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PRESIDENTIALISM AND THE
EFFECT OF ELECTORAL LAW IN
POSTCOMMUNIST SYSTEMS
Regime Type Matters
TERRY D. CLARK
Creighton University
JILL N. WITTROCK
University of Iowa
Efforts to test Duverger’s law in the new democracies of postcommunist Europe have had mixed
results. Research argues that mixed systems have an effect on the number of effective parties that
is distinct from that of single-mandate district and proportional representation systems. Less
attention has been given to the effect of other institutions on the party system, particularly strong
presidents. Analyzing election results in postcommunist Europe, the authors find support for
Duverger’s law after controlling for the strength of the executive. They argue that strong presidents substantially reduce the incentive for parties to seize control of the legislative agenda.
Hence, the restraint that electoral systems exercise on the proliferation of parties and independent candidates is weakened. The authors find that a further consequence of strong presidents is
that the incentive for majority control of committees and the legislative agenda is weakened.
Keywords: party systems; electoral systems; postcommunist states; committee systems
THE PUZZLE
Duverger’s law states that proportional representation (PR) electoral systems create incentives for the emergence of multiparty systems, whereas single-mandate district (SMD) systems tend to favor the emergence of a smaller
number of parties (see Duverger, 1954; Lijphart, 1994; Rae, 1971; Taagepera
AUTHORS’NOTE: We gratefully acknowledge the support provided to this project by an American Political Science Association Small Research Grant and a Creighton University Graduate
School Research Fellowship. We also express sincere appreciation to two anonymous readers.
COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 38 No. 2, March 2005 171-188
DOI: 10.1177/0010414004271076
© 2005 Sage Publications
171
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COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005
& Shugart, 1989). In his review of scholarship on these propositions, Riker
(1986) claimed that they were among the most widely accepted in political
science. However, efforts to test Duverger’s law in postcommunist systems
have led to mixed results. In a cross-national analysis, Ordeshook and
Shvetsova (1994) found not only that the choice between PR and SMD electoral systems affects the number of parties but that the latter had the further
effect of attenuating the trend to a greater number of parties normally associated with ethnic and social heterogeneity. Moser (1997, 1999, 2001), however, has found that the standard relationship between electoral system and
the number of political parties holds in Hungary and Poland but not in Russia
and Ukraine. In Russia, in particular, PR has benefited a small number of parties, whereas the SMD system has led to their proliferation (Golosov, 2003).
Moser (2001) attributes this to the lesser degree of party institutionalization
in the two post-Soviet states.
These ambiguous results have led some scholars to turn to Lipset and
Rokkan’s (1967) notion that social cleavages provide a stronger explanation
for party systems (Evans & Whitefield, 1993; Kitschelt, 1992, 1995). Those
continuing to look for institutional explanations have called attention to the
fact that a number of postcommunist states have adopted mixed electoral systems. The failure to recognize the existence of an interaction effect in such
systems, by treating each tier as independent (see, e.g., Moser, 1997, 1999,
2001), may well be partially to blame for the failure to find support for
Duverger’s propositions. Herron and Nishikawa (2001) and Clark and
Prekevic#ius (2001) find evidence of such an effect in case studies of select
postcommunist countries. However, substantially less attention has been
given to the effect of other institutions to include the design of executive-legislative relations. Although some scholars have noted a correlation between
strong presidencies and poorly institutionalized party systems (Colton, 1995;
Fish, 2000; Ishiyama & Kennedy, 2001), these studies have included only a
few cases; they have not focused on party fragmentation; and they have not
controlled for other factors, particularly mixed electoral systems. Furthermore, efforts to test the propositions of Duverger’s law in postcommunist
states have focused on a small set of countries.
We undertake a cross-national analysis of the postcommunist states of
Europe using data from 1990 to 2002 that incorporates a test of the effect of
regime type on the relationship between electoral systems and party systems
in postcommunist states. Our results argue that the assumptions about the
strategic behavior of voters and parties contained in Duverger’s law do not
operate with the same effect in different executive-legislative constitutional
designs. Strong presidents greatly reduce the incentives for parties to vie for
control of a legislature that lacks control over either policy making or the pro-
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cess of making and breaking governments. This is reflected in legislative
committee systems and agenda-setting institutions that are less likely to be
dominated by members of the governing parties.
