Single Constituency Research Articles

Canada's System of Representation in Crisis: The “279 Formula” and Federal Electoral Redistributions

The absence of strictly defined concepts of has meant that demographic change has not automatically engendered electoral boundary readjustments. --R.K. Carty (2) In March 2002, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, announced Canada's revised electoral distributions based on the recent decennial census. The resulting redistribution of seats in the House of Commons produced some odd results. While the census reported the slowest rate of national population growth in decades, the population of the province of British Columbia increased by over 19 percent since 1991--an increase of 625,677 citizens. Due to the vagaries of the current formula for distributing seats, Kingsley announced that B.C. would receive only two new Members of Parliament. Despite rapid population growth and despite the fact that British Columbia's ridings were already more heavily populated than the national average, two new MPs would have to fulfill the representational needs of six hundred thousand Canadians. This is the direct consequence of the historical ambivalence over what principles should guide federal electoral representation. Canada's system of in the House of Commons has traditionally been guided by two separate and contradictory principles, that of and the approach. Voter equality, also referred to as by population, one person-one or proportionate representation has been the dominant theory in allocating electoral districts in modern democracies, and has, until recently, been the dominant in Canada. The idea of the principle is relatively simple. If each adult citizen is to have the right to vote, then in the of equality those votes should be roughly equivalent in value. Thus in an electoral system of single member constituencies, those constituencies should have roughly similar populations to ensure that some citizens' votes are not more valuable than others. In Canada, the Constitution Act (1867) prescribed that the of voter equality should guide districting for the House of Commons. (3) The patriation of the Constitution in 1982 re-entrenched this principle, particularly via the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which seemed to guarantee equality in voting rights. (4) The dominance of this principle, according to Munro Eagles, stems from core Canadian notions of equality. (5) Canadians have always believed that their votes should all be of roughly equivalent value in elections. On the other hand, the to is a series of justifications for significant deviations from the of voter equality--all aimed at protecting against a loss of for regions in the country experiencing relative declines in population. (6) Parliament, and, more recently, the courts, have accepted the notion that some ridings should have smaller populations than others in order to maintain traditional levels of for smaller provinces, or for sparsely-populated, slow-growth rural areas. The pluralist approach to argues that this helps to prevent a rapid and unworkable expansion in the geographic size of large rural and northern ridings, and more problematically, that it allows for Boundary Commissions to respect traditional communities of interest or identity (whatever these may be) in the act of drawing boundaries. (7) Over the last two decades, Parliament has zealously defended the pluralist approach and its justifications for deviations from strict adherence to the equality principle. (8) Carty has suggested two major reasons for this. First, commitment to equality aside, Canadians have been willing to accept minor levels of malapportionment in deference to minimum levels of for smaller communities. In this environment, sitting MPs, who are inherently conservative about existing electoral boundaries, have willingly eschewed any slavish addiction to numbers, preferring instead to highlight other types of representational concerns (such as geography or traditional communities). …

Growing beans with Thoreau: rescuing skills and vocational education from the UK's deficit approach

This paper argues for a broader‐based approach to vocational education (VET) and the concept of skill, one that is capable of extending responsibility for improvement to society as a whole, rather than expecting change to come from a single constituency, that of employers. By reclaiming the important roles which vocational education and practical skills play in the everyday lives of people and communities, it might be possible to rescue the concept of VET from its current manifestation as a deficit activity, reluctantly funded by government.

