Are countries with a two-party system better off than countries that have 3 or more main political parties?

The reason I ask is because I'm from the Dominican Republic and we are experiencing something that could result in a system similar to the Republican and Democratic two-party system of the United States. We have had 3 main parties for a long time. The PRD, PLD and PRSC. The PRD is a center-left social democratic party, the PLD used to be a center-left party that has gravitated towards a center-right platform in the last decade, and the PRSC is a conservative populist party that is losing a lot of support so now many experts say it will be absorbed by the PLD. I think that the PRSC will disintegrate and we'll be left with 2 parties. Countries with 2 main parties...one center-left and the other center-right tend to be the most stable democracies. The U.S. is a good example of that. So do you think that this is a good thing for the Dominican Republic and its development?

Are countries with a two-party system better off than countries that have 3 or more main political parties?
Interesting question. There is no answer to this. It could go either way. It does depend on whether or not the majority rules.





With that said, there is the theory that with a 2 party system you have a better chance of the majority getting their will. If you have a 3rd party then the chance of the minority rule is possible. In the USA we had on election where we had 3 candidates. The one that won had a majority of barely 35%. The winner was Abraham Lincoln. The South felt that the majority did not have a say and they were write. At minimum we should have at least 51% votting in a winner. As a result, the South thought (this is more complex than what I am putting here but it is true and it did contribute to our nations woes) this was wrong and started the Civil War (1861-1865).





In that election almost 2/3s of the nations citizens did not get there say. Sooooooooooooooo.... a multi party system can work but there is a risk that it could end up with a minority winning.





Agin, this is a very complex subject and it would take a lot of writing to give it justice. However this will have to do.
Reply:I don't think there is any advantage to having three or more parties (as opposed to only two) with one exception. Sometimes the "minor" party has a great influence of the policies and laws adopted by the two major parties when those two parties are in power. A classic example exists in the U.S. The Socialist Party never elected a President in the U.S. None of their candidates ever got a single electoral vote. But, with the exception of two items, their 1928 political platform is the law of the land today.


The biggest problem I see in parliamentary democracies which have three or more parties is when they also have a proportional representation system in their parliaments where each party gets seats dependent on the percentage of the popular vote they got in the last election. This is in sharp contrast to the "first past by the post" system where the winner in each district election is given the seat. In the case of Israel, for example, it has been impossible for a single party to form a majority in their parliament, forcing the ruling party to bend to the will of very minor parties.