ELECTORAL LAW AND THE EFFECTIVE
NUMBER OF PARTIES
Duverger (1954) argued that electoral laws carry with them both mechanical and psychological effects. The two work in tandem to reduce the number
of political parties. However, the tendency is stronger in SMD electoral systems than in PR systems. The mechanical effect posits that all electoral systems have the effect of reducing the number of parties in a legislature. SMD
systems have a particularly strong tendency to do so by underrepresenting
small parties. Parties that win less than a plurality in SMDs do not receive a
seat. This occurs even if a party obtains a notable share of the vote nationally
(Duverger, 1954). The tendency of SMD systems to reduce the number of
effective parties is further enhanced by the psychological effect. The psychological effect rests on an assumption of rational voting behavior. All things
being equal, voters will cast their ballots for those party candidates closest to
their own policy preferences. However, single-mandate, plurality districts
produce only one winner per contest. Hence, voters not wishing to “waste”
their votes will not vote for the candidates closest to them if they perceive that
they have little chance of winning. Such strategic voting reduces the number
of candidates elected from smaller parties. In contrast to SMD systems, parties in PR systems receiving less than a plurality of votes receive seats.
Hence, voters are less likely to calculate that they are wasting their votes by
casting them for small parties. The psychological effect is weaker, and the
number of effective assembly parties is greater (Duverger, 1954).
Sartori (1968) further extended the logic behind strategic voting to the
strategic behavior of parties. Adopting Downs’s (1957) maxim that parties
are vote maximizers seeking control of the legislative agenda to pursue policy ends,1 he contended that the rational response of parties in SMD systems
is to coalesce in the largest possible blocs to increase their chances of electoral victory. Failing to do so, they run the risk of being defeated in every dis-
1. Downs argued that parties are vote maximizers. Although subsequent theorists have
argued that parties seek control of policy (Axelrod, 1970; De Swaan, 1973; Dodd, 1976), Michael
Laver and Kenneth A. Shepsle (1996) argue persuasively that policy control is contingent on
vote-maximizing behavior.
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trict race. This creates a further pressure in such systems to constrain the
number of effective political parties.
Until recently, most electoral systems were either pure SMD systems or
PR systems, the notable exception being Germany, which has a mixed SMDPR compensatory system in which PR seats are allocated to correct for imbalances that might otherwise occur from the SMD results by bringing the total
deputy count into line with the national party-list vote. Given the dependence
of the SMD tier on the PR outcome, researchers have generally argued that
compensatory mixed systems have a similar effect to that of PR on the party
system, driving up the number of parties (Bawn, 1993; Jesse, 1988, 1990).
Over the course of the past decade, mixed systems have become a good deal
more common, particularly in postcommunist Europe. In contrast to the German electoral system, however, most of these systems are noncompensatory.
The results of the two tiers are determined independently of each other.
Massicotte and Blais (1999) identify the dominant variant of noncompensatory mixed systems in operation in postcommunist Europe as a superposition mixed system. In this system, two electoral rules (PR and SMD)
operate simultaneously across the country.