Consequences of the Unreformed Canadian Electoral System

Introduction In a classic article on the system in Canada, (1968) argued that the single-member plurality system (SMP) for choosing federal Members of Parliament had harmful effects on the party system. The mechanics of this system increased the regional distinctiveness of party caucuses beyond what occurs through social cleavages and voting shares. Since only one candidate can win in a riding, a party with a substantial vote across the constituencies in a region might receive few seats. Thus the party caucuses are more extreme regionally than is justified by voting shares. The system has made a major contribution to the identification of particular sections/provinces with particular parties. It has under-valued the partisan diversity within each section/province. By so doing it has rendered the parliamentary composition of each party less representative of the sectional interests in the political system than is the party electorate from which that representation is derived (Cairns 1968: 62). This is what Weaver (1999) refers to as the Cairns effect. Nevertheless, aside from replying to a criticism of his article in the CJPS (Lovink 1970; 1970), wrote little on this topic subsequently (Cairns 1979; 1981). In April 2001, he submitted a written affidavit in support of the Green Party's suit against the Canadian over SMP under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (2) Although Cairns' analysis has been critiqued by other scholars (Lovink 1970; Courtney 1980; Wiseman 1991; 1997), over time it has become increasingly accepted. (3) This has not yet led to a successful reform movement politically, however. The continuing disproportional federal results over the past three elections have been abetted by some strikingly disproportional provincial election results. This has led to more concerted questioning of the system by academics and political activists. Changing the system has managed to secure a tenuous foothold on the formal political agenda in Canada. This paper examines the empirical claims of Cairns' original analysis, their validity during the third of a century since the original article, and why they are having greater impact recently. The Electoral Systems Debate There are several different forms of systems (technically, electoral formulae) in the world. Nevertheless, the most-discussed alternatives are SMP and different versions of proportional representation (PR). In PR systems, seats are distributed on a countrywide or regional basis, and parties rewarded according to their share of the vote in multi-member constituencies. In recent years, mixed systems combining these two systems have made considerable inroads (Shugart and Wattenberg 2001). The ongoing debate between proponents of the two systems traditionally has revolved around the relative priorities of the need for a single party and constituency service versus the accurate representation of voting shares. Strong government advocates see SMP as more likely to produce a with a legislative majority (but not necessarily an overall majority or even a plurality of voters) and one in which there is a direct link between the local constituency and its one representative. PR advocates prefer having a legislature reflecting the partisan distribution of votes more closely, even if that leads to a multiparty formed after the election through negotiations among political leaders. Recent research also has suggested that the form of system may also be an important factor in policy outcomes, irrespective of the partisan coloration of governments (Weaver and Rockman 1993; Lijphart 1994a). did not focus on this broader debate, nor did he advocate a particular alternative formula. Instead, he concentrated on particular disadvantages of SMP for Canada and the general failure to address the issue. …

Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Representation in Russia by Robert s> Moser (review)

376 SEER, 8i, 2, 2003 this book is warmly welcomed by both Central Asian specialists and transitologistsalike. Department ofPolitics J.GLENN Universityof Southampton Moser, Robert. Unexpected Outcomes. ElectoralSystems,Political Parties,and Representation inRussia.Pitt Seriesin Russian and East European Studies. University of PittsburghPress,Pittsburgh,PA, 200I. X+ 183 pp. Tables. Notes. Index. $I9.95 (paperback). ONE of the more welcome byproductsof the end of Communist rule has been the erosion or even disappearance of long-established boundaries between 'area'and 'discipline'.In most cases, specialistsin voting, legislativebehaviour or whatever else have simply added one or more of the post-Communist countries to their list of examples. But in other cases there has been a team approach, combining the skillsof the mainstreamsocial scientistwith those of an area expert. In just a few cases, of which Robert Moser's book is an excellent example, the study of the area has led in the reverse direction, to conclusions that will require some reconsideration in the parent discipline. Moser'sconcern isthe politicaleffectsof electoralsystems,a subjectpioneered by Maurice Duverger. Yet, he finds, Duverger's Law fails to work in postCommunistRussia ;andgiven thattheRussianexperiencemaybe increasingly typicalof countriesthat are currentlydemocratizing,it is comparativepolitics itselfthat needs to make the adjustment. This is a book for specialists, and some of what the author conveys will already be known to them through parts of his chapters that have appeared elsewhere.Itscentralfocus isthe effectsof electoralsystemson politicalparties and representation, not just in Russia but on a broader comparative basis. Since I993, Russia has had a mixed electoral system consisting equally of deputies elected through a party-list contest across the country as a whole, and of deputies elected by simple majority in single-member constituencies. The outcome, in Russia, has confounded political science orthodoxy; the reason, Moser suggests,is the weak institutionalizationof political parties. In other words, 'institutionsmatter',but so does the social context;or, as he puts it himself, the 'institutionaleffects of electoral systems are dependent on the social contexts in which they operate' (p. 55) There are challengesto the comparativeliteraturein otherchaptersaswell. Women, for instance, should have been expected to secure a greater share of representation in the party-list contest, in which seats are shared out in proportion to the nationalvote; but in fact, in three elections, they have done better in single-memberconstituencies.There is a chapteron the effectsof the electoral system on the representation of ethnic minorities in fact, fairly minimal;and a chapteron the I996 presidentialcontest, where the numberof candidatesdoes appearto have been constrainedby the electoralsystemitself. Presidentialismas such is less satisfactorilyconceived in thisbook:notjust the effectsof the electoralsystemon an individualcontest,but the implicationsfor REVIEWS 377 party competition of a system in which a directly elected president is the dominant political actor. There are severalplaces in which furtherresearchis required. One of these is at the level of vote choice in single member constituencies. Earlierresearch has suggested that party affiliationis a very minor consideration for electors, but this may be changing (in a national survey conducted in spring 200 I, a colleague and I found that candidates with a known party affiliationwould gain about twice as much as they would lose, but largernumberssaid it would make no differenceor that they would find it hard to say).Not the least of the virtues of this challenging book is that it encourages the formulation of such questions in a rigorous way, and in the light of the comparative evidence. Could one reasonablyaskfor more? lUniversity ofGlasgow STEPHEN WHITE Jeffries, Ian. TheNewRussia.A Handbook ofEconomic andPoliticalDevelopments. RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2002. xii + 643 pp. Tables. Bibliography. Index. [95.00. SINCE the collapse of the Soviet Union, the scholarlycommunity has found it extremely difficult to keep pace with the constant changes in the Russian Federation. Although a large amount of literature has been published discussing the various nuances of post-Soviet Russia, a paucity of literature has attempted to lay out the full range of events that constitute the postsocialistexperience of the Russian Federation.The dynamic nature of events in the region in the last ten years makes cataloguing such developments extremely difficult. Nevertheless, with TheJNfew Russia,Ian Jeifries makes a serious effort to offer a detailed and timely review of economic and political developments in post...

