Explain the impact of electoral systems and cleavages in shaping party systems with reference to developing countries. (2021, 20 Marks)
The standard comparative view holds that a party system, the patterned interaction among parties, comes from two forces acting together. Social cleavages supply the demand for parties, and electoral systems filter how many of them survive. In developing countries both forces work differently from the European template, so imported rules rarely behave as predicted.
The electoral-system effect
- Duverger’s law: Maurice Duverger held that first-past-the-post (FPTP) tends towards a two-party system, while proportional representation (PR) and the two-ballot system favour multipartism.
- Mechanism: a mechanical effect (small parties win too few seats) and a psychological effect (voters and donors desert hopeless parties).
- Refinement: Gary W. Cox‘s M+1 rule says a district of magnitude M sustains about M+1 viable candidates. William H. Riker treated it as a tendency that fails where a third party is regionally concentrated.
The cleavage effect
- Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (1967) traced European party systems to four cleavages: centre–periphery, state–church, land–industry and owner–worker. These cleavages “froze” into the party systems of the 1920s.
- In developing societies the salient cleavages are mostly ascriptive: caste, ethnicity, religion, language and region. Unlike wage claims, identity claims are hard to split, so reinforcing cleavages polarise while cross-cutting ones moderate. Urbanisation and occupational change now add class and urban–rural divides.
- Cleavages are often made by parties, not merely reflected. Daniel N. Posner showed that the Chewa and Tumbuka are allies in Zambia but rivals in Malawi, because group size relative to the political arena decides which identity becomes salient.
The interaction in developing countries
Octavio Amorim Neto and Gary W. Cox (1997) showed that fragmentation rises only when social heterogeneity meets a permissive electoral system.
- India, the standing exception: FPTP across a deeply plural society produced Rajni Kothari‘s one-party dominance until 1967, then fragmentation and coalitions, and now a second phase of BJP predominance (240 seats in 2024) amid strong state parties. Pradeep Chhibber and Ken Kollman explain why: Duverger’s two-party logic operates within constituencies and states, and only centralisation of authority aggregates it into a national system. The Congress, winning across caste, language and religion, was an anomaly for cleavage theory.
- South Africa: list PR in a racially divided society still sustained ANC predominance for three decades. Only when the ANC fell to about 40% in 2024 did a coalition Government of National Unity follow.
- Sri Lanka: PR did not prevent the National People’s Power from winning a two-thirds majority in November 2024. A cross-community wave overrode both the formula and the ethnic map.
- Engineering against cleavages: Nigeria requires a winning presidential candidate to secure a quarter of the vote in two-thirds of the states, and Indonesia requires parties to show nationwide presence. Both follow Donald L. Horowitz‘s vote-pooling logic against ethnic parties. Arend Lijphart prefers consociational PR that represents every segment.
- Dominance and authoritarianism: many heterogeneous states show low fragmentation because hegemonic parties, such as Mexico’s PRI historically or Tanzania’s CCM, restrict competition. With the main opposition disqualified, the CCM’s candidate took about 98% in October 2025. Regime type overrides both.
Limits of the framework
The European model assumes cleavages settled before mass parties formed. In post-colonial states parties often came first and decided which identities would matter, as Kanchan Chandra‘s work on ethnic parties shows. Clientelism, personalism and registration rules also shape outcomes that neither variable predicts.
Conclusion
In developing countries electoral systems and cleavages are necessary but not sufficient explanations. Their effect depends on how far authority is centralised, how strong the dominant party is and what parties choose to politicise. That is why India’s FPTP yields multipartism while South Africa’s PR long sustained dominance. Party systems here are constructed, not merely reflected.