencies,

i.e. nationally. To avoid this confusion over the level of discourse, it is assumed
here that the party system exists in exactly one constituency with a single
member and with plurality voting. The theory is thus about a constituency, not
about a nation, although we can of course reason by analogy from one to the
other.
To describe the party system in detail, we assume a number m = 2, 3 of
parties, where m = 3 is a surrogate for all sizes of multiparty systems. As for the
size of the individual parties, there is a proportion, q, of the voters who vote for
a party candidate, where 0 S q < 1 and X qi = 1, and a set, V, of categories of
party size: L (large): 1 > q .6;M (medium): .6 > q .4;S (small): .4 > qs
> 0.
Since this theory is for a comparison of situations with different numbers of
parties, we define states of the system as the coexistence ofm parties of various
categories of size. A state is described by listing the size categories to which
each party in the state belongs, e.g. "(M, S1, S2)" means a state consisting of
one medium-sized party and two small ones. Only some states, T1, .. .,T7, can
satisfy the restrictions on size of the categories in V: T1 : (Si, S2 , S3); T2: (L, S1,
S2);T3: (M, S1,S2);T4: (M,,M2,S);T5: (L, M, );T : (L, S, );T7: (M1,M2,
<), where ?f is the empty set; and all other conceivable states fail to satisfy V.
The categorization of L, M, and 5, while useful to describe states, is not,
however, sufficient for all discussions of the relative size of parties. For more
general purposes, we label the parties Gi, where i = 1,2,3, and adopt the
conventionqG1 G qG2 > q?G so that the largest party (anL, anM, or anS, as the
case may be) is G1, the next largest is G2, and so on.
Voters belong to a party when they vote for the party's candidate. Why they
choose to vote for a candidate must now be explained. For this, we need an
ordering relation, R, which is irreflexive, connected, and transitive. Each voter
orders the parties thus: Gi R G3 R Gk, which means that Gi is preferred to or at
least as good as G;, which in turn is preferred to or at least as good as Gk. The set
N of n voters can be partitioned into subsets of those who adopt particular
orders, thus

N1: G1R G2R G3 N3: GR G1R G3 N5: G3R G1R G2

N2 : G1 R G3 R G2 N4: G2 R G3 R Gi Nfi: Gs R G2 R G1

where N3 C Nfor i = 1.6 and U Nj = N. The number of members of

Nj is n;.
Before an election, theR-ordering of parties is the voters' subjective structur-
ing of preference; therefore, the anticipated strength of a party is the number of
voters who place it first. At election time, however, voters need not vote in
accordance with their previous tastes, e.g. they might trade their votes or sell
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 William H. Riker

them. If so, they have in effect joined the party for which they vote, and
reordered their tastes appropriately.
In addition to the individual subjective orderings of preference, there may be
a more or less objective social ordering along some ideological dimension.
These orders are objective in the sense that words are objective, i.e. most
insiders can tell an outsider what the word means or what the ordering is. Not all
societies have such objective orderings; but, for those that do, the dimensional
arrangement is by the relation Q, which is irreflexive, connected, and transi-
tive, and may be thought of as meaning "'to the left of.'' The possible orderings
are:

D1 : GlQ G2Q G3 D3:G2Q G1Q G3 D5 : G3Q G 1Q G2

Dz2:G1QG3Q G2 D4: G2 Q G3 Q G1 De :G Q GG2Q G1

II

Finally, we assume that voters obey some particular rule. Then, following our
procedure, we look at the resulting state of the party system. If we find a state
that looks like the natural world, we can conclude that the rule leading to it may
actually guide behavior.
The simplest such rule is naive or sincere voting, under which the citizen
always votes for the candidate of the party that stands first in his preference
order. Specifically, members of N1 and N2 vote for G1, members of N3 and N4
for G2, and members of N5 and N6 for G3. This rule, while behaviorally
attractive, leads to contradictory results. If it is universally applied, it prevents
the kind of calculation necessary for Duverger's law to work. Therefore, we
must assume that not all voting is sincere.
A second principle of behavior is sophisticated voting, under which suppor-
ters of a third party vote for the party that stands second in their preference
order. For this rule, it is taken for granted that supporters of the two larger
parties vote sincerely. Specifically, members ofN1, N2, andNs vote forG1, and
members of N3, N4, and N6 for G2. This is the rule of behavior underlying
Duverger's law, for it permits supporters of the third and smallest party to avoid
contributing by sincere voting to the success of their least liked candidate. By
voting sophisticatedly, they bring about a two-party system, which is what the
conventional form of Duverger's law predicts.
So to state the law, however, reveals its weakness. Its only action is that
members of N5 andN6 vote forG1 andG2, respectively. Applying this principle
rigidly, it takes one election at most for the system to be transformed to two
parties in perpetuity. If we start with a three-party system (T1 7.4), there is
necessarily a smallest party and, by sophisticated voting, its supporters must
switch to a larger party. Starting with two parties, no possible action can
generate a three-party system. So the two-party system must last forever.

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Comparative Politics October 1976

There is thus a paradox in the strict form of Duverger's law: once it is

operative, it prevents the existence of the three-party system it is supposed to
destroy. This is a plain contradiction. One way to resolve it is to invoke random
exogenous forces. Sometimes, it must be said, three-party systems just happen,
and then Duverger's law restores duality. Yet three-party systems happen so
often that there must be something more than accident involved. The constitu-
ency of the President of the United States has been regarded as strongly dualistic
since at least 1856. But often there have been third, fourth, and so on parties,
some of them quite significant. In at least nine of the last thirty elections, this
constituency has had a politically serious third party. That these parties have
never lasted long and have been different in most elections testifies to the
strength of the forces summarized in Duverger's law. But that almost a third of
the elections have involved significant third parties (mostly new ones) testifies
to the strength of some of the forces generating them.
We are led, therefore, to suspect that third parties do not appear by accident.
Hence, we will create a model that allows for this possibility by postulating still
a third principle of voting that generates third parties. Thereby, we will put
Duverger's law on stronger grounds by explaining why the two-party system
survives internal as well as external threats.
This third principle is disillusioned voting, under which some of the suppor-
ters of a large party qL ? .6 vote with a probability,p, for the party that stands
first in their preference orders and, with a probability, 1 - p, for the party that
stands second. Specifically, members ofN1 vote forG1 with probabilityp, and
for G2 with probability 1 -p, while members of N2 vote forG1 with probability
P', and for G3 with probability 1 - p'.
We can rationalize this principle at least two ways. One is in terms of the
theory of coalitions.7 Think of the party as a coalition in a zero-sum or
constant-sum game (i.e. such that the winner's gains exactly equal the loser's
losses, or the winner's gains are a constant amount). Assume further that the
members of the winning coalition must be rewarded out of its gains in the sense
that the elected officials must weave a pattern of policies to satisfy their
supporters. Then, in general, the smaller the winning party, the more its
members can be paid-that is, the easier it is to devise a policy that satisfies all
its members. Since there are more tensions in a large-sized winning party, and it
cannot pay off its members as well as a medium-sized winning party, some-
times the large-sized party will fail to satisfy some of its members. The
dissatisfied will desert it, some (i.e. [1 - p] n1) to vote for the second largest
party, others (i.e. [1 - p'] n2) to support a third party. This is precisely
disillusioned voting.
Another way of rationalizing this principle is through the spatial model of
party competition, where parties compete for the allegiance of voters who are
scattered through an n-dimensional ideological space.8 The competition in-