The New Russia: A Handbook of Economic and Political Developments by Ian s> Jeffries (review)

REVIEWS 377 party competition of a system in which a directly elected president is the dominant political actor. There are severalplaces in which furtherresearchis required. One of these is at the level of vote choice in single member constituencies. Earlierresearch has suggested that party affiliationis a very minor consideration for electors, but this may be changing (in a national survey conducted in spring 200 I, a colleague and I found that candidates with a known party affiliationwould gain about twice as much as they would lose, but largernumberssaid it would make no differenceor that they would find it hard to say).Not the least of the virtues of this challenging book is that it encourages the formulation of such questions in a rigorous way, and in the light of the comparative evidence. Could one reasonablyaskfor more? lUniversity ofGlasgow STEPHEN WHITE Jeffries, Ian. TheNewRussia.A Handbook ofEconomic andPoliticalDevelopments. RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2002. xii + 643 pp. Tables. Bibliography. Index. [95.00. SINCE the collapse of the Soviet Union, the scholarlycommunity has found it extremely difficult to keep pace with the constant changes in the Russian Federation. Although a large amount of literature has been published discussing the various nuances of post-Soviet Russia, a paucity of literature has attempted to lay out the full range of events that constitute the postsocialistexperience of the Russian Federation.The dynamic nature of events in the region in the last ten years makes cataloguing such developments extremely difficult. Nevertheless, with TheJNfew Russia,Ian Jeifries makes a serious effort to offer a detailed and timely review of economic and political developments in post-Soviet Russia. Jeffries relies on a plethora of primary sources, journalistic accounts, and scholarly literature. While the first part deals specificallywith the trialsof economic transition and the affectsof 'big bang/shock therapy',the second partdiscussesthe domestic and international political events beginning with the dissolution of the USSR and ending with Putin'sriseto power. The economic part revolves around three central issues. The firstissue of 'liberalization' includes the transition from central planning to a market economy. Jeffries goes into more detail of 'liberalization' by discussing the changes in individualeconomic components such as prices, foreigntrade and foreign investment. One of the author'sgreatestcontributionsin this book is his answerto why Russiadecided to follow a 'bigbang/shock therapy'strategy rather than a gradualist approach similar to China's reforms. In particular, Jeffries pays special attention to the influence of Jeffrey Sachs and Anders Aslund, former advisors to the Russian Government, as well as to Egor Gaidar's policies of economic transition. The second issue of 'privatization' covers the characteristicsof the private sector. Special attention is paid to the private sector's rapid growth, including a discussion of small and large-scale privatization in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Finally, 'stabilization' is discussed in terms of the historical legacy of the Soviet 378 SEER, 8i, 2, 2003 financial system as well as macroeconomic policies before and afterthe I998 financial crisis.Jeifries rounds off the review of economic developments with a discussion on the changing level of the quality of living as well as internationalaid. The review of political developments is divided into four sections. First, Jeffries discussesthe political reformsthat led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishmentof the CIS. In particular,he discussesthe initial relationshipbetween Russia and other post-Soviet states. Second, the author discussescentre-peripheryrelations with a specific look at the federal system and the Chechen Crisis. The third section contains several chapters that complete a chronology of political developments since I992. Finally,Jeffries turnshis attention to securitywith a discussionof militaryand foreign affairs. Specifically, this section discusses the relationship between Russia and the 'West'in the context of such issuesas disarmamentand Kosovo. Truly, Jeffries does offer a 'handbook' of Russian economic and political development fit for scholars,practitioners,and students. The book's greatest achievement lies in Jeffries's ability to produce an amazingly resourceful discussionbased on an extensive review of literature.Jeffries'sinability to go into great detail on many issuesis limited by the level of analysison which the author based his research. However, Jeffries shows an amazingly clear understandingof post-Soviet developments in Russia by touching on such a wide variety of differentissues...

