A two-party system, is a system that is dominated
by two "major parties" that have a roughly equal
prospect of winning government power
The advantages are:
It creates a strong but accountable
government, based on competition between
the government and opposition parties
It creates a bias in favour of moderation. As
they battle for the support of "floating"
voters, drawn from the centre ground
In its classical form, a two-party
can be identified by three features:
Although a number of "minor" parties may exist, two parties
enjoy sufficient electoral and a parliamentary strength to
have a realistic chance of winning government power
The larger of the two parties is able to rule alone
(usually on the basis of a parliamentary majority);
the other party provides the opposition
Power alternates regularly between these
parties; both are "electable", the oppostion
serving as a "government in the wings"
Tradtional image of the UK politics is
that it is dominated by Two-party system
19th century was characterized by a
Conservative-Liberal two-party system
The archetype two-party system did exist
between Labour-Conservative from 1945-1970
The average election
gap being only 4%
By 1974-97 The UK had become a two-and-a-half-party systems.
This occurred as a result of significant shift in voting behaviour
associated with class dealignment and partisan dealignment
Conservative dominance of the 1980's and
1990's was largely a consequence of the
divided nature of the non-conservative vote
The labour party in decline, not only losing the support
of working class voters, but also being damaged by the
shrinkage of the "traditional" working class
A multiparty system
A multiparty system is a party system in which
more than two parties compete for power
Multiparty systems can be
defined by three factors:
No single party enjoys sufficient electoral or parliamentary
strength to have a realistic prospect of winning government
power alone. This means that the distinction between
"major" and "minor" parties oftern become irrelevant
Government tend to be either coaltion or minority
administraction. This can either create a bias in
favour of compromise and consensus-building or it
can lead to fractures and unstable government
Government power can shift both following
elections and between elections as coaltions
partnerships break down or are renegotiated
Since 1997, two-partyism in
the UK gave way to multiple or
overlapping party systems
Two-partyism continued to operate within
the Commons due to the election system
Two-partyism neveretheless suffered a major
blow with the 2010 GE led to a "hung" Parliament
and the formaulaiton of a coalition government
In 1974, there were 38 MPs from parties other
than Labour and the Conservatives. In 2010 there
were 85 MPs
This has happened for
a number of reasons
Devolution has made nationalist parties more
prominent, turning them from being "minor" westminster
parties into "major" parties in scotland and wales
The use of proportional electional systems for newly created bodies since 1997
has improved "third" and minor party representation, also underlining the extent to
which two-partyism was maintained by "first-past-the-post" elections
New issues have emerged that cut across traditional party-political battle
lines, such as Europe, the environment and war. This has given impetus to
parties such as UKIP, the Green Party aand especially in 2005, Respect
Example of Mutipartyism
European
Parliament- 10
party elected
Welsh assembly currently has a grand
coalition bettween Plaid Cymru and Labour
Nothern Ireland, power sharing
executive control of the Democratic
Unionists and Sinn Fein