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

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

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)

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

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

Is leaders’ importance growing?

Turnout in UK elections Source: http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

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)

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%

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

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

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

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

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

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 (1945-51=Labour; 1951-64=Cons; 1964-70=Labour; 1970-74=Cons)

The Westminster party system from 1974 The average share of the vote of major parties remained below 75% since Feb. 1974. 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).

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

The European Union

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

...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

The United Kindom and its nations

Moving up and down: new partisan arenas (2) Parliamentary Session Period Parties in Executive First Minister 1999-2003 1999-2000 Labour-LibDem Donald Dewar 2000-2001 Henry McLeish 2001-2003 Jack McConnell 2003-2007 2003-2005 2005-2007 2007-2011 SNP (minority) Alex Salmond 2011-2015 2011-2014 SNP 2014-2015 Nicola Sturgeon Composition of the executive in Scotland

The 2015 general elections: map of the results

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