Because the results of elections in the two tiers of superposition mixed
systems are independent of each other, Moser (2001) treats the outcomes as
separate elections. More recently, however, scholars have identified the presence of contamination effects across the two tiers of noncompensatory systems, which result in an increase in the number of parties in both the PR and
SMD tiers (Clark & Prekevic#ius, 2001; Cox & Schoppa, 2002; Herron &
Nishikawa, 2001). Although considering each tier in isolation from the other
appears to be an attractive analytical approach, there are good theoretical reasons for arguing for an interactive effect between the two elements of a mixed
electoral system. Treating the two tiers of noncompensatory mixed systems
independently of each other carries with it the assumption that parties pursue
a dual strategy, choosing to run alone in the party-list contest and as part of
larger coalitions in the district contests. This assumption seems highly questionable on a number of grounds. First, by their nature, all coalitions are fragile. The introduction of direct competition in the party-list vote between the
members of a district race coalition would introduce further pressure toward
fragmentation. Second, in many instances, parties are likely to estimate that
they have better chances in the SMD races than they otherwise might, given
the calculation of their chances in the PR races. If this is the case, then parties
will consider both tiers together, instead of in isolation, in formulating electoral strategies. (Shvetsova, 2002, argues the Communist Party of Russia did
so in the 1995 elections.) As a consequence, more parties are likely to enter
the SMD races. Third, in most mixed systems, parties may place candidates
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175
in the district races on their party lists. This substantially increases the contamination between the two tiers and further increases the likelihood that
they will eschew coalitions in the SMD contests, because to do so decreases
their flexibility in determining candidates. Finally, it is not altogether certain
that voters are able to engage in the complex calculations necessary to vote
strategically in elections decided on the basis of two separate rule sets.
Hence, they are more likely to vote sincerely and thereby increase the
chances of small parties in SMD races. (At a minimum, sincere voting is
likely to effect the outcomes of plurality races.)
REGIME TYPE AND THE EFFECT OF ELECTORAL LAW
The possibility of an interactive effect between two different components
of an electoral system raises the likelihood that electoral laws may produce
different outcomes in interaction with other institutions as well. This seems
to be particularly likely when the interaction reduces the incentive for parties
to organize to seek control of the legislative agenda. Two institutional designs
have the potential for doing this: bicameralism and regime type. In the former, if both houses are salient in the passage of legislation, a second legislative body may significantly reduce the incentive for parties to seek legislative
control and thereby decrease the likelihood that a party can obtain enough
seats in both houses to ensure control over policy. Hence, a greater number of
parties are likely to contest and be elected. The same is true when presidents
are able to significantly reduce the control of legislatures over policy.
Only recently has research focused on the effect of bicameralism on both
policy outcomes (Coakley & Manning, 1999; Thies, 2002) and cabinet duration (Druckman & Thies, 2002). Findings indicate that control of the upper
house, when that body plays more than an advisory role in the legislative process, is as important to both policy control and government survivability as
control of the lower house. Hence, parties wishing to control the policy
agenda must be attentive to both houses. Although this suggests that parties
have a greater incentive for seeking control of both houses of a legislature, it
also suggests that the greater complexity this presents to political parties may
serve as an impediment to their attempting to do so. We test this possibility.
A limited degree of scholarly attention has been given to the effect of
presidentialism on party systems (Lijphart, 1994; Samuels, 2002; Shugart &
Carey, 1992). Research considering presidentialism in postcommunist
Europe has largely focused on its effect on party institutionalization. Fish
(2000) and Colton (1995), for example, argue in separate articles that Russian “superpresidentialism” has been associated with weakly institutional-
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COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005
ized parties. A subsequent analysis by Ishiyama and Kennedy (2001) found
no support for the proposition in their analysis of Russia, Ukraine, Armenia,
and Kyrgyzstan.
In the most direct consideration of the effect of strong presidents on party
fragmentation, Mainwaring (1993) contends that strong executives can significantly reduce incentives for those seeking legislative office to coalesce in
large parties. As a consequence, the number of parties in such systems is
likely to be greater regardless of the choice of electoral system. Shugart and
Carey (1992) identify president-parliamentarism as a particularly problematic regime type because of the extraordinary powers of the president, which
include the right to appoint and remove cabinet ministers, the right to dissolve the parliament, and the ability to govern with minimal legislative oversight. These powers are so substantial as to threaten the marginalization of
the legislature and reduce elite incentives for gaining control of that body.