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 William H. Riker

volves parties locating themselves ideologically and spatially close to each

other in order to minimize their distance from a majority of voters. If the
frequency distribution of voters is not normal, however, the parties may not be
able to locate centrally in the distribution. Then, since one party is large (i.e.
qG1 B .6) and the others are not, the large party typically contains more
ideological diversity than the others. The least satisfied supporters of the large
party become disillusioned and desert it (possibly to a third party).
Regardless of how we rationalize the principle of disillusioned voting, there
seems to be good empirical evidence for its relevance. It has two main effects on
the model that are also observable in the natural world. One effect is to reduce
the size of large parties. In the real history of politics, large parties are fairly
common; but they seldom last more than one election in plurality systems
(although they do last longer in subsystems like states in the United States
precisely because they are in subsystems). Thus, this first effect in the model is
apparent also in nature, a fact that lends credibility to the principle. The second
effect in the model is to generate third parties, and this can also be seen in real
electoral systems such as those in the United States, Canada, India, and Great
Britain, where there are more or less constantly renewed supplies of third
parties. Indeed, Duverger's law is based on observation of the demise of these
third parties; and we cannot have observations of deaths without observations of
births, which themselves lend credibility to the principle.
Altogether, we then have a model with three dynamic principles of voting-
naive, sophisticated, and disillusioned, which can be put together in a table of
transformations, " ," from state Ti to state Tj, as in Table 1.
Here the row names are possible states at time t=1; the column names are
possible states at time t. The meanings of the entries in the ith row andjth column
are as follows:

' ;0' means that the transformation from T1 (the row state) to Tj (the column state)
is not possible. (Strictly, we should say "expected" rather than "possible'
because disillusioned voting involves probabilistic, not deterministic, pro-
cedures.)
"+ " means that, given an appropriate division of party support, the operation of
the principles might make the transformation of Ti * T3 occur.
41 " means that, for any combination of votes possible in Ti, the operation of the
principles will for certain produce Tj.

As an example of an entry, the transformation T1 > T6 might occur thus: only

naive and sophisticated voting operate because there is no large party in T1 to
occasion disillusioned voting. Since conventionally qi > qG2 ? qG:3, it must be
thatqGi exceeds 1/3; but it cannot be as large as 0.4, lest it cease to be anS party.
So, we have 1/3 <n1 + n <c0.4. SinceG3 must splitup in such away thatG1 is
a large party in T6, G3 in T1 must be large enough to do so, but no larger than G2.

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Comparative Politics October 1976

Table 1 Transforrmations Possible When Principle of Sophisticated Voting

and Principle of Disillusioned Voting Are Bcoth Operative

r!1 T2
2 73
T374T75
? 6
T 77
T

T(S1,S2, S3)..0 0 0 0 + + +

T2(L, S1 S2) ..... + + + + 0 O 0

3(M, S1,S2) ... .. 0 0 0 0 + + +

T4(M1,M2S) ...... 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

T5(L? M, (?) ) .*, 0 + + + 0 0 O

T , S () ) . + + + + 0 0 0

T7 (M1 'M2 ( ) .) '. .0 0 0 0 0 1

So, we have .26 2f3 <n5 + nG ? n3 + n4. Finally, qG02 must be intermediate in
size. An example that satisfies these requirements is:

in TI: G : tn- +n - .37

Gz 3 + n + . 35
3 : ns = ,27; n6 .01

in T?: G1 : 1n + n2+ 5= .64

G : s + n4 + n6 = .36

The utility of Table 1 is that it summarizes what can happen in the

model. From inspection, several important conclusions emerge:

1. The principles of voting provide essentially for a two-party system. Once thfie
system acquires two medium-sized parties, it is thrown into Tr, from which it
cannot emerge by means of endogenous frces,
2. Most three-party systems in this model are unstable in the sense that they are
transformed into two-party systems in two elections at most. Only in T2 T2 is
there temporary stability for a three-party system; but this cannot last because
G1 is, throulgh disillusioned voting, inevitably diminished by losing (1 - p)n1
to G2 and (1 - p')n to Gs. Some of those who go to G3 may return to G1 by
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 William H. Riker

sophisticated voting; but the losses toG2 are permanent and will finally reduce
G1 to a medium-sized party, whereupon the system will go into T7. Therefore
three-party systems in this model are ultimately unstable.
3. But they are not impossible. Lopsided systems with one large party (T2, T5, T6)
generate three-party systems, however short-lived. Thus, this model provides
for both the generation and dissolution-of three-party systems.

