Multi-Party System

Multi-Party System, political system where more than one political party competes for power to govern a country. Such a pattern is regarded as democratic because it gives sections of the electorate the chance to vote for a political party that comes closest to their political persuasion and, perhaps more importantly, to expel or exclude others from power. Some commentators reserve the term multi-party for systems in which there are more than two parties competing for power.

Contemporary Britain has three main political parties: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats. Minor political parties include the nationalist groupings in Scotland and Wales—the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru respectively—and in Northern Ireland the Ulster Unionists, Sinn Féin, the Democratic Unionist Party, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Multi-party systems differ in their make-up. Historically, Germany under the Weimar Republic had nine to ten significant parties; the French Fourth Republic had six or seven; and many modern democratic African systems have a number of parties. The United States has two major parties: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Sometimes, as in the United Kingdom, smaller parties at a local level of government may have a regional rather than ideological or interest basis.

While a multi-party system provides plurality of choice, it can also provide unstable government. Depending on the electoral system, a multi-party system may produce governments where no single political party is clearly dominant, in which parties have to compromise on policies and majorities may be unreliable. Frequently, the resulting upheavals merely result in the reassembly of the previous coalition of parties with some reshuffling of personalities. Thus French and Italian politics since the late 20th century have been much more consistent in policy and personnel than the short lifespan of governments might otherwise suggest.