of a company are not achieved mainly in one economy. For this reason the
European Union (EU)is seen by many as a necessary device—a multi-
national government to counter multinational companies. The European
Company Statute of 1990, for example, outlining uniform standards of
accountability and so on, was intended to make for greater control of business
practice, at least within the EU boundaries. Nothing obvious can be done,
however, to protect those countries, the economically very weakThird
Worldnations, who are most often seen as vulnerable to the power of huge
multinational companies, whose annual budgets can be nearly as large as those
of the countries in which they do business. This is in part the explanation for
the fierce opposition from many groups, including anarchists, to the summits
of the leading economic powers which characterized the beginning of the 21st
century. (See alsoglobalization.)
Multi-Party Systems
Party systems tend to be categorized by students ofcomparative govern-
mentusing a slightly unusual arithmetic. Obviously a multi-party system is a
political system in which there is more than one political party contesting
elections, but at which particular number a system becomes ‘multi’ is less clear.
The original divisions were between one-party states,two-party systems,
and ‘multi’. Even with this simple counting system odd results would emerge.
The United Kingdom, for example, in most early political science work was
seen as a two-party system, despite the fact that in the 20th century there have
always been at least three political parties represented in Parliament. There
have always been candidates of several political parties contesting the US
presidential elections, yet usually only the Republican and Democratic parties
have been seen as sufficiently important to be counted. Even with recent
‘third-party’ candidates winning significant levels of support, the USA prob-
ably remains a two-party system, at least at the federal level. However, whether
the UK, with a third party, the Liberal Democrats, getting up to one-quarter of
total votes, though usually being unable to alter the balance of power, can be
studied as a two-party system is less clear. This has led some commentators to
regard Britain as a ‘two-and-a-half’ party system. West Germany, on the other
hand, though it had, between the 1950s and 1983, only three parties in the
Bundestag, was seen as a full multi-party system because the small Free
Democratic Party (FDP) became a permanent coalition partner after 1969.
Since 1983, when the Green Party first gained representation in the Bundestag,
and 1990, when the first post-reunification general election was held, the
number of German parties has increased, although only the Greens have yet
played a part in coalition formation (seeGerman party system). At its most
Multi-Party Systems