The number of autonomous regions and electoral competitiveness

Electoral data have been able to collapse into simple indicators that pretend to account for the observed distributions in a single piece of data, as is the case of the vote concentration-fragmentation indexes. However, there is no index free of problems. For this reason, we intend to advance in the definition of "families" of indicators that can give a fuller account of the phenomenon, which is why in this essay we propose a complementary indicator for the analysis of the effective number of parties in a system, which we call "number of autonomous parties" and which we will denote as Å, whose characteristics and specificities are analyzed in this text. Any effort to generate a unitary indicator that accounts for a complex phenomenon requires the use of reflective and analytical procedures that go beyond the elementary, but its exposition, if it intends to reach the bulk of the public eventually interested, must avoid the complex in order to achieve an accessibility that allows a simple reading of the text. We hope we have succeeded.

Autorentext
Mexican. Sociologist from UNAM, diploma in political analysis from UIA and in applied economics from ITAM. Awarded the "Juan F. Noyola" Political Economy Prize in 1981. Public opinion researcher. Executive President of ISA. Deputy Director of Revista Mexicana de Opinión Pública. Member of the boards of CEDE and SOMEE.