We argue that as a consequence, there is decidedly less incentive for the
formation of cohesive political parties. If one assumes that the primary goal
of a political party is to gain the largest number of seats possible to gain control of the legislative agenda, then there is less rationale for a political party to
attempt to do so when the parliamentary control of the legislative agenda is
undermined by the existence of a president with the powers to legislate by
decree. It is further undermined when the legislature’s control of the process
of making and breaking governments is compromised. Moreover, weak legislative powers also serve to obscure the locus of responsibility in the eyes of
the electorate, which in turn decreases the incentive for voters to cast their
ballots for parties or candidates likely to win an election. In essence, the psychological effects of the electoral system for both parties and voters are substantially reduced. Hence, one should expect that strong executive systems
substantially attenuate the restraining effect of electoral systems on the number of political parties. In effect, the party system will be released from the
constraints that the electoral system might otherwise have.
We further argue that if presidential systems seriously reduce the incentive for parties to seek to control the legislature, this should be evident in
choices made within legislative bodies, particularly concerning committee
systems and legislative agenda control institutions. Both serve the purpose of
assisting the governing party or coalition in organizing the parliament to control the policy agenda. To the degree that strong presidents, such as those in
president-parliamentary systems (or Russia’s superpresidentialism), undermine the legislative role in policy, they reduce the incentive for parties to
ensure majority control over the committee system and institutions charged
with setting the legislative agenda.
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177
EXPLAINING THE EFFECTIVE
NUMBER OF PARTIES
The foregoing discussion contends that different institutional designs
have a significant effect on both the party system and the organization of the
legislature. We begin by testing the applicability of Duverger’s law to the
postcommunist states from 1990 to 2002. We hypothesize that the number of
effective parties is greater for PR than SMD electoral systems. Each tier in
mixed electoral systems is treated as a separate election. Second, we reconsider the initial analysis by recoding mixed electoral systems as unique systems that create incentives for a larger number of effective parties. We
hypothesize that mixed electoral systems are associated with larger numbers
of parties than pure SMD systems. Third, we consider the effect of
bicameralism on the party system. We hypothesize that bicameralism is associated with larger numbers of effective parties. Fourth, we consider the effect
of regime type on party systems. Our hypothesis is that president-parliamentary systems are more prone to high effective party indexes. We conclude by
considering the effect of strong presidents on legislative institutions. If, as we
theorize, presidents undermine the rationale for seizing control of the legislative agenda, then we should expect that governing coalitions have less incentive to control committees and agenda setting bodies. This will be evident in
the percentage of the seats in these institutions held by the governing parties.
Our analysis uses the election results for the countries of postcommunist
Europe compiled by the Project on Political Transformation and the Electoral
Process in Post-Communist Europe undertaken by the Department of Government at the University of Essex between May 1999 and May 2002 as part
of an Economic and Social Research Council project, One Europe or Several? Descriptions of the project (http://www2.essex.ac.uk/elect/database/
aboutProject.asp) and the database (http://www.essex.ac.uk/elections/) are
available online. We include the 58 elections conducted from 1990 to 2002 in
postcommunist Europe.2 As a measure of our dependent variable, the number of parties, we calculated the effective number of electoral parties using
constituency-level data (on the basis of vote share), Nv, and the effective number of parliamentary parties (on the basis of seat share), Ns, for each election.
Nv is an index of the number of relevant parties in the political system that
weights each party by the percentage of the popular vote that it receives in
2. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland,
Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine are included in the analysis. We did not
include Albania, Belarus, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia in the analysis given the
uncertainty of democratic institutions stemming from chronic political instability.
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COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005
legislative elections. Ns measures the number of relevant parties by weighting
the percentage of seats each holds in the legislature.3 Together, they indicate
the “number of hypothetical equal-sized parties that would have the same
effect on fractionalization of the party system as have the actual parties of
varying size” (Taagepera & Shugart, 1989, p. 79).
DUVERGER’S LAW: HYPOTHESES 1 AND 2
The electoral design for each of the countries in our study is given in Table
1. The most popular choice among postcommunist states is a pure PR system.
Although a relatively small number use a pure form of SMD representation, a
significant proportion have two-tiered mixed systems, in which seats are
allocated on the basis of both PR and SMD races. Only one of these, Hungary, operates similarly to the compensatory system used by Germany, in
which seats are set aside to ensure that the final seat allocation reflects the
overall PR outcome. We consider each tier in mixed systems as a separate
election, except in the case of Hungary, which we treat as a pure PR system.
