District Magnitude Research Articles

Pilihan Sistem Pemilu Dan Potret Keterwakilan Perempuan

As a mechanism that turns voter preference into seats, the electoral system may have impact on women’s representation. Using qualitative methods through documentary study and analysis based on national vote recapitulation data, it is known that the simultaneous electoral system in Indonesia in 2019 provides a separate dilemma for women’s representation. Based on national recapitulation data, it is known that the potential of women elected in 2019 rose to 20.52 percent. However, this increase cannot be classified as a significant increase because elected women are still dominated by those from elite kinship. In addition, several elements of the electoral system such as the time of implementation, the district magnitude, the used of Pure Sainte Lague Formula and the stagnation of the affirmation policy make women have to work harder in the electoral districts to get as many votes as possible according to the laws of the Sainte Lague Pure formula. Therefore, this study suggests a commitment between political elements to be able to create a female- friendly electoral system so that the meaningful and substantive women representation can be achieved. In doing so, I recommend to consider the closed-PR List System and a voluntary gender quota within the party as the next electoral engineering.

Personalism or party platform? Gender quotas and women's representation under different electoral system orientations.

Underrepresentation of women in politics is a matter of great concern to social scientists, citizens, and policymakers alike. Despite effort over the past decade to ameliorate it with gender quotas of different types, scientific research provides a mixed picture on the extent to which quotas can close these gender gaps under different conditions. We approach this puzzle by focusing on the orientation of electoral systems—candidate-centered vs. platform-centered—as a context that conditions the effect of quotas on representation. Our analyses of 76 countries’ electoral rules and legislatures show that contrary to expectations, it is in candidate-oriented systems that quotas facilitate stronger effect on women’s representation. Even after considering proportional representation, district magnitude, human development, or labor-force participation as alternative explanations, we show that quotas foster greater increases in gender representation in candidate-oriented systems. The broader implications are that in electoral systems that tend to have larger gender gaps, quotas have a substantial contribution to equal representation.

Electoral Reform & Strategic Voting in Chilean Legislative Elections

ABSTRACT This paper examines the effects of Chile's 2015 electoral reform, which increased the magnitude of districts in Chile's lower legislative chamber from two to between three and eight. This increase in district magnitude allows for a convenient ‘natural experiment’: post-reform voters should strategically vote at lower levels than pre-reform voters. I find strong evidence that voters have responded to Chile's electoral reform by engaging in less party-level strategic voting. However, I surprisingly find no evidence that the reform has decreased strategic voting for Chile's pre-electoral pacts. This study demonstrates that Chile's electoral reform is already affecting voter behaviour and is doing so in line with theoretical expectations.

District magnitude, electoral coordination, and legislative fragmentation

ABSTRACT Theories of party systems suggest that more restrictive rules should lead to fewer parties. According to this line of reasoning, parties and voters should strategically respond to reforms in electoral rules, such as changes in district magnitude. That is, a decrease in district magnitude should decrease the size of the party system, whereas an increase in magnitude should enlarge the party system. Using a series of difference-in-differences models based on data from Brazilian municipalities before and after an exogenous reform in magnitude, I study the effects of this electoral reform on both electoral coordination and legislative fragmentation. Contrary to the expectation, the number of lists did not change after a decrease in magnitude. However, parties formed more pre-electoral coalitions in municipalities that lost seats. Voters also coalesced around fewer lists. Lastly, as expected, the reform produced a decrease in legislative fragmentation. Both mechanical and psychological effects were responsible for this modification in fragmentation.

Ballot structure, district magnitude and descriptive representation: the case of New Zealand local council elections

ABSTRACT It is sometimes claimed that the use of preferential voting facilitates more effective representation of under-represented groups than that generated by the first-past-the-post (FPP) system, particularly in combination with higher district magnitude. This claim is tested using unique observational data. Local government elections in New Zealand are conducted using either the single transferable vote (STV) or first-past-the-post, providing the opportunity to compare representation of women and Indigenous Māori across the two sets of councils. When combined with higher district magnitude, STV may sometimes promote the election of women, but has no effects on the election of Māori. The advantages of high district magnitude STV in promoting descriptive representation are counteracted by lack of coordination in candidate nomination and voting because these local electoral contests are predominantly nonpartisan.

Effects of Ballot Type and District Magnitude on Local Public Goods Bill-Initiation Behavior: Evidence from Honduras:

An influential literature predicts that incentives to provide local public goods are conditioned by how electoral systems expose a legislator to the need to seek a personal vote. Carey and Shugart ...

