Storlek och partisystem i världens demokratier

Authors

• Carsten Anckar

Abstract

In their seminal work ’Size and Democracy’ (1973) Robert Dahl and Edward Tufte make the assumption that the size of a unit affects, among other things, the number of parties, as well as the electoral support for the leading party, operating in that unit. Dahl and Tufte place two restrictions on the applicability of their hypotheses: the units must be situated within a single country, and a proportional electoral system must be used. In this article, however, all the democratic countries of the world serve as the unit of analysis. Furthermore, the assumptions are tested on countries using a proportional electoral system as well as on countries using a majoritarian one. The test reveals that once these assumptions are tested on an inter-state level the hypotheses are confirmed explicitly in countries using a majoritarian electoral system, while in countries using a proportional electoral system the hypotheses are rejected. Explanations of the findings are introduced and discussed. In addition, the impact of socio-economic as well as ethno-religious homogeneity is controlled for. The inclusion of these factors does not, however, alter the result.