Abstract
The present article follows up a previous study (Anckar 1998) which showed a strong association between size and party system fragmentation. The aim of the article is to see whether the explanatory power of size can, in fact, be attributed to a federal form of government. 77 countries with free party systems constitute the research population. The dependent variable has three components: number of parties, electoral support for the leading party, and the ‘effective number of parties’ calculated according to the Laakso‐Taagepera formula. Preliminary tests reveal that federal states have a more fragmented party system than unitary states. However, when controlling for size, electoral system, the ‘effective threshold,’ and presidentialism, the results clearly show that federalism is overshadowed by size and also, to a lesser extent, by the effective threshold.
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