District magnitude and electoral mobilization: how uneven electoral systems shift the focus of campaign efforts by political parties

AbstractThis paper shows how an uneven electoral system in Japan shapes political parties' mobilization strategies by utilizing a majoritarian electoral system with heterogeneous district magnitudes, which in turn contributes to the gap in turnout across districts. Scholars have long debated the relationship between electoral systems and turnout; it is known that countries with proportional representation electoral systems – those with larger district magnitude – tend to have higher turnout rates than countries with majoritarian electoral systems, especially single-member district (SMD) systems. The current discussion on turnout and district magnitude of an electoral system assumes a monotonic relationship between these factors: the larger the district magnitude of the electoral system, the more (or less) participatory the electorate, due to competitiveness and mobilization efforts by political parties and other relevant groups. In contrast, this paper shows a mixed relationship between district magnitude of the electoral system and party mobilization and subsequent turnout, investigating a majoritarian electoral system with uneven district magnitude in the Japanese Upper House. During the survey period, the party system in Japan consisted of two major parties and a few smaller parties; consequently, the two major parties focused their efforts on SMDs in order to maximize their seat share, while smaller parties focused their resource on districts electing more than two members (where they have some chance to elect their party's candidates). In combination, these party strategies have resulted in the lowest mobilization and turnout rates in districts with two members.

BANG FOR THE BUCK: BRAZIL'S ELECTORAL AND POLITICAL FINANCING RULES FROM A GENDERED PERSPECTIVE

The following paper discusses gender and campaign financing, using the Brazilian case as to demonstrate how these factors, combined with the electoral system, affect women's success in elections. Brazil is a strong example because it uses a proportional representation system with open list, federalism, and large district magnitudes. This results in a large number of individualistic campaigns. Data from state and federal elections (2002-2018) was collected and analysed, with the introduction of a new measure, amount spent per vote. The results show that women do not benefit as much as men from an incumbent bump, and that funding is better distributed among men, leaving a few elite women as likely winners. Overall, elected women spend 22% more than elected men per vote on their path to office. This partly explains, along with the other factors analysed throughout the paper, the gender gap in Brazilian political representation.

Institutions or the Societal Setting? Explaining Invalid Voting in Local Elections in Sweden

Research on invalid voting has expanded over the past few years. Scholars largely agree on the most important determinants of invalid voting, foremost compulsory voting, quality of democracy, and ballot structure. However, disagreement prevails concerning several factors; more exactly, whether the effect is positive or negative. We examine determinants of invalid voting in the four most recent local elections in a single country, Sweden, all municipalities included. Applying a subnational research design allows us to control for several determinants that have been reported to be of significance in explaining varying levels of invalid voting, and, consequently, to examine factors with theoretically contradictory directions of effects. Two theoretical models of invalid voting are tested, an institutional and a societal model, each consisting of four variables. The latter explains considerably more of the variation in the dependent variable than the former. The most important determinant is education: higher levels of education among the population decrease the share of invalid votes. Concerning the institutional model, only district magnitude significantly affects the dependent variable, indicating that larger district magnitude depresses invalid voting. However, the effect disappears when societal variables are included, due to higher levels of education among the population in municipalities with high district magnitudes. Proportion of the electorate born abroad also significantly affects levels of invalid voting; higher proportions decrease invalid voting. We suggest that this is a consequence of political sophistication, interest, and being politically informed combined with who decides to vote and who decides to abstain amongst immigrants.

Electoral Rules and New Parties: Evidence from a Quasi‐experimental Design

Electoral rules are a crucial institutional factor shaping the entry and success of new parties. However, testing how they affect voting behavior is problematic when using observational data in cross-national studies. As district magnitude is usually correlated with politically salient features affecting the likelihood of voting for new (and small) parties, the latent support of small parties differs across electoral systems. Using a quasi-experimental design in Spain focused on the district viability of a new party,Vox, in two elections held within 196 days, I provide a more robust estimate of the impact of electoral systems on the success of new parties. Strong evidence that the electoral system makes a difference for new parties has been identified: strategic considerations found in the districts whereVoxwas not successful prevented a significant number of voters from supporting the party.

