Majoritarian Electoral Systems Research Articles

Executive recruitment and the role of institutional factors: explaining profiles of regional presidents in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT We employ a comparative analysis of heads of regional executives in two similar countries with different regional political subsystems. In Slovakia, governors operate under a system of separation of powers, are directly elected through a majoritarian electoral system and are not answerable to regional assemblies. In the Czech Republic, governors are elected by the regional assemblies (therefore indirectly) and can be removed from office by a no-confidence motion. Our results suggest that direct elections tend to produce fewer female governors and empower non-affiliated (non-party) outsiders; the share of regional governors without prior political experience is not affected by the formal institutional rules.

The Effects of Import Shocks, Electoral Institutions, and Radical Party Competition on Legislator Ideology: Evidence from France

Abstract Across advanced industrialized democracies, the political centre is collapsing as politicians on the far right and far left enjoy increasing electoral success. Recent research links import shocks to voter support for far-right parties. However, we know comparatively less about how these shocks impact individual legislator ideology, especially that of mainstream politicians. Do import shocks drive economic or cultural ideological shifts among mainstream legislators? If so, to what extent do local competitive contexts shape these shifts? Using a dataset of French Senate roll call votes, we find that localized increases in import exposure moves elite ideology to the left economically; this is magnified in departments with majoritarian electoral systems. We show that legislators shift their cultural positions in response to import shocks, but only when faced with extremist political competitors focused on cultural issues. Our results suggest the value of attending to how political and economic geography intersect to shape elite policy positions.

Consolidation nations: Public attitudes, electoral institutions, and fiscal rules in the European Union

We know relatively little about democratic responsiveness on fiscal policy, an area in which both bond markets and European Union (EU) rules constrain European governments' freedom of action. Has their adoption of fiscal responsibility laws (FRLs)—a politically appealing mechanism to restrain deficit spending—in recent decades been the result of their heeding public opinion or ignoring it? Our analysis finds a mixed picture: the strengthening of FRLs generally occurred in the presence of public support for debt reduction, but this public opinion effect is stronger in countries with more majoritarian electoral systems than those with more proportional systems. And although elections induce attentiveness to public attitudes, election proximity did not have a meaningful effect on governments' responsiveness to the public's fiscal preferences. Our explanation for this finding emphasizes the durability of support for debt reduction and political parties' greater sensitivity to median voter positions in more majoritarian electoral systems. These findings deepen our understanding of both austerity politics and democratic performance in Europe, affirming a degree of responsiveness that would be tested in the event of a future debt crisis.

Electoral System Reform and the Politics of Policy Change

As women’s participation in the workforce expands, many countries seek to reform child care support by changing the gender division of labor. Japan also attempted universalistic child care support reforms, though these were not always successful. The electoral reforms of the 1990s prompted the major political parties to make universalistic reforms, and the major party leaders advocated similar ideas. Still, they failed to extend benefits to all children. Agreement on the expansion of funding was particularly challenging. By analyzing coalition formation within and among political parties, I show that the electoral reform led to stiff competition, which made it difficult for parties to agree. The change to a majoritarian electoral system not only intensified inter-party rivalry but also made it difficult to persuade intra-party groups that perceived a threat to their electoral success.

민주주의 후퇴 인식의 이념적 편향성

Analyzing a public survey dataset, this study examines how ordinary citizens perceive democratic backsliding and to what extend their evaluations are ideologically biased in Korea. It shows that most respondents believe that Korean democracy is in retreat and that it has become the worst since the Yoon’s administration. In addition, they attribute its responsibility to undemocratic behavior of various political actors, including the president and his presidential office, the prosecutors’ office, political parties, the media, the ultra-right civil organizations, and severe income gap, rather than the majoritarian electoral system and political culture. It is also notable that public perception of democratic backsliding depends on their ideological orientations, which are notable toward the most recent administrations. Empirical test results show that the more conservative they are, the stronger their belief that democracy has retreated the most during the Moon Jae-In administration rather than other administrations. Based on these findings, this study claims that more efforts are needed to evaluate the current issues of democracy without ideological bias, along with sincere awareness of the overwhelming public concern that Korean democracy is retreating, and rehabilitate democracy.

