In comparative political analysis, evidence supporting difference is almost always another difference between two comparisons.
The United States has a two-party system where the Democrats and Republicans dominate political culture with little interference from independent parties. This duopoly, as it is referred, has been the essence of American electoral history. There are conditions which have been developed to identify the two-party system: .
1. Two parties are in a position to compete for an absolute majority of seats in Congress.
2. One of the parties wins a sufficient majority.
3. One of the two parties controls the presidency.
4. Alteration and rotation in power between the two parties remains a credible expectation. 1 .
.
The United States party system follows the above conditions almost flawlessly. The Democrats and the Republicans compete for the majority of seats in congress. At times the state of the governmental process in the United States can have the two houses controlled by the same party, while having the Presidency controlled by a different one. This can lead to gridlock, because the passing of legislature is near impossible in this situation. The two party system can be understood by three general ideologies: institutional, cultural and consensual. These three ideologies can explain how and why the American's use such a system taken that most "first past the post' systems are two-party systems. With this in mind, proportional representation would result in a multi-party system. This does not follow through in the case of France, as it is a multi-party system which also uses a plurality, winner takes all electoral system. This could not be used as a reason for why the two systems differ. "The American election system offers no reward of office to any but the plurality winner and, so the theory goes, thus discourages the chronic minority parties."2 Contrasting this with a proportional representation system, the chronic minority party would be facilitated and proliferation would be attainable.
