Duverger’s Law is a dead parrot: European political scientists need to recognize that plurality or majority voting has no tendency at all to produce two party politics

Political science has very few ‘laws’, perhaps explaining why the European discipline has so stubbornly clung onto its most famous product – Maurice Duverger’s claim that countries using ‘majoritarian’ voting systems will always have two party politics. This ‘Law’ has underpinned numerous completely ineffective efforts by European politicians in PR systems to create party consolidation by changing their voting laws. With European political scientists meeting this week in Berlin, Patrick Dunleavy explains why such ‘reforms’ have had zero success. Modern theory and better evidence now show that the alleged ‘Law’ has lost all credibility in FPTP countries – and works only in the USA.