The historical party system of the Presidency and the model of Table 1 are
almost parallel. A review of history indicates that third parties have often forced
departures from an equilibrium like T7; but still there has been a strong tendency
to return to this equilibrium along a path parallel to one in the model. It appears,
therefore, that the model captures (in a highly simplified way) the forces
leading to equilibrium in at least one situation in the real world.

III

There are other single-member plurality systems for which the model fails,
however. In India for the last quarter century-until democracy was recently
abolished-there has been a stable multiparty system in which the major parties
have remained about the same over the whole period. Thus, the Indian experi-
ence is quite unlike the American.
How can we explain this difference? Are Indians different from Americans?
This is hard to believe. It seems likely instead that the same forces are at work in
all places, but that in India the setting is so different that the outcomes are
different also. The question is, then: what is the difference in setting?
In the model so far put forth, there is no ideological dimension. Let us,
therefore, immerse the model in ideology and observe the changes in outcomes.
Recall the relation, Q, which means "to the left of." Assume that three parties
are ordered by Q. We ask: does this make any difference for sophisticated
voting, where members of N5 (who order G3 R G1 R G2) vote for G1, while
members of N6 (who order G3R G2R Gi) vote forG2? Suppose the society has
adoptedD1 where G1 Q G2 Q G3. There is probably no serious problem for the
members of N6, who move only from the right end ofD1 to the center. But for
members of N5 to vote sophisticatedly, they must jump from the extreme right
to the extreme left. Of course, they are still voting for their second choice; but in
some sense their second choice is farther away from them than is the second
choice of members of N6. Unabashed by the interpersonal comparison, let us
say, therefore, that when there is a dimension to politics, those who, to vote
sophisticatedly, must go "too far" will refuse to use the principle. Instead they
will use this modified version: if the third party is in the middle of the
ideological dimension, those for whom it stands first vote sophisticatedly; if the
third party is at the end of the ideological dimension, those for whom it stands
first vote for their second choice only if it is in the middle of the dimension;
otherwise, they vote naively for their first choice.
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Comparative Politics October 1976

In terms of the model, this means specifically:

for D2, D3, D4, or D5, members of N5 vote for G1 (sophisticatedly);

for D1, or D6, members of N5 vote for G3 (naively);
forD1, Dz, D4, or D6, members of N6 vote for G2 (sophisticatedly);
for D3 or D5, members of N6 vote for Gs (naively).

Similar considerations arise with disillusioned voting, wherein some suppor-

ters of the large party vote for their second choice. Again, assume Di : G1 Q G2
Q G3. There is no problem for members ofN1 who orderG1R G2R G3 and who
vote for G1 with probabilityp and for the adjacent party G2 with (1 - p). But the
members ofN2, who orderGiR G3R G2 and who vote forG1 with probabilityp'
and for G3 with (1 - p'), must thus vote with a (1 - p') chance for the party
farthest away on D1. Again, unabashed by the interpersonal comparison, let us
say that those who are required by the principle to go "too far" will instead
follow a modified version: if the large party is in the middle of the dimension,
then its supporters will follow the principle of disillusioned voting; if the large
party is at an extreme on the dimension, then its supporters will follow the
principle of disillusioned voting only if their second choice is in the middle of
the dimension; otherwise, they will vote for their first choice for certain.
In terms of the model, this means specifically:
for D1, D3, D5, or D6, members of N1 vote for G1 with probability p
and for G2 with probability (1 -p);
for D2 or D4, members of N1 vote for G1 for certain;
forD2, D3, D4, orD5, members of N2 vote for G1 with probabilityp' and
for G3 with probability (1 - p');
forD1 or D6, members of N2 vote for G1 for certain.
Putting these modified principles together with a particular dimensional
ordering, we can then write out possible transformations. Since orderings that
are the reverse of one another have exactly the same effect on the rules, we can
thereby limit the cases to three:

1. where the smallest party is in the middle of the dimension (no table);
2. where the medium-sized party is in the middle of the dimension (Table 2);
3. where the strongest party is in the middle of the dimension (Table 3).

