Effects Of Malapportionment Research Articles

The effects of malapportionment on economic development.

Does the unequal formal representation of people in legislatures (“malapportionment”) affect development? Answering this question is critical for assessing the welfare costs of malapportionment. We argue that representation might spur development as the desire for reelection incentivizes legislators to provide for their districts, and as voters hold politicians to account for doing so. Since this is the case, malapportionment might cause unequal development. Using data from India, we show that a 10% increase in representation causes a 0.6% increase in night lights, a frequently used proxy for development. Reapportionment, or the equalization for representation, attenuates this effect. Consistent with the theory, the effect of representation is larger in districts with legislators and voters that are able to hold the executive to account.

Effect of Malapportionment on Voter Turnout: Evidence from Japan's Upper House Elections

Malapportionment is a widely used tool of electoral manipulation in both authoritarian and democratic countries. Although its impact on electoral and policy outcomes has received considerable schol...

Determinantes das transferências fiscais para as unidades municipais: efeitos da representação desproporcional dos distritos eleitorais brasileiros

Resumo A representação desproporcional dos distritos eleitorais tem efetiva influência sobre a distribuição de recursos públicos em benefício das regiões sobrerrepresentadas, o que evidencia que os gastos públicos são dirigidos por fatores políticos e institucionais. Diante disso, o objetivo deste artigo é analisar os efeitos de fatores institucionais, notadamente da representação desproporcional no Poder Legislativo, nas transferências em direção aos municípios brasileiros. Empregou-se a técnica estatística de regressão econométrica com dados em painel, tendo como unidade de análise os municípios brasileiros no período de estudo de 2004 a 2014. Os resultados apontam expressivo efeito da desproporcionalidade representativa no Congresso Nacional nas despesas discricionárias federais e estaduais, o que demonstra que a estrutura da representação orienta as motivações políticas e as ações dos gestores públicos brasileiros.

The Effects of Malapportionment on Cabinet Inclusion: Subnational Evidence from India

Malapportionment doubly penalizes people from relatively large electoral districts or constituencies by under-representing them in the legislature and in the political executive or cabinet. The latter effect has not been studied. This article develops theoretical reasons for large constituency disadvantage in the cabinet formation process, and tests them using a new repeated cross-sectional dataset on elections and cabinet formation in India’s states, from 1977–2007. A one-standard-deviation increase in relative constituency size is associated with a 22 per cent fall in the probability of a constituency’s representative being in the cabinet. Malapportionment affects cabinet inclusion by causing large parties to focus on winning relatively small constituencies. These effects are likely to hold in parliamentary systems, and in other contexts where the legislature influences cabinet inclusion.

Measuring the Malapportioned Effects of Redistricting in Korea

This study measures the effects of malapportionment in the 17th (2004) and the 18th (2008) National Assembly elections in Korea, using the unequal weighted index (UWI) and the Loosemore-Hanby (L-H) index. The ratio between the most-populous district (MPD) and the least-populous district (LPD) increased from 2.80:1 in the 17th election to 2.96:1 in the 18th election. The number of districts close to the national average population decreased in the 18th election in terms of the UWI. The L-H index of the single-member district (SMD) system increased from 3.68 to 4.10. Changes in these figures indicate that the effects of malapportionment became worse in the 18th than in the 17th election. But an observation was made of the fact that the adoption of the proportional representation (PR) system slightly mitigated the malapportioned effects caused by the SMD system alone. In order to decrease malapportionment in Korea, revision of redistricting mechanisms should include establishing an independent Electoral Redistricting Commission (ERC), setting the population criterion below 2:1 between the MPD and the LPD, adopting redistricting technologies to increase compactness of districts, and enhancing the roles of judicial institutions and social civic groups.

Malapportionment in Norway's parliamentary elections since 1921

Knowles, R. D. 1981. Malapportionment in Norway's parliamentary elections since 1921. Norsk geogr. Tidsskr. Vol. 35, 147–159. Oslo. ISSN 0029-1951. A number of recent studies have analysed malapportionment in countries using single member constituencies. Malapportionment in countries using multi-member constituencies has been neglected. In Norway, despite the use of multi-member constituencies, serious malapportionment has occurred at each general election to the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) since 1921. The scale of malapportionment is identified and reasons are suggested for its occurrence and continuation in spite of redistributions of seats in 1953 and 1973. Finally, possible political effects of malapportionment are identified.

Malapportionment and Public Policy in the States

C OMMENTATORS ON STATE POLICY have often implied that malapportionment seriously affects the policy choices of state legislatures. In the literature on state politics it is frequently argued that there are important policy differences between urban and rural constituencies and that malapportionment, by over-representing rural interests, grants them a real advantage in policy-making.' It is also frequently predicted that reapportionment on a population basis will bring about noticeable shifts in many state policies.2 Malapportionment of state legislatures has been successfully challenged on the grounds that it denies to the citizens equal protection of the laws.3 This challenge was essentially a normative one, stemming from deeply held values about political equality.4 The merits of of this type of challenge do not lend themselves to empirical verification. However, statements about the effect of malapportionment on public policy, and predictions about the policy consequences of reapportionment, can be tested empirically. Such tests, of course, in no way reflect upon the moral quality of the proposition as nearly