The average number of effective electoral and assembly party indexes for
SMD and PR systems is given in Table 2. Although the number of electoral
parties in SMD systems is slightly smaller than in PR systems (the difference
is not statistically significant), contrary to the expectations of Duverger’s law,
SMD systems appear to be associated with a decidedly larger number of parliamentary parties than PR systems in postcommunist Europe. (The difference in the mean number of parliamentary parties between the two populations is statistically significant at less than the .000 level.) However when the
mixed, noncompensatory systems (Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania) are
removed from the analysis, the hypothesized relationships obtain (as
3. The formulae (Taagepera & Shugart, 1989) for these indexes are
NV =
1
n
∑p
2
i
i=1
and
NS =
1
n
∑ pi2
,
i=1
where n is the actual number of parties receiving votes (Nv) or seats allotted in the legislature
(Ns), and p is the number of votes received (Nv) or seats allotted the party (Ns) for each party i.
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179
Table 1
Electoral Systems Used in Postcommunist Europe
Electoral Design
Single-member district
Czech Republic (Senate)
Mixed systems
Compensatory
Superposition, noncompensatory
Proportional representation
Country
Poland (Senate)
Hungary
Lithuania
Russia
Ukraine
Bulgaria
Czech Republic (Chamber of Deputies)
Estonia
Latvia
Moldova
Poland (Sejm)
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
reported in Table 2). Controlling for the contamination effects in mixed systems, the data indicate support for Duverger’s law in postcommunist Europe.
PR is associated with larger numbers of effective parties than SMD systems.
We need to be cautious in interpreting these results at this point, because
the difference in neither the mean number of parliamentary nor electoral parties is statistically significant. Nonetheless, the change in the relationship
suggests that we might look more carefully at our initial hypothesis. The fact
that the three countries excluded from the analysis are the superposition
mixed systems listed in Table 1 argues strongly that we should consider such
systems as unique electoral systems, not as two separate and independent
systems affecting party systems.
The third section of Table 2 reports the results of the test of our second
hypothesis comparing the number of effective parties in mixed systems with
those in SMD and PR systems. As we hypothesized, mixed systems are associated with larger numbers of effective parties than SMD systems. The difference between them and the other electoral systems is significant at less than
the .01 level for both Nv and Ns. In postcommunist Europe, they are associated
with larger numbers of both parliamentary and electoral parties.
There are, however, interesting contrasts among the mixed systems that
are hidden by these results. Table 3 reports the vote and seat share indexes for
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COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005
Table 2
Average Effective Number of Parties by Electoral System
Effective Number of Parties
a
(number of cases )
Nv
Electoral system
SMD
PR
Excluding Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine
SMD
PR
Comparing mixed electoral systems with SMD and PR
SMD
PR
Mixed systems
Ns
5.81 (14)
6.00 (52)
8.95 (18)
4.10 (52)
4.75 (6)
5.75 (44)
3.87 (9)
4.07 (44)
4.75 (6)
5.75 (44)
11.88 (7)
3.87 (9)
4.07 (44)
7.59 (8)
Note: SMD = single-mandate district; PR = proportional representation.
a. The difference in the number of cases used to calculate Nv and Ns results from missing constituency-level data for elections to the Polish Senate in 1991, the Czech Republic Senate in 1998, the
Polish Senate in 2001, and the SMD tier for the Ukrainian Rada in 2002. All four elections were
decided on the basis of SMDs.
elections held in Lithuania and Russia. Russia’s superposition, noncompensatory electoral system calls for electing half of the 450-member legislature on the basis of PR and the other half in single-member, plurality races.