It should be noted that Cases 1-3 are in one way different from Table 1
because the voters might change the dimensions. Thus, we might start before an
election in Case 3 and end up in Case 1. We can assume away this inconveni-
ence, however, by assuming that parties change their relative strength only
marginally and minutely at any one election, so that between any two elections
we are in the same Case.
It is apparent that the situation in Case 1, with the smallest party in the
middle, is almost like Table 1. This occurs because there is no inhibition of
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 William H. Riker

Table 2 Transformations Possible Under Modified Principles of Voting and

Dimensional Ordering D1 andD6, Whereon Medium-Sized Party Is
in Middle

1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T T7

T1(S1 ,S2 ,S3) + + + O O O O

T2(L,S1 5,52) .....0 + + + O O O

T3(M, S1,S2) ..... o O + + O O o

T4(M1,M2,S) ...... O 0 1 0 0 0

T (L, M, (0) ) 0. O O O O + + +

T(L, S, (0) ) *** ? ? ? ? + + +

T7(M1,M2,(X) ) ... 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

sophisticated voting in Case 1, and hence the force toward two parties is just as
strong as in the nondimensional case. Furthermore, since the smallest party-
the receptor of refugees from a large party-is in the middle, there is nothing to
keep the refugees from fleeing to it. Hence, the force to create a third party here
is just as strong as in Table 1. The effect of both modified principles is,
therefore, almost as if they were unmodified. Moreover, in the natural world
the analogues of this case and the nondimensional case are similar. Thus, the
English system, in which the smallest party is in the middle of a putative
dimension, looks very much like the nondimensional American system.
Turning to Case 2 (in Table 2), where the medium-sized party is in the
middle, there is a significant change. Since the smallest party is necessarily at
one end, sophisticated voting is half prohibited, which thus weakens the force
toward two parties. Since the large party, if there is one, is at the other end,
disillusioned voting is half prohibited, and just exactly that half is prohibited
which, when not modified, generates third parties. Thus, both principles are
significantly modified with a startling effect: as seen in Table 2, there is no
possible transformation from a three-party system to a two-party system or vice
versa. As a system begins, so it ends. Here, certainly, dimension makes a
difference, although there seem to be very few real world instances of this case.
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Comparative Politics October 1976

Table 3 Transformations Possible Under Modified Principles of Voting and

Dirmensional Orderings D3 and D5 Whereon Largest Party Is in
Middle

T! T! T3 14 T5 T6 I7-

7 (S ,S S3) .....+ + + 0 0 0 0

T2(L, S1,S2) .....+ + + + O O O

T3(M, S1S2) ..... O + + O O O O

T4(M1,M2,S) ..... 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

T5(L, M, (0) ) ..O .. 0 + + + O O O

T (L, S, (0) ) .... + + + + 0 0 0

6'

7 (M M (0) ) .. 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

Turning to Case 3 (Table 3), we have not only a significant change from the
nondimensional case, but also some natural analogues. Here the largest party is
in the middle and behavior is strikingly modified. Since the smallest party is at
one end, sophisticated voting is half prohibited, removing the dynamic toward a
two-party system. On the other hand, since the large party, if there is one, is in
the middle, there is no restriction whatsoever on the creation of third parties by
disillusioned voting. Hence, almost all states with this dimensional ordering
transform to three parties. Even two-party states, except T7, always transform
to three parties. Only state 7, where the two parties are both medium-sized and
relatively evenly matched, transforms to a two-party system namely, itself. In
case 3, therefore, the only way to arrive at a two-party equilibrium is to start out
there in T7.
Table 3, with its perpetual three-party system, is a simplified version of
Indian politics. Congress, the largest party, is squarely in the middle. To the left
are socialists and several versions of communists, and to the right are religious
and economic conservatives. Congress in the center has usually been able to
keep the opposite ends from combining against it, except on a few occasions in
state parliaments. At the same time, it has been easy since 1951 for the
dissatisfied to fall away from Congress to right or left. Since nothing forces the
small parties together, and since the largest party tends to break up, perpetual
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 William H. Riker

multipartyism is guaranteed. Something like this must be at work in Indian

political life. How else can we explain five successive multiparty outcomes in a
predominantly single-member plurality electoral system?

