Majoritarian
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A majoritarian electoral system is one which is based on a "winner take all" principle. This is in contrast to the proportional representation (PR) family of electoral systems, which split the mandates in rough proportion with votes gained by each party.
The term is used particularly in the famous studies of Arend Lijphart. Also see [Electoral System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook http://www.idea.int/publications/esd/index.cfm].
It is more or less synonymous with a plurality voting system.
Single-member constituencies (SMC) are often, though not exclusively, used in majoritarian systems. In SMC 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 50% + 1 of the vote in all constituencies will win 100% of seats, but only 50% +1 of votes.
Often in SMC a two-round system is used (TRS), especially in the countries of former Soviet Union. Under TRS, the candidate has to obtain at least 50%+1 vote in order to win outright. If no candidate obtains the majority votes, two top candidates run against each other in the second round. This system is often used for presidential elections as well (eg. in France).
Other variations of majortiarian system include Block Vote (BV) and Party Block Vote (PBV). Under BV voters vote in multi-mandate constituencies for as many candidates as there are seats to be filled. The candidates with the most votes win outright. With PBV, parties nominate a "block" of candidates for each multi-mandate constituency. Voters vote for the party, not individual candidates, and the party which wins the most votes wins all the mandates in the constituency.
In the simplest majoritarian system, "first past the post", the winner does not even need a majority in a constituency. This can be demonstrated in a hypothetical constituency election result:
| Labour 35% |
| Conservative 33 % |
| Liberal Democrat 30 % |
| Other Parties 2 % |
In this case, Labour will take the seat and no other party will gain anything from this constituency.
[edit] Effects
The majoritarian model of democracy is the classical theory of democracy in which government by the people is interpreted as government by the majority of the people. The effect of a majoritarian system is that the larger parties gain a disproportionately large share of the vote, while smaller parties are left with a disproportionately small share of the vote. For example, the 2005 UK General election results were as follows:
| Seats This table indicates those parties with over one seat, mainland only |
Seats % | Votes % | Votes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour Party | 356 | 55.2 | 35.3 | 9,562,122 | |
| Conservative Party | 198 | 30.7 | 32.3 | 8,772,598 | |
| Liberal Democrats | 62 | 9.6 | 22.1 | 5,981,874 | |
| Scottish National Party | 6 | 0.9 | 1.5 | 412,267 | |
| Plaid Cymru | 3 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 174,838 | |
| 646 | 27,110,727 | ||||
It can be seen 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.
[edit] Evaluation
The majoritarian system is praised for producing stable majorities in parliament, but is criticized 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.