Permissibility of Electoral Systems: A New Look at an Old Question

Permissibility of electoral systems, and in particular the conversion of voices in the electorate to the legislature, is broadly considered to depend on the number of seats per district (district magnitude) in a country. Yet the most prevalent electoral system in the democratic world, proportional representation with districts, is often characterized by an almost entirely overlooked variation: within the same country districts vary in their magnitude, sometimes by a factor of 20. How does such variation affect permissibility of electoral systems? Drawing on a broad cross-section of democracies, we demonstrate that contrary to what the literature implicitly assumes, other things equal, a combination of large and small districts results in greater permissibility than a set of districts of similar magnitude. We find that where districts are of similar (different) magnitude the degree of permissibility is lower (higher) than that found by current literature.

Electoral incentives for territorial representation in the European Parliament

ABSTRACT While many citizens are indifferent about the EU, most MEPs are invisible in national politics and European Parliament elections are not fought based on parliamentary activity records, some legislators still pursue territorial interests or foster constituency linkages. What explains such behavior? Drawing on written questions data from the 6th and the 7th terms of the European Parliament (EP) this article shows that despite the virtual absence of an electoral connection in EP elections, electoral system features, and electoral marginality influence the MEPs’ engagement in geographical representation. Electorally marginal MEPs ask more questions on regional and national topics as do MEPs elected from STV systems. There is no evidence for a differential effect of district magnitude depending on ballot structure.

‘It’s a Long Way from Kuusamo to Kuhmo’: Mapping Candidates’ Electoral Constituencies in the Finnish Open-List Single Preference Voting System

This article seeks an insight into the nature of intraparty competition in an open-list single preference voting system, and it does so by analysing the distribution of votes for Centre Party candidates in the 40 or so municipalities making up the northern Finnish constituency of Oulu in each of the five general elections between 2003 and 2019. It builds on Grofman’s distinction between a geographical constituency and a candidate’s electoral constituency to map the ecology of candidate support in a constituency with (1) a larger than average district magnitude (M); (2) a significantly larger than average territorial magnitude (T); and (3) a substantially larger than average Centre party magnitude (P). Setting M, T and P within a party organisational framework, the article identifies (1) a significant disparity between levels of intraparty competition at district and sub-district levels; (2) several contextual factors that act more as disincentives than incentives to engage in personal vote seeking across the electoral district.

Multi-level muddling: Candidate strategies to “nationalize” local elections

Comparative literature has identified how political parties at subnational levels strategically refer to the performance of parties or policy issues at national level to varying degrees. Building upon these studies on multi-level electoral dynamics, the article demonstrates how individual legislative candidates, and not just parties, selectively adopt what we call “cross-level electoral appeals”(CLEAs): campaign messages which emphasize issues, performances, and actors in levels of government other than that which the candidate or party is seeking office. Advancing existing conceptualizations of nationalization, we posit that there are mainly three types of such CLEAs, those in which local candidates: 1) praise or criticize a specific national policy or 2) performance of the national government; or 3) emphasize personal linkages to national-level parties or politicians. The article investigates the potential factors which lead to more frequent CLEAs by observing candidate manifestos for local legislative elections in Japan. We use an original dataset from a sample of prefectures differently affected by specific national policies, candidates affiliated to parties differing in organizational centralization and from districts varying in seat magnitude as well as incumbent party popularity. To test hypotheses about national and local level party popularity as well as district-level variables on the frequency of such appeals, the article analyzed the data set using the novel methodology of not just counting, but also measuring the surface area of specific appeals in candidate manifestos. Through regression analysis, we find evidence of national government party popularity leading to more frequency of local candidate CLEAs. We also find that local candidates who are more dependent on the party vote (i.e. those in smaller district magnitudes and in centralized party organizations) are more prone to certain types of CLEAs.

Multi-seat Districts and Larger Assemblies Produce More Diverse Racial Representation

This study considers the relationship between three key components of electoral systems and racial representation in legislative office. Recent scholarship in comparative politics has shown that these components — the number of seats being contested per district (district magnitude), the size of an assembly or council, and the rules that allocate seats from votes (electoral formula) — are jointly predictive of the number of political parties that contest and win seats in national legislatures. To test how well these institutions can account for racial representation as well, we examine election results from 159 ethno-racially diverse cities in 13 U.S. states and three more countries (Australia, Ireland, and the Netherlands) from 2010 – 2019. We find that larger assembly sizes and district magnitudes are associated, both separately and jointly, with larger numbers of parties seating candidates of color. Our results suggest that these basic electoral system features should figure more prominently into U.S. debates about electoral reform.