IV

What has been accomplished by this reexamination of Duverger's law? For one
thing, we see that plurality voting can, through the motives of voters, guide the
system both to create and to destroy third parties. We need no longer wonder
where the third parties regularly destroyed in accord with Duverger's law come
from. Mostly, they come from the system itself; they are the product of forces
similar to those that destroy them.
For another thing, and more significantly, the reformulation has lessened the
force of the Indian counterexample. It has been shown how it might reasonably
happen that Duverger's law operates differently in India from the way it
operates elsewhere.
In his essay on "Political Parties" in the International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences, Harry Eckstein concludes: "The whole literature linking
electoral and party systems thus confronts one with a paradox: it has great
logical force and has acquired increasingly greater, if not simpler, force of logic
over the years, but it often lacks empirical fit, no matter how complicated the
logic has been made."9 The clear implication is that Eckstein would like to
believe in Duverger's law, but cannot do so because of counterexamples,
especially the Indian case. Instead, therefore, he is driven to accept Myron
Weiner's explanation which requires that a majority of Indian voters be less
rational than Westerners.'0 It is difficult, however, to endorse an explanation
that requires many normal people to be irrational. Fortunately, we need not do
so, because the model offered here provides a rational alternative; and further-
more, it fits empirically the experience in systems as diverse as those of India
and the United States.

NOTES

*This essay was initiated by discussions with Peter C. Ordeshook and Kul B. Rai. It was written
while the author was a Fairchild Scholar at the California Institute of Technology, 1973-74.
1. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties, trans. Barbara and Robert North, rev. ed. (New York,
1963), pp. 217-28, first called it a "sociological law." See also Colin Leys, "Models, Theories,
and the Theory of Political Parties," Political Studies, VII (June 1959), 127-46. The earliest
formulation I have found is in Arthur MacMahon, "Political Parties-United States," Encyc-
lopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1931), 11:596. Prior to Duverger, the most detailed
treatment is in Ferdinand A. Hermens, Democracy or Anarchy? (Notre Dame, 1941). The
argument entered the textbook culture through E.E. Schattschneider, Party Government (New
York, 1942), who said as boldly as Duverger, "The American two-party system is the direct
consequence of the American election system" (p. 69). See also pp. 82-83.
2. See Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York, 1957), p. 48. For a
brief survey of discussion of the law during the 1960s, see W. Phillips Shively, "The Elusive

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Comparative Politics October 1976

'Psychological' Factor: A Test for the Impact of Electoral Systems on Voters' Behavior,"
Comparative Politics, III (October 1970), 115-25.
3. Douglas Rae, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws (New Haven, 1967), p. 93.
Apropos of the long life of British Liberalism (p. 83), however, Rae is skeptical of Duverger's law.
4. See also Enid Lakeman and James D. Lambert, Voting in Democracies (London, 1955), pp.
34-35; and John Grumm, '"Theories of Electoral Systems,'' Midwest Journal of Political Science,
II (November 1958), 357-76.
5. See Shively, p. 119. Lakeman and Lambert, p. 65, however, cite a 1950 Gallup poll which
revealed that 38 percent of the voters wanted to vote Liberal, but only 9 percent did so, which is a
massive impact.
6. Duff Spafford, "Electoral Systems and Voters' Behavior," Comparative Politics, V (Oc-
tober 1972), 129-34.
7. See William H. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, 1963).
8. Otto Davis, Melvin J. Hinich, and Ordeshook, ''"An Expository Development of a Mathemat-
ical Model of the Electoral Process," American Political Science Review, LXIV (June 1970),
42648; Riker and Ordeshook, An Introduction to Positive Political Theory (New York, 1973), pp.
307-5 1.
9. (New York, 1968), 9:448.
10. Myron Weiner, Party Politics in India: The Development of a Multi-Party System (Prince-
ton, 1957), pp. 223, 262-64.

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