When studying party system change over time, it is tempting to use as indicators one or several of the existing measures of fractionalization and concentration. If these measures are used to study change, they will often be misleading because of their inability to discriminate among even very different diachronic patterns. Seven indicators are tested on a hypothetical set of data, and all of them fail to reflect typical patterns of change. Thus if students of party systems want to study the general phenomenon of party system stability or change, they should preferably use other types of measures. An indicator of aggregate volatility is shown to satisfy the requirements of a good indicator of party system change.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ALKER, H. R., Jr. (1965) Mathematics and Politics. New York: Macmillan.
2.
ALKER, H. R., Jr. and B. M. RUSSETT (1964) “On measuring inequality.”Behavioral Sci.9: 207–218.
3.
ASCHER, W. and S. TARROW (1975) “The stability of Communists electorates: evidence from a longitudinal analysis of French and Italian aggregate data.”Amer. J. of Pol. Sci.19: 475–499.
4.
BORRE, O. (1979) “Ustabilitet ved parlamentsvalg i fire nordiske lande 1950–77, ” in M. N. Pedersen (ed.) Dansk Politiki 1970 ‘erne. Copenhagen: Samfundsvidenskabeligt Forlag.
5.
DAUDT, H. (1961) Floating Voters and the Floating Vote. Leiden: H. E. Stenfert Kroese N. V.
6.
FLANAGAN, S. C. (1971) “The Japanese system in transition.”Comparative Politics3: 231–254.
7.
GALTUNG, J. P. (1967) Theory and Methods of Social Research. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
8.
GREENBERG, J. H. (1956) “The measurement of linguistic diversity.”Language32: 109–115.
9.
HALL, M. and N. TIDEMAN (1967) “Measures of concentration.”J. of the Amer. Stat. Assn.62: 162–168.
10.
KESSELMAN, M. (1966) “French local politics: a statistical examination of grass roots consensus.”Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev.60: 963–974.
11.
MAYER, L. (1972) “An analysis of crosscutting and fragmentation.”Comparative Politics4: 405–417.
12.
MILDER, N. D. (1974) “Definitions and measures of the degree of macro-level party competition in multiparty systems.”Comparative Pol. Studies6: 431–456.
13.
PEDERSEN, M. N. (1979) “The dynamics of European party systems: changing patterns of electoral volatility.”European J. of Pol. Research7: 1–26.
14.
PRZEWORSKI, A. (1975) “Institutionalization of voting patterns, or is mobilization the source of decay?’ Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev. 69: 49–67.
15.
RAE, D., Jr. (1971) “Comment on Wildgen's the measurement of hyperfractionalization.’”Comparative Pol. Studies4: 244–245.
16.
RAE, D., Jr. (1967) The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
17.
RAE, D., Jr. and M. TAYLOR (1970) The Analysis of Political Cleavages. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
18.
ROSE, R. and D. URWIN (1970) “Persistence and change in Western party systems since 1945.”Pol. Studies18: 287–319.
19.
SAMUELSON, P. A. (1947) Foundations of Economic Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
20.
SARTORI, G. (1976) Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis, Vol. I. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
21.
VARYNEN, R. (1972) “Analysis of party systems by concentration, fractionalization, and entropy measures.”Scandinavian Pol. Studies7: 137–155.
22.
WELFLING, M. (1970) Political Institutionalization: Comparative Analysis of African Party Systems. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
23.
WILCOX, A. R. (1973) “Indices of qualitative variation and political measurement.”Western Pol. Q.26: 325–343.
24.
WILDGEN, J. K. (1971) “The measurement of hyperfractionalization.”Comparative Pol. Studies4: 233–243.
25.
WOLINETZ, S. B. (1978) “Stabilita e mutamento nei sistemi partitici dell'Europa Occidentale.”Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica8: 3–55.
