POLI 3546.2 book notes

Parties In Transition, Chapter 4
-Canada's FPP system should produce two-party politics, acc. Duverger's Law
-Canada has many parties (high electoral fractionalization) despite this
   Electoral Fractionalization: lots of parties
-Canada's parliament is not extremely fractionalized despite lots of electoral fractionalization
-In Canada, Gov't formed nationally but votes counted locally (me note: As opposed to..?)
   Local Bipartism, National Multipartism: On the local level Canadians elect on Bipartisan lines
   Not all locales have the same list of parties because of
      1. Decentralized nature of fed. gov't in Canada
      2. Weakness of Psychological Effect
         Electoral Systems Theory: Strong System induces strategic action to move the number of electoral parties into two roughly coequal blocks
         -Canada doesn't seem to do this
-Duverger's Law only works at Constituency level?
   -Coordination across locales requires some other force (centralization of policy agenda?)
   -Suggests bipartisan organization should happen at local levels
-The above is what is argued but seems to be false
   -Examination of delta# of Effective National Electoral Parties shows both extra-local AND local flux
-Canada's Liberal party holds the center, thus opposition rather than being split on two polarized extremes, is split between center and not-center, not-center being represented by TWO parties, one left and one right, as well as anti-system parties (extremes)
-Flux in electoral fractionalization can be explained by competition between NDP and Conservatives (mostly Conservatives) and anti-system parties that temporarily arise on the local and extra-local (but still regional) level