A note of caution in interpreting the threshold of exclusion

For any electoral system, threshold of exclusion of that system has been used as a measure of the degree to which parties and candidates have an incentive to “narrow-cast” their appeals to a limited constituency. However, we must adjust the threshold of exclusion to take into account the fact that multimember constituencies will, ceteris paribus, be larger than single member constituencies.

Macro and Micro Goal Setting: In Search of Coherence

In this article we discuss macro and micro goal setting approaches, focusing on the relations between goals at different organisational levels. Translating strategic goals in a top‐down manner throughout the organisation is a rather complex process. In organisations, at least one intermediate level between macro (i.e. strategic) and micro (i.e. operational) goals can be distinguished: the level of meso (i.e. tactical) goal setting. The process of a strategic dialogue is introduced to arrive at organisational goal coherence, which is defined as consensus on goal priorities within single constituencies and between multiple constituencies at different organisational levels. This process is illustrated in a case study, in which the CATPCA method has been applied to empirically operationalise degrees of consensus. Effects of the strategic dialogue on organisational goal coherence are demonstrated.

Representation in majority tournaments

The paper presents a general setting for studying majority-based collective decision procedures where the electorate is divided into constituencies according to an equal-representation principle. It generalizes the well-known Referendum Paradox to the non-dichotomous choice case, and shows that all Condorcet choice rules are sensitive to the design of the apportionment of the electorate, in the sense that final outcomes may entirely differ from those prevailing when there is a single constituency. Direct and representative democratic systems thus lead to mutually inconsistent collective decisions.

Politics and Gender: The Need for Electoral Reform

Using data from twenty industrialised countries, this paper presents a model attempting to explain the proportion of female representation in national legislatures. The results show the type of electoral system to be an important factor which can help or hinder an increase in women's political representation. While proportional representation systems facilitate the election of women, single constituency systems (such as Britain's ‘First Past The Post System’) constitute a major obstacle. The paper therefore argues that electoral reform in Britain is necessary if female representation in Parliament is to increase from the current 9% to parity within a reasonable time period.

The Mirpur Parliamentary by-Election in Bangladesh

Voting behavior, electoral politics, and national and local-level elections are institutionalized topics of research in comparative politics, political geography, and political economy, and will draw increasing attention with the recent wave of democratization in many hitherto authoritarian parts of the world. However, instances are rare in which a single constituency by-election to a parliament has received attention. By-elections occur at haphazard times during the life of a government, usually have low turnout, and occasionally produce results that seem out of line with the prevailing national political opinion. In democratic political systems, especially in parliamentary systems, a by-election is often treated as a barometer for testing an incumbent government's degree of popularity. The electoral analysis of a single constituency can acquire special significance for several reasons: the constituency's strategic importance, its socioeconomic and cultural characteristics, its voting patterns in the preceding general election, and the current national political sentiment. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the Dhaka11 (Mirpur) by-election to the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament) of Bangladesh held on February 3, 1993. To demonstrate why this by-election deserves special academic attention, it must be put in its appropriate context. The semi-dictatorial Ershad regime had collapsed in the face of an urbanbased, middle-class movement spearheaded by mainstream political alliances and parties and actively supported by various professional groups. Ershad handed over power to a caretaker government headed by Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed in December 1990, the first succession of power to a civilian regime in independent Bangladesh. All previous successions had been effected by the military at gunpoint. The main responsibility of the caretaker government was to organize and conduct free and fair parliamen-

