Those of you that read either Not Little England or voting_taktix will recall that I mentioned Maurice Duverger a few times, and I also referred to him in my I should write about politics more post in, um, February. He is, undoubtedly

one of the more famous political scientists of the twentieth century, and pretty much the founding father of modern electoral systems study

And to commemorate his birthday, baseballchica03 explains why. Go read and discuss a bit, definitely something worth understanding more about, especially if you're involved in electoral politics on either side of the pond.