重访和超越迪韦尔热:选举制度、社会裂隙与政党数量

Revisiting and Going Beyond Duverger: Electoral Rules, Social Cleavages, and the Number of Parties

自迪韦尔热以来,比较政治学对政党数量及其影响因素的探讨不断演进。“迪韦尔热定律”强调选举制度对政党数量的影响,揭示选民和政党精英的策略性行动为重要机制。后续研究聚焦于机制发生的条件性因素,修正并深化了该定律。“社会裂隙”概念的引入及对裂隙政治化的研究,挑战了制度主义解释带来政治社会学解释的勃兴。晚近交互模型的持续推进表明,社会裂隙是政党分化的根本动力,选举制度等因素调节其影响。未来研究可挖掘影响选民和精英策略性行为、社会裂隙政治化及其互动的因素,重视不同国家政党政治的情境性,改善社会裂隙的概念化和测量等,以推动和拓展这一研究议程。

The research agenda on the number of political parties that can be accommodated by a particular political body and its determinants has been evolving since Duverger’s classic study. Duverger’s Law emphasizes the impact of electoral rules and points out that strategic behaviors of voters and party elites are important mechanisms. Subsequent research focusing on the conditions of strategic behaviors has greatly revised and deepened the Duverger’s Law. The introduction of the concept of social cleavages and the study on the politicization of social cleavages challenge the institutionalist explanation for the number of parties, resulting in the rise and flourishing of the political sociological explanation. Recent studies of the interaction model demonstrate that social cleavages are the fundamental driving force of party system fractionalization, while the electoral rules and other factors moderate the effect of social cleavages. Future research can explore the factors that affect the strategic behaviors of voters and elites, the politicization of social cleavages, and their interactions, attach importance to the contexts of party politics in different countries, and improve the conceptualization and measurement of social cleavages, so as to promote and expand the research agenda.