this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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It should be pointed out Duverger's law really only applies to the US because the electoral college system make it fragile to third parties. Many countries with FPTP still have large 3rd parties (such as Canada)
The "law" says that 2 main parties tend to emerge. In Canada only once has the prime minister ever come from a party other than the Liberals or the Conservatives. That was in 1917 when the main issue was conscription, and the pro-conscription "Union" party won over the anti-conscription Liberals. It's pretty clear that in Canadian politics there are 2 main parties, and a few other parties that cling to survival.
Occasionally one of the parties ends up imploding, but Duverger's Law is so strong that normally it's only a short time before the duopoly is re-established. In Canada, Brian Mulroney and his party were so unpopular that it caused the Reform Party to form from disaffected conservatives. That meant that in the 1993 election the "Progressive Conservative" party managed only 2 seats in the federal election. But, 10 years later, the rift was healed and once again the Conservative party was the main opposition. Then the Liberals self-destructed and very briefly the NDP was the official opposition, but a few years later Justin Trudeau took the Liberals to a huge victory.
Sure, it's better to have a third party with a few seats than it is to have no third party at all. But, I'd hardly say that events in Canada disprove Duverger's law. In fact, they tend to support it. In more than 150 years, despite everything, the two main parties are essentially the two main parties from 150 years ago.
Canada disproves Duverger's outright. The law doesn't say 'there will only be two parties that negotiate a PM position'. The 3 parties of canada all have regional strongholds and a variety of powerful positions.
The only powerful position in a parliamentary system is to be in the party in power. No third party has ever been in power. At best, they've been a part of a minority coalition, and even those are relatively rare. Canada definitely supports Duverger's law.
duverger is undisprovable.
The only powerful position the NDP had was since the last election when they had to form a minority government. Other then they even the opposition has no power.
I would argue the premier of BC is a fairly powerful position. Especially since, regionally, the NDP or Liberal party have been in contention for BC since the early 90s- over 30 years.
I would say that duverger's is "true-ish" but it doesn't capture the correct mechanism and fails on a predictive level enough that it at least should not be called a "law".
Its almost certainly suggests what's going on has more to do with voters gamifying their elections rather than any tendency of the elections or parties themselves as canada shows you have people voting liberal for country level government and NDP for regional seats.
A true successor to Duverger's Law would state that ftpt has a tendency to cause voters to vote strategically among the two most dominant parties in any fptp election. This would be more in line with what we actually see.
It's the combination of FPTP voting and the presidential government structure.
In a parliamentary system third parties are more viable because they can act as "king maker" to one of the two larger parties.
Of course a proportional voting system like STV is even better for party diversity.