As the calculations in Table 3 indicate, the index of the number of effective
parties for both vote share and seat share are quite high across all three Russian elections in the post-Soviet era. In contrast, Lithuania’s superposition
noncompensatory electoral system, which elects 71 deputies in SMD races
and 70 in a national party-list vote, has consistently lower indexes. This is
mostly because very large numbers of independents are elected to the Russian Duma from the SMDs. In comparison, relatively few independents are
elected in Lithuania’s SMDs. Although it is tempting to argue that the electoral law in Russia does not work in accordance with the expectations of
Duverger’s law because of weakly institutionalized parties (Moser, 1999),
such an argument reverses the causal arrow and makes electoral law the
dependent variable. We contend that it is possible, and theoretically more
appealing, to continue to use the electoral system as an independent variable.
However, to do so, we must introduce the type of executive-legislative
relations as an intervening variable.
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Table 3
Party System Indicators in Parliamentary Elections, Lithuania and Russia
Lithuania
Independents elected
Effective number of parties
Vote share (Nv)
Seat share (Ns)
Russia
1992
1996
2000
1
4
3
5.31
3.28
7.55
3.33
10.09
6.51
1993
130
15.64
16.42
1995
1999
77
105
16.35
6.14
12.24
8.00
INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN: HYPOTHESES 3 AND 4
The substantial differences in the indexes between Russia and Lithuania
suggest that other institutional designs may be interacting with the electoral
system to effect the party system. We have hypothesized bicameralism
(Hypothesis 3) and president-parliamentarism (Hypothesis 4) as possibilities. Because the logic behind our propositions focuses on the policy role of
the legislature vis-à-vis the president, we will use the number of legislative
houses that essentially exercise a nontrivial veto over proposed legislation.
(We count upper chambers whose votes cannot be overridden by a mere plurality of the lower house, that is, a simple majority of a required quorum.) As
an indicator of regime type, we begin with Shugart and Carey’s (1992) three
categories of parliamentarism, premier-presidentialism, and presidentparliamentarism. Shugart and Carey contend that the differences between the
three concern the relationship between the head of state (usually a president)
and the legislature on one hand and the government on the other. Presidential
powers are extremely limited in parliamentarism, moderate in premierpresidentialism, and substantial in president-parliamentarism. In a later article, Shugart (1996) developed an indicator of presidential strength, which we
adopt with modifications. Table 4 lists the criteria we used for measuring
presidential strength. The scores for bicameralism and presidential strength
are reported in Table 5.
Table 6 reports the results of three regression models testing the effect of
the electoral system (SMD is coded 0, and other electoral systems are coded
1), regime type, and bicameralism on the number of effective parties. The
results argue that strong presidents serve to mediate the psychological effects
of electoral systems on voters. The electoral system itself does not have a statistically significant impact on the effective number of electoral parties (Nv).
However, when presidential strength is added to the equation, the electoral
system does have an effect (at the .058 level), but not as strong as that of presi-
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COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005
Table 4
Criteria for Scoring Presidential Strength
Cabinet formation
0 = President cannot name ministers on own initiative
1 = President nominates prime minister, who requires parliamentary confidence
2 = President appoints prime minister with consent of parliament
3 = Presidential appointment of prime minister does not require parliamentary approval
Cabinet dismissal
0 = Government may only be removed by parliament
1 = Government may be removed by the president under certain stipulated conditions
2 = Government may be removed by the president with the approval of parliament
3 = Government may be removed by the president without parliamentary approval
Assembly survival
0 = President cannot call for preterm elections
1 = President can call for preterm elections during a specified time frame
2 = President can call for preterm elections after a vote of no confidence in the government
3 = President can call for preterm elections at any time
Presidential survival
0 = Assembly can call for preterm presidential elections at any time
1 = If the assembly calls for preterm presidential elections, the assembly must also stand
for reelection
2 = Assembly can call for preterm presidential elections in special cases
3 = Assembly cannot call for preterm presidential elections
Source: Shugart (1996, p. 7), with modifications.
