Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

SAGETRACK

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Party Politics
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sharman, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Uncontested Seats and the Evolution of Party Competition

The Australian Case

Campbell Sharman

Political Science Department, University of British Columbia, C472–1866 Main Mall, Vancouver BC, Canada V6T 1Z1csharman{at}interchange.ubc.ca

Representative democracy presumes competitive elections at which voters have a choice of candidates. This is consistent with the current nature of electoral campaigning, which is system-wide and embraces every opportunity for partisan competition. From this perspective, uncontested seats in parliamentary systems are associated with earlier stages of representative government before modern parties emerged. Yet a survey of Australian state and federal general elections since 1890 shows that uncontested seats persisted in most systems well after the establishment of the current party system and, in two states, until the 1980s. In examining various explanations for the existence of uncontested seats in parliamentary systems, the article finds that the nature of the electoral system, the characteristics of the party system and party organization are key factors. Given a single-member district electoral system, the pattern of uncontested seats can be used as an indicator of the evolution of the party system and the structure of partisan competition.

Key Words: Australia • candidate selection • electoral system • party competition • uncontested seats

Party Politics, Vol. 9, No. 6, 679-702 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/13540688030096002
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?