Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Unpacking LogM: Toward a More General Theory of Party System Density

Unpacking LogM: Toward a More General Theory of Party System Density The standard model of political party system density combines two traditions to explain why some countries have more political parties than others, one tradition that emphasizes social cleavages and another that emphasizes electoral institutions, especially district magnitude. Despite its considerable success, there are several reasons to be less than fully satisfied with the standard model. We examine two of these problems associated with the scope of strategic voting and the functional form of the specification used to test the model. In doing so, we contrast the standard interpretation with an organizational ecology model that accounts for what the standard model did so well, but also accounts for important anomalies it ignores. We reexamine some of the key analyses that have been used to test the standard model to assess the severity of its limitations and the utility of the rival organizational ecology account. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Journal of Political Science Wiley

Unpacking LogM: Toward a More General Theory of Party System Density

Download PDF
15 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/unpacking-logm-toward-a-more-general-theory-of-party-system-density-5ySbw5j6Eb
Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
©2010, Midwest Political Science Association
ISSN
0092-5853
eISSN
1540-5907
DOI
10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00469.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The standard model of political party system density combines two traditions to explain why some countries have more political parties than others, one tradition that emphasizes social cleavages and another that emphasizes electoral institutions, especially district magnitude. Despite its considerable success, there are several reasons to be less than fully satisfied with the standard model. We examine two of these problems associated with the scope of strategic voting and the functional form of the specification used to test the model. In doing so, we contrast the standard interpretation with an organizational ecology model that accounts for what the standard model did so well, but also accounts for important anomalies it ignores. We reexamine some of the key analyses that have been used to test the standard model to assess the severity of its limitations and the utility of the rival organizational ecology account.

Journal

American Journal of Political Science – Wiley

Published: Oct 1, 2010

References

  • Toward an Institutional Ecology of Organization Founding
    Baum, Baum; Oliver, Oliver
  • Organizational Niche Overlap and the Dynamics of Organizational Mortality
    Baum, Baum; Singh, Singh
  • Beyond Linearity by Default: Generalized Additive Models
    Beck, Beck; Jackman, Jackman
  • The Psychological Impact of Electoral Laws: Measuring Duverger's Elusive Factor
    Blais, Blais; Carty, Carty
  • Resource Distributions and Market Partitioning: Dutch Daily Newspapers, 1968–1994
    Boone, Boone; Carroll, Carroll; Van Witteloostuijn, Van Witteloostuijn
  • Strategic Politicians and Unresponsive Voters
    Born, Born
  • Auditor Human Capital and Audit Firm Survival: The Dutch Audit Industry
    Bröcheler, Bröcheler; Maijoor, Maijoor; Van Witteloostuijn, Van Witteloostuijn
  • Party Aggregation and the Number of Parties in India and the United States
    Chhibber, Chhibber; Kollman, Kollman
  • Rehabilitating Duverger's Theory Testing the Mechanical and Strategic Modifying Effects of Electoral Laws
    Clark, Clark; Golder, Golder
  • Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems
    Cox, Cox
  • A Voting Model Implying Duverger's Law and Positive Turnout
    Fedderson, Fedderson
  • Stability and Coordination in Duverger's Law: A Formal Model of Preelection Polls and Strategic Voting
    Fey, Fey
  • Theories of Electoral Systems
    Grumm, Grumm
  • The Population Ecology of Organizations
    Hannan, Hannan; Freeman, Freeman
  • The Emergence of Political Parties in Congress
    Hoadley, Hoadley
  • Institutional Context, Cognitive Resources and Party Attachments across Democracies
    Huber, Huber; Kernell, Kernell; Leoni, Leoni
  • Federalism and the Number of Parties in Argentine Congressional Elections
    Jones, Jones
  • Electoral Laws and the Effective Number of Candidates in Presidential Elections
    Jones, Jones
  • Sophisticated Voting in Congress: A Reconsideration
    Krehbiel, Krehbiel; Rivers, Rivers
  • The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, 1945–85
    Lijphart, Lijphart
  • The Population Ecology of Gucci Gulch, or the Natural Regulation of Interest Group Numbers in the American States
    Lowery, Lowery; Gray, Gray
  • On Attempting to Rehabilitate the Proximity Model: Sometimes the Patient Just Can't Be Helped
    Macdonald, Macdonald; Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz; Listhaug, Listhaug
  • Competition between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Niche Party Success
    Meguid, Meguid
  • Modeling New Party Performance: A Conceptual and Methodological Approach for Volatile Party Systems
    Mustillo, Mustillo
  • Electoral Institutions, Cleavage Structures, and the Number of Parties
    Neto, Neto; Cox, Cox
  • Ethnic Heterogeneity, District Magnitude, and the Number of Parties
    Ordeshook, Ordeshook; Shvetsova, Shvetsova
  • The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi
    Posner, Posner
  • Extremist Parties and Political Turmoil: Two Puzzles
    Powell, Powell
  • Time and Space and the Variation of Species
    Preston, Preston
  • A Directional Theory of Voting
    Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz; Macdonald, Macdonald
  • Structure and Behavior: Extending Duverger's Law to the Japanese Case
    Reed, Reed
  • The Two‐Party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science
    Riker, Riker
  • New Party versus Old Left Realignments: Environmental Attitudes, Party Policies, and Partisan Affiliations in Four West European Countries
    Rohrschneider, Rohrschneider
  • Persistence and Change in Western Party Systems Since 1945
    Rose, Rose; Urwin, Urwin
  • Party Non‐Systems
    Sanchez, Sanchez
  • On the Theory of Party Organization
    Schlesinger, Schlesinger
  • Theory and Research in Organizational Ecology
    Singh, Singh; Lumsden, Lumsden
  • Party Size Baselines Imposed by Institutional Constraints
    Taagepera, Taagepera
  • Seat Share Distribution of Parties: Models and Empirical Patterns
    Taagepera, Taagepera; Allink, Allink
  • Rethinking Duverger's Law: Predicting the Effective Number of Parties in Plurality and PR systems—Parties Minus Issues Equals One
    Taagepera, Taagepera; Grofman, Grofman
  • Predicting the Number of Parties: A Quantitative Model of Duverger's Mechanical Effect
    Taagepera, Taagepera; Shugart, Shugart
  • Policy Positions, Issue Importance, and Party Competition in New Democracies
    Tavits, Tavits
  • An Ecology of National Rule Birth: A Longitudinal Study of Dutch Higher Educational Law, 1960–2004
    Van Witteloostuijn, Van Witteloostuijn; De Jong, De Jong