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#REDIRECT [[Majoritarianism]] |
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{{NPOV}} |
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A '''majoritarian''' electoral system is one which is based on single-member constituencies. The term is used particularly in the famous studies of [[Arend Lijphart]]. |
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It is more or less synonymous with a [[plurality voting system]]. |
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{{R adjective}} |
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Only one member can win each constituency, which therefore means the number of votes won nationally does not equal the number of seats in the parliament. For instance, a party which wins 51% of the vote in all constituencies will win 100% of seats, but only 51% of votes. |
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In the simplest majoritarian system, "first past the post", the winner does not even need a majority in a constituency. Thus for instance, if a constituency votes as follows... |
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{| style="border:1px solid #8888aa; background-color:#f7f8ff; padding:5px; font-size:95%; margin: 0px 12px 12px 0px;" |
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|align="center"| Labour 35% |
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|align="center"| Conservative 33 % |
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|align="center"| Liberal Democrat 30 % |
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|align="center"| Other Parties 2 % |
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...then Labour will take the seat and no other party will gain anything from this constituency. |
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==Effects== |
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The effect of a majoritarian system is that the larger parties do not gain a disproportionately large share of the vote, while smaller parties gain a disproportionately small share of the vote. For example, if we look at the 2005 UK General election results... |
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{{electiontable|United Kingdom parliamentary election, 2005}}'''Summary of the 5 May 2005 [[British House of Commons|House of Commons of the United Kingdom]] [[United Kingdom general election, 2005|election results]] (parties with more than one seat; not incl. N. Ireland) |
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!colspan=2|Seats<br /><small>This table indicates those parties with over one seat, mainland only</small> |
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!Seats % |
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!Votes % |
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!Votes |
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|Labour Party |
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|356||55.2||35.3||9,562,122 |
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|Conservative Party |
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|198||30.7||32.3||8,772,598 |
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|Liberal Democrats |
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|62||9.6||22.1||5,981,874 |
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|Scottish National Party |
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|6||0.9||1.5||412,267 |
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|Plaid Cymru |
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|3||0.5||0.6||174,838 |
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!colspan=2|646!! !! !!27,110,727!! |
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...we see that Labour took a majority of seats, 55%, with only 35% of the vote. The largest ''two'' parties took 67.5% of votes and 86% of seats. Meanwhile, the smaller Liberal Democrat party took a fifth of votes but only about a tenth of the seats in parliament, and no other party not on this chart took more than one mainland seat. |
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==Evaluation== |
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The majoritarian system is praised for producing stable majorities in parliament, but is criticised for representing only the largest parties and under-representing more minority opinions. It is considered best in countries where the ostensibly fairer proportionally representative system would produce a fragmented parliament, but which are not so unstable that an under-representation of minorities and opinion fragmentation will cause violence or disorder. |
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[[pl:Ordynacja większościowa]] |
Latest revision as of 12:51, 18 June 2020
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