The Israeli general election of 1992

The 23 June elections for Israel’s thirteenth Knesset ended in what Israelis called a ‘mahapach’-an upheaval. The Labour Party recaptured its pivotal position in the Knesset. For the first time since the December 1973 Knesset elections, Labour and the more ‘dovish’ parties gained a majority in the Knesset-together controlling 61 out of the 120 seats. The Likud, which led the government prior to the elections, the more hawkish parties and the religious parties won only 59 seats. Of those eligible to vote 2,637,943 out of 3,409,015 participated in the elections. It was the first time since the establishment of the state of Israel that the number of eligible voters exceeded three million. Ten per cent of the electorate consisted of young voters who reached voting age (18) only after the elections to the twelfth Knesset. Nine per cent of the eligible voters were new immigrants most of whom came to Israel from the USSR (and its successors) after the November 1988 elections. Turnout reached 77.4 per cent compared with 79.7 per cent in the 1988 elections, 2,616,841 valid votes were distributed among 25 ‘lists-of-candidates’, 0.8 per cent of the votes were invalid (1.0 per cent in 1988). Israel continued to employ an extreme PR electoral system, using a single nationwide constituency and implementing the Hagenbach-Bischoff formula in order to determine the exact number of seats to be allocated to each of the competing ‘strict-lists’. The threshold was raised from 1.0 per cent, used in all previous elections, to 1.5 per cent of the valid votes. This pushed several small parties to unite before the elections, 5.0 per cent of the valid votes, however, were given to parties that did not pass the threshold (2.4 per cent in 1988). The Labour Party adopted a series of reforms prior to the elections. Thus, more than 100,000 party members took part in its primaries in which the candidate for premiership and its Knesset candidates were elected. Labour signed a surplus agreement with the more dovish Meretz. Meretz is a combination of the CRM, Mapam and Shinui, all of which had participated separately in 1988. To the ‘left’ of Meretz are the three Arab-supported parties, the communist-led Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash), the Progressive List and the Arab Democratic List (ADL) which ran separately as they did in 1988. The Likud reached the peak of its popularity towards the end of 1991 with Israel’s participation in the Madrid peace conference. Later, however, its popularity decreased considerably. In the process of selecting its candidates for premiership *The study was made possible (in parts) by the Charles H. Revson Foundation. It was carried out within the framework of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. The statements made and the views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

A game-theoretic model of party affiliation of candidates and office holders

In this paper, we develop a formal model of ambition theory, extending it to account for the choice of party affiliation. We begin by translating the expected utility, “calculus of candidacy” to the choice party affiliation. The model is then used to develop two game-theoretic models of affiliation. The first game models the affiliation decisions of an incumbent and a challenger within a single constituency. Our analysis shows these decisions to be fundamentally interdependent. Switches in affiliation can occur because of shifts in the electoral support for the parties, but also because politicians want to avoid contested primaries. Moving beyond one district, we show how the affiliation decisions of candidates running for different offices or in different districts are also interdependent. The analysis indicates that when electoral strength depends on who runs, politicians affiliated with a decaying political party are involved in a collective-action game.

The single transferable vote and constituency representation

(1991). The single transferable vote and constituency representation. Representation: Vol. 30, No. 111, pp. 44-46.

Why so much stability? On the single membership constituency and the law of large numbers: A note

Why so much stability? On the single membership constituency and the law of large numbers: A note

The 1984 Luxembourg election

As was the case in 1979, elections* to the European Parliament were held the same day (17 June 1984) as the national election. Consequently, the European election was not very prominent. Politicians concentrated their efforts on the national campaign, giving attention primarily to national issues. The European campaign was a side-show significant only in so far as it permitted a ranking of candidates according to their national prominence. For European elections the country as a whole forms a single constituency, whereas for national elections it is divided into four electoral constituencies. Unlike 1979, the 1984 results for the two elections were remarkably well in line, owing to the fact that a certain 'normalisation' of the score of the Liberals, the Democratic Party (DP), took place as far as its European results were concerned. In 1979 the DP achieved an astonishing performance in the European election with 28.1 per cent, exceeding its national result by six per cent; this was mainly because of the effective electoral role of the Liberal leader, Gaston Thorn, who did not run in 1984. The campaign was dominated by themes related to the crisis management of the outgoing government, a coalition between the Christian Social Party (CSV) and the DP. In order to raise the considerable public subsidies needed to restructure the debt-ridden steel industry, the government had to resort to exceptional measures in the course of 1983 which resulted in an increase of taxation and a slowing-down of the rise in wages by a temporary freeze in their automatic indexation to the inflation rate. The question of purchasing power thus dominated the election, and a considerable part of the Socialists' success can be attributed to their promise to re-establish the automatic indexation of wages seen as the key to social peace in Luxembourg. It should be noted that the government was unable to obtain the agreement of the tripartite conference, an economic and social concertation body bringing together trade unions, employers and the government. As a matter of fact this body, in existence since 1977, has superseded Parliament in the formulation of key decisions in the economic and social field. Trade unions and especially the biggest organisation, the OGB-L, close to the Socialist Party (LSAP), felt they could not subscribe to these measures because they jeopardised entrenched interests. It should be noted in this respect that the trade unions in April 1982 staged the first general strike in Luxembourg since 1921. This strike was also supported by the LCGB, a trade union close to the CSV. It was widely felt that this action and the failure to reach a consensus in the tripartite conference marked the end of the so-called 'Luxembourg model', a social concertation device. The LSAP