dential strength itself. Our results also indicate that only presidential strength
has a statistically significant effect on the number of effective assembly parties (Ns). Hence, electoral systems operate to restrain the number of electoral
parties (but not parliamentary parties) in a fashion suggested by Duverger’s
law in postcommunist Europe. Furthermore, bicameralism does not have a
statistically significant effect on either the number of electoral parties or parliamentary parties. The challenge of seizing policy control over both houses
in bicameral systems does not appear to deter either voters or political parties
in postcommunist countries.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE LEGISLATURE
These findings suggest that strong presidents are a disincentive for office
seekers to link their electoral fortunes with those of political parties. In systems with strong presidents, political parties have less incentive to coalesce in
electoral blocs, and voters have less incentive to vote strategically to help one
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183
Table 5
Scores for Institutional Design Factors
Presidential Strength
Country
Bicameralism
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Estonia
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova
Poland
Romania
Russia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
1
1
Cabinet
Formation
Cabinet
Dismissal
Assembly
Survival
Presidential
Survival
Total
Score
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
0
2
0
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
3
2
0
3
1
1
1
2
1
2
1
0
2
3
1
1
1
3
3
3
3
0
2
0
3
2
3
1
2
3
5
7
5
6
2
7
3
4
5
11
6
3
9
Table 6
Results of Regression Analysis of the Models
Variable
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Dependent variable: effective electoral parties (Nv)
Electoral system (SMD or other)
Presidential strength
Bicameralism
2
r
p
.181
—
—
.033
.187
.236*
.459***
—
.240
.001
.226*
.465***
.036
.241
.003
Dependent variable: effective assembly parties (Ns)
Electoral system (SMD or other)
Presidential strength
Bicameralism
2
r
p
.109
—
—
.012
.409
.128
.307**
—
.106
.043
.129
.307**
.003
.106
.101
Note: Standardized β values are reported. SMD = single-mandate district.
*Significant at < .10. **Significant at < .05. ***Significant at ≤ .001.
party gain control of the legislature. As a consequence, the number of both
electoral and parliamentary parties is greater.
We argued in the theoretical section of this article that this is largely
because of the disincentive that strong presidents present to parties attempting to seize control of the policy agenda of the legislature. This should be
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COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005
Table 7
Scores for Committee and Agenda-Setting Strength
Committee Strengtha
Country
Government Coalition
Role in
Control of
Agenda Parliamentary Legislative Control of Agenda
Setting
Control
Initiative Committees Setter
Bulgaria
Czech Republic (lower house)
Czech Republic (upper house)
Estonia
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova
Poland (lower house)
Poland (upper house)
Romania (lower house)
Romania (upper house)
Russia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
.650
.642
.500
.400
.540
.569
.643
.700
.480
1.000
.500
.430
.250
.530
.333
.292
.600
.540
.500
.667
.550
1.000
.800
.800
.500
.750
.460
.450
.400
.800
1.000
1.000
Note: Upper houses not directly elected are excluded from the analysis. Although votes of upper
houses can be overridden by lower houses, more than a simple majority of a quorum is required in
every case.
a. Role in agenda setting: 0 = committees do not participate in agenda setting, 1 = committees
play a role in agenda setting; parliamentary control: 0 = government ministers are not obligated to
appear before committees when summoned, 1 = government ministers must appear before committees when summoned; legislative initiative: 0 = committees do not have the right to initiate
legislation, 1 = committees have the right to initiate legislation.
reflected in the organization and staffing of legislative institutions. We test
three indicators of the importance that parties might attach to control of the
legislative agenda. The first is a measure of committee strength. Committees
serve an important function in reviewing proposed laws. In none of the
postcommunist countries do they serve as gatekeepers, with the right to veto
legislation. That responsibility lies with the agenda-setting institution in each
legislature, about which we will say more shortly. The relative strength of
committees is evident on three dimensions: their role in agenda setting
(whether they are excluded or included in the process), the right to interpellate government ministers, and the right to initiate legislation. Table 7 reports
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Clark, Wittrock / REGIME TYPE MATTERS
185
Table 8
Average Committee Power, Proportion of Committee Chairs Held by the Opposition, and
Agenda Setter Composition Reported by Strength of the Presidency
Presidential
Strength
Weak
Moderate
Strong
Committee
Power
Proportion of Chairs
Held by the
Government Coalition
1.60
1.56
1.50
.616
.537
.305
Proportion of the Agenda
Setter Seats Held by
the Government Coalition
.810
.602
.700
the scores assigned to the respective houses in each postcommunist legislature immediately following the most recent election on these dimensions.
