Four scales for ENPAdrian Blau

Aim of the article:

- Evaluating advantages and disadvantages in different approaches to party systems

- Propose a more fine-grained analysis of party systems focusing on their different aims

- Suggest a set of indices to reflect the different functions performed by parties in party systems

- Illustrate the new approach using the United Kingdom and Germany as example of pluralitarian and proportional systems

«How we count depends on where we look»

Seats and votes

Competition for government

Qualitative (Sartori - Relevant partiesBlondel - GermanySiaroff - UK)

Quantitative ENP NV = 1/ ∑ivi2

NS = 1/ ∑isi2

You can look at:

WHAT?

HOW?

But..

Pluralitarian vs. Proportional party systems

Proportional Democrats examine how well party systems manifest political equality at the different stages of the political process

Pluralitarial Democrats examine how well party systems permit accountable, stable, single party governments

Legislative parties

OPP2005 = 645-356 = 289 CON share =197/289=68,17% Lopp = 0,1+0,1=0,2 Lcon= 0,68*0,2=0,14

Cabinet parties

NC = 1 / ∑i ci2

Where ci is the share of cabinet position of party i

Pluralitarian:

NV and NS lowNL = NC = 1

Proportional

NV ≈ NS ≈ NL ≈ NC

2005 L points Rescale Li

sqrt ENPLi

CON 0.14 0.11666. 0.0136

LAB 1 0.83333. 0.6944

LDEM 0.04 0,03 0.00111.

… 0.04 …

tot 1.20 1 0.71 1.408

OPP2005 = 645-356 = 289 CON share =197/289=68,17% Lopp = 0,1+0,1=0,2 Lcon= 0,68*0,2=0,14

2005 L points Rescale Li

sqrt ENPLi

CDU/CSU 0.50 0,3424 0.1172

SPD 0.50 0.3424 0.1172

FDP 0.17 0.1164 0.0135

GR 0.14 0.0958 0.0091

PDS 0.15 0.1027 0.0105

tot 1.46 0.2675 3.73