Malapportionment in Norway's parliamentary elections since 1921

Knowles, R. D. 1981. Malapportionment in Norway's parliamentary elections since 1921. Norsk geogr. Tidsskr. Vol. 35, 147–159. Oslo. ISSN 0029-1951. A number of recent studies have analysed malapportionment in countries using single member constituencies. Malapportionment in countries using multi-member constituencies has been neglected. In Norway, despite the use of multi-member constituencies, serious malapportionment has occurred at each general election to the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) since 1921. The scale of malapportionment is identified and reasons are suggested for its occurrence and continuation in spite of redistributions of seats in 1953 and 1973. Finally, possible political effects of malapportionment are identified.

Party policy and campaign costs in a multi-constituency model of electoral competition

In this essay, a multi-constituency model of electoral competition was developed under the assumption that party candidates possessed no effective autonomy. Such a model describes the polar extreme opposite that of the more common single constituency framework, in which candidates have complete autonomy. The existence of a Nash equilibrium to the multi-constituency election game was established under the assumption that parties maximize the expected number of winning seats or behaved as pure independents. Under any other reasonable election goal (e.g., maximize probability of winning a majority of constituencies), this existence breaks down. The nature of any equilibrium was investigated in some detail and the influence of campaign costs — both statutory and non-statutory — on party behaviour analysed. This was found to be qualitatively important. In particular, differingeconomic resources between parties is sufficient to prevent convergence inpolicy space.

Single member EEC constituencies

Single member EEC constituencies

Solid Congress Support in 1967: A Statistical Inquiry

Most invariably analyses of party politics in India must take the Congress Party as the anchor point. Certainly this is necessary with an analysis encompassing the entire nation. But even small unit or single constituency studies will on a simple probability basis usually deal with Congress-explicitly or implicitly-as the baseline against which to measure the deviations of this or that opposition phenomenon. It is 'a matter of general knowledge that Congress is the only Indian party truly in its scope and appeal. This fact was as striking in the 1967 elections as it had been in the past. Congress contested 516 of the 518 parliamentary constituencies, more than twice as many 'as its nearest national rival, the Jan Sangh. In the parliamentary races Congress polled over 59 million votes compared to the Jan Sangh's 7.1 million. Across contested constituencies, the mean percentage of the parliamentary vote for Congress was 42 while that for Jan Sangh was 21. By every measure, Congress remains the fundamental structure in the Indian party system. This centrality was incorporated a number of years ago in what has been the prevailing view of that party system, the one party dominant model.' Because it is well known, there is no need to explicate the model here. Quite clearly, however, its continued applicability will depend on the electoral fortunes of both wings of the now-divided Congress Party. This is not simply a matter of the obvious-i.e., that loss of votes may eventually lead to loss of power. Rather, recent events seem to. suggest that before losing central power to a rival, Congress would react to electoral setbacks by heating up internally. The pressures from genuine struggles for votes, the loss of organizational slack, the growing scarcity of organizational resourcesall of these would force hard decisions on the Congress leadership. It may well

An Irish Free State Senate Election

In the fall of 1925 a unique electoral experiment was carried out in the Irish Free State. Nineteen senators were elected according to a system which presents a peculiar combination of electoral features. The aim of the framers of the Free State constitution was to provide a second chamber composed of men of experience and recognized ability. To this end they devised the following system: (1) the entire nation was to serve as a single electoral constituency; (2) the nomination of the candidates was left to Parliament; (3) the franchise was limited to citizens over thirty years of age; (4) the Hare system (single transferable vote) of proportional representation was to be used for the marking and counting of the ballots; (5) the senators were to be elected for twelve-year terms; and (6) onefourth of the senators were to be elected at each triennial election.