Our second indicator of the importance that parties attach to control of the
legislative agenda is the percentage of committee chairs allotted to the majority. One would expect that the more salient the policy role of the legislature,
the more likely it is that parties and coalitions in the government would seek
to make sure that the committee system reflects their policy preferences. The
same is true of the agenda-setting institution, the most critical institution in
the assembly given its role in determining if a legislative initiative will be
heard and, if so, under what rules. In effect, the agenda setter exercises an
absolute veto over all legislative matters. Hence, one would expect that as
parties and coalitions become more intently interested in controlling votes on
policy, they will ensure majority control of the agenda-setting institution. We
measure this as a percentage of the membership allocated to the majority, our
third indicator of the importance parties attach to controlling policy in the
legislature.
We recoded the presidential strength scores (1 to 4 for weak presidential
strength, 5 to 8 for moderate presidential strength, and 9 to 12 for strong presidential strength) and report the average of the sum of committee strength
scores, proportion of committee chairs held by opposition parties, and proportion of the agenda-setting institution allocated to members of the majority
party or coalition across the three categories of presidential strength in Table
8. The results generally support our hypotheses. Although only the difference in means for the proportion of chairs allotted to the majority coalition is
significant at less than the .05 level, the relationships are in the direction
hypothesized. As the powers of the presidency increase, legislative committee systems exercise less discretion and the number of committee chairs held
by the majority decreases. The proportion of the agenda-setting institution in
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COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / March 2005
the hands of the governing party or coalition is less in systems with strong
and moderate executives than those with weak ones, although the proportion
is greater in strong presidential systems than moderate ones.
CONCLUSIONS
Our results argue that mixed electoral systems act more like PR in their
psychological effect, as indicated in higher electoral party indexes. Once we
take this into account and treat such systems as unique systems, we find some
support for Duverger’s law in postcommunist Europe. However, our results
argue more strongly that highly fragmented party systems are the consequence of institutional designs that mitigate the effects of electoral laws that
would otherwise create incentives for the emergence of fewer parties. In particular, strong presidents undermine the rationale for the formation of parties
seeking control over the policy and government control functions of the legislature. Consequently, parties and independents are willing to run for political office with less thought given to their prospects for becoming part of a
governing coalition. Furthermore, the public is more likely to vote sincerely.
The consequence is that the number of electoral and parliamentary parties is
substantially higher independent of the type electoral system.
Our results argue that party system fragmentation in countries such as
Russia is the consequence of a strong presidency. In similarly designed electoral systems with weaker presidents, as in the case of Lithuania, electoral
systems operate to restrain the number of electoral parties in a fashion suggested by Duverger’s law. Although the Lithuanian president exercises the
right to veto legislation and is constitutionally empowered to appoint the
prime minister (subject to legislative approval), he cannot rule without the
legislature, and his ability to influence government policy is dependent on his
relations with the ruling coalition in the assembly.
At the core of our argument is the contention that strong presidents
marginalize legislatures in postcommunist Europe. This in turn is reflected in
legislative institutions that are more proportional and less majoritarian.
Hence, parliamentary majorities are less able to challenge the executive. We
suspect that legislators in such systems are far more concerned with the perks
that come with their positions than with matters of policy. The latter is left to
the president. The argument clearly flies in the face of the contention that legislatures faced with strong presidents would be more intently interested in
organizing to challenge executive usurpation of legislative prerogative. It
appears that postcommunist legislators in such systems are resigned to their
status.
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Terry D. Clark is a professor of political science and director of the Graduate Program in
International Relations at Creighton University. He is the author of the book Beyond
Post-Communist Studies: Political Science and the New Democracies of Europe (M. E.
Sharpe, 2002). His research focuses on the development of democratic institutions in
postcommunist states.
Jill N. Wittrock is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Iowa. Her research interests
include Eastern European government and politics, with a focus on democratic institutions, including political parties and electoral systems.
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