where the choice of who should be the Democratic candidate was at issue, was
the only effective election. (Many of the states concerned are now more
balanced, even tending towards support for the Republicans, partly as a result
of the strong links between that party and influential Christian groups.) The
counting of how many parties there are, in any meaningful sense, in a party
system is in fact more complicated than it seems (seemulti-party systems).
Single Transferable Vote (STV)
Many methods ofproportional representation, but particularly theparty
list system, require a legal and constitutional recognition of political parties,
and indeed are centred upon fairness to the parties, but diminish the ability of
voters to express their preferences for individual candidates, and weaken the
links ofrepresentative democracybetween elected and electors. In some
political cultures, notably Anglo-American, these tendencies are disliked and
have met with resistance. There the desire is fully to reflect the preferences of
individual voters for individual candidates. The most usual method of propor-
tional representation which takes into account these views is the single
transferable vote, used, for example, in elections in the Republic of Ireland.
Here the notion of a ‘wasted vote’ is taken even more seriously than in other
methods. Multi-member constituencies are required, and a quota of votes is
calculated by dividing the total number of votes cast by the number of
candidates to be elected. Not only can second and subsequent preferences of
the least successful candidates be redistributed (as in thealternative vote
system), but also a proportionally-adjusted number of alternative preferences
from the ‘excess’ votes of candidates who have achieved the necessary quota.
STV is probably the voting system which allows the vote of an individual to
have its maximum effect in achieving the election of their most favoured
candidates, and guarantees a close approximation to proportionality.
Social Capital
Social capital is a concept that has been known in the social sciences for
decades, but it has recently changed its meaning and become freshly significant.
Originally social capital was mostly applied to the sociology of education. It
referred to the many connections and experiences of the more fortunate in
society which had aided their successes, in addition to their more straightfor-
ward financial or ‘economic capital’ advantages. There is no connection
whatsoever between this meaning and the current usage of social capital in
political science and development studies. It now refers to a set of rather
intangible social or collective attributes that make for stable and effective
political systems. It is allied to the renewed interest intrust, and to other
Single Transferable Vote (STV)