Party Inflation in India: Why Has a Multi-Party Format Prevailed in the National Party System?

Abstract

According to Duverger’s (1954) famous dictum regarding the relationship between electoral and party systems, the first-past-the-post electoral rule should lead to a two-party system. Strictly speaking, the logic of this prediction applies only to party competition at the district level but Duverger (1954: 288) himself expected that local two-party equilibria would be automatically carried upward to the level of national party politics to produce a national two-party system. However, Gaines (1999) and Johnston and Cutler in the previous chapter of this volume have shown that a Duvergerian two-party equilibrium may emerge only under special circumstances at the district level. Furthermore, beyond the districts the number of parties is governed by the process of party aggregation, which itself is driven by factors other than the electoral system alone ( Cox 1997 ; Chhibber and Kollman 1998 , 2004 ). Indeed, both Gaines and Johnston and Cutler remind us in this volume of the importance of the full canvas of institutional arrangements into which the electoral system is embedded, such as multiple elections to fill offices at different levels of governments in Canada’s parliamentary federation or regional and European Parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom, in affecting the mechanical effect of converting votes to seats. Ever since its inception, the Indian party system has consistently deviated from the Duvergerian two-party expectation as there have almost always been more than two parties at all levels of party competition (the district, the state, and the national) even though the electoral system, first-past-the-post, has remained unchanged. Moreover, the number of parties has been inflated at each successively higher level of aggregation. Thus, the number of state parties has always exceeded the number of district parties and the number of national parties has always exceeded the number of state parties. Also, while the number of national parties has changed considerably over time, the number of parties at the state and the district level has remained much more stable. The central concern of this chapter pertains to party inflation at the national level. More specifically, the chapter will attempt to explain why the number of parties has been inflated at the national level relative to the number of parties in the states at varying rates throughout the post-Independence period. It challenges current explanations of party inflation that abstract away from a very important feature