Towards an Electoral Union? National Electoral Models, Strategies, and Effects at the 2019 EP Election

Since 1999, all member states have employed some form of proportional representation to elect representatives in the European Parliament. The introduction of Spitzenkandidaten and greater policy and campaigning coordination within Europarties sought to create a common European ground of party competition. However, the actual election of MEPs remains a national endeavor, determined by a national electoral framework. The electoral success of an Europarty in a given member state is shaped by the conditions set by the national electoral model for European elections. Different national models also give rise to different electoral strategies employed by parties wishing to maximize their number of MEPs. While electoral alliances might reflect cooperation of ideologically similar parties (such as list combinations in the Netherlands) or presidential majorities, like the coalition list of parties that support the French President, sometimes, especially in newer member states (e.g., Croatia), they might represent a strategic choice of ideologically divergent parties to work together in order to pass the threshold and win seats in the European Parliament. This paper seeks to compare different national playing grounds in which Europarties, i.e., their member parties compete, as well as electoral strategies that accompany such different frameworks. Apart from Ireland and Malta, which use the single transferable vote system, all other (current) member states use list proportional representation. However, the choice of a national electoral district or division in regional electoral constituencies can have a significant impact on electoral outcomes. Further, the employment of an electoral threshold and its interaction with district magnitude can create different electoral conditions. Finally, methods of seat allocation have an impact on prospects of smaller parties. A comparison of national electoral models will uncover different conditions and levels of (dis)proportionality that all weave together into the ultimate makeup of the European Parliament.

District Magnitude and Female Representation: Evidence from Argentina and Latin America

AbstractWe claim that the overall effect of district magnitude on female representation is ambiguous because district magnitude increases both (a) party magnitude—which promotes the election of women, and (b) the number of lists getting seats—which hampers it, as marginal lists are usually headed by men. For identification, we exploit the fact that the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and the Buenos Aires legislature elect half of their members every two years, and thus some districts have varying magnitudes in concurrent and midterm elections. We find a positive but weak effect of district magnitude on female representation, which can be decomposed into a positive effect driven by party magnitude and a negative one channeled by the number of lists getting seats. We find similar results in a sample of seven Latin American countries.

Dynamic services, district magnitude, and the trilemma of the service economy

Advanced welfare countries have faced a mix of policy constraints regarding employment growth, income equality, and budget discipline in managing the challenges of deindustrialization, often dubbed as the trilemma of the service economy. Yet, puzzlingly enough, there are some welfare countries that could choose policy options outside of these policy constraints in their responses to deindustrialization. This article argues that the source of this derestricting capacity can be found in the size of electoral district and the level of development in dynamic service sectors. Using the Service Economy Trilemma Index (STI), the author propounds that the expansion of dynamic services in the economy has differential effects on the combined performance in employment, income equality, and budget discipline conditional on the district magnitude. The findings of this article show that countries with large electoral districts and well-developed dynamic service sectors are better able to derestrict policy constraints in the age of deindustrialization.

A Clarity Model of District Representation: District Magnitude and Pork Priorities

Carey and Shugart's important personal vote seeking model has long dominated literature on electoral rules and district representation. Empirical support for the model is somewhat mixed, however. We think one reason may be that its applicability depends on the type of district‐focused representation. We present an alternative “clarity model,” drawing from Lancaster, that may work better for one specific type of district‐targeted representation—pork provision. The clarity model posits district magnitude should be linked to less pork regardless of ballot type because it limits clarity of responsibility for pork outcomes. Legislators not directly responsible for goods and services allocated to the district can still claim credit for them in high magnitude districts. We test this theory with elite survey data on legislators' priorities toward pork provision in 14 Latin American and 10 Western Europe democracies and find empirical support for a clarity theory of pork priorities.

Competing Principals? Legislative Representation in List Proportional Representation Systems

AbstractWe develop a new framework to study legislative representation in list proportional representation (PR) systems. Our model studies a legislator's incentives to balance the competing interests of party leaders and local voters under a variety of list PR systems. We consider open and closed lists, as well as flexible lists—in which both rank assignments and preference votes determine the order in which seats are filled. We find that more flexibility can worsen local representation. List flexibility also acts as a key mediator of the effect of voter partisanship on party cohesion. And, our analysis reveals that higher district magnitude encourages representatives to toe the party line under all ballot systems.