The impact of using proportional representation system on the fragmentation of the party system in Algeria. Applied to the elections of the National People’s Assembly (1997–2017)

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of using proportional representation system on the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system within the period from 1997 to 2017, in which Algeria has experienced five legislative elections regularly every five years by testing a hypothesis about adopting the proportional representation system on the basis of the closed list during the foregoing legislative elections has obviously influenced the exacerbation of the Algerian party system’s fragmentation, compared to other factors. Design/methodology/approach - The essence of the theoretical framework of this study is to address the effect of the electoral system as an independent variable on the party system as a dependent variable. The starting point for that framework is to reassess the “Duverger’s law,” which appeared since the early 1950s and has influenced the foregoing relationship, and then to review the literature on a new phase that tried to provide a more accurate mechanism for determining the number of parties and their relative weight, whether in terms of electoral votes or parliamentary seats. This means that researchers began to use a measure called the effective number of parties (ENP) for Laakso and Taagepera since 1979. The study elaborates the general concepts of the electoral system and the party system. It used Laakso, Taagepera index of the “ENP” to measure the phenomenon of fragmentation party during the five legislative elections from 1997 to 2017 in Algeria. Findings - The results of the study reveal that the proportional representation electoral system – beside other factors – had clear impacts on the fragmentation of the Algerian party system by all standards, whether on the level of the apparent rise in the number of the parties represented in the Algerian parliament from 10 parties in 1997 election to 36 parties in 2017 election or according to the index of Laakso and Taagepera (ENP). The average number of effective number of electoral parties in the five elections was around 7.66, and the average number of effective number of parliamentary parties in the five elections was around 4.39, which puts Algeria in an advanced degree of the fragmentation of the party system. Originality/value - This study about the phenomenon of the fragmentation of the party system, which is one of the new subjects in the field of comparative politics – globally and in the Arab world. Hence, the value of this study aims to shed light on this mysterious area of science, the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system during the period from 1997 to 2017.