Partisan districting and the adoption of proportional representation: gerrymandering and its discontents

AbstractElectoral engineering strategies in majoritarian electoral systems, in particular the possibility to contain insurgent parties by manipulating electoral districts for partisan gain, are key determinants of parties’ positions on the adoption of proportional representation (PR). Providing both qualitative and quantitative evidence, this paper demonstrates that partisan districting can be an effective strategy to protect incumbent parties’ dominant political positions. In addition, it shows how insurgent parties push for the adoption of PR to end the practice of partisan districting. Finally, it demonstrates that incumbents – in the face of increasing electoral threats – cling to the existing majoritarian system if partisan districting allows them to influence vote-seat distortions in their favor. Together, these findings suggest that the possibility to contain insurgent parties by means of partisan districting is an important but overlooked alternative to the adoption of PR. Moreover, by demonstrating that vote-seat distortions moderate the relationship between district-level electoral threats and legislators’ support for PR adoption, this paper offers an important corrective to Stein Rokkan’s influential electoral threat thesis.

Winner-takes-all Majoritarian System and Irregularities in Six Election Cycles in Nigeria, 1999 – 2019

The argument that Nigerian elections are characterized by electoral irregularities since the commencement of present democratic engagement in 1999 has not been sufficiently subjected to an analytical procedure to embrace the six Nigerian election cycles. The unsettled question of irregularities that have consistently dominated elections in Nigeria is interrogated in this study. The study situates the problem within the context of winner-takes-all majoritarian electoral system (MES) and queries the implementation of the MES-driven model in an environment of do-or-die politics, weak electoral institution, and 'glorification' of clandestine electoral strategies. It further argues that the model reinforces politicians’ use of subtle strategies to increase their odds of victory and pay less or not attention to their detrimental consequences on democratic development. The study is underpinned on personal experience as active participants in Nigerian elections and available textual documents. The analysis of data supports the argument that MES-model is poorly implemented in Nigeria and promotes the crude perception of politics as a zero-sum do-or-die contest. The present deplorable state of democracy in Nigeria is a function of irregularities and their consequential composites: life-taking elections, election disputes, and voter apathy, which has been in a downward fall since 2003. These findings suggest the need for voter-driven electoral reform that will reduce tension during elections and encourage inclusivity in Nigeria. The reform should be able to institutionalize Nigeria’s electoral body and check government interference in its activities, reduce the present huge election spending, ensure proportionate distribution of votes/positions, and make public offices less financially attractive.

Криза парламентської демократії та спроби її подолання в Другій Речі Посполитій у 1924-1926 рр.

The purpose of the article is to study the crisis period in the process of establish- ing parliamentary democracy in the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1924-1926. Research methodology. General scientifi c complex research methods (empirical, comparative, theoretical, analysis method) are applied. In the process of research, the authors were guided by the principles of historicism, objectivism and systematicity, thanks to which the source and historiographical material processed and involved in this scientifi c investigation is reliable and representative. The scientifi c novelty of the article is determined by the fact that the authors have made an attempt to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the positions of the leading Polish political parties towards the current model of parliamentary democracy, as well as their proposals for its reform. Conclusions. Th e article highlights the political debate in the Polish po- litical space regarding overcoming the crisis of parliamentary democracy through the reform of the electoral legislation and the Constitution of 1921. The party debate on issues of state and the legal system of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1924–1926. The main propos- als for reforming Polish statehood are characterized. It was found that most of the Polish political parties considered the lack of conditions for the creation of a stable parliamentary majority to be the main problem of the crisis in the country’s public life, which would facilitate the imple- mentation of a consistent and long-term government policy. At the same time, the principle of proportional representation, the practice of which led to the emergence of an unreasonably large number of parliamentary factions, was considered the most important drawback of electoral law. One of the proposed options for overcoming the crisis was a transition to a majoritarian electoral system, which would favor large parties and the creation of a strong parliamentary majority and a government based on it.

Broadcasting party information: Can the introduction of community radio reduce the effective number of parties?

The introduction of a more majoritarian electoral system is expected to result in the consolidation of a party system as predicted by institutionalists. However, voters must have information on party viability and be able to coordinate with other voters within a constituency for an electoral system reform to have the expected outcome. I argue that the introduction of independent local radio frequencies can promote party consolidation by enabling coordination on viable candidates because of better information that becomes common knowledge. The effective number of parties (ENEP) is expected to be lower in constituencies where a larger proportion of voters listen to local radio. To test this hypothesis, access to television signals is used as an instrument for radio listening behavior to address potential reverse causality. Using 2SLS, I find that an increase in one standard deviation in regular radio listening is associated with a decrease of 0.42 ENEP in Thailand.

A number most convenient? The representational consequences of legislative size

This paper explores the political representational consequences of the size of democratic legislatures, which it makes the case for viewing as a feature of the electoral system. Focusing on descriptive representation, we argue that larger legislatures facilitate the descriptive representation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and that this effect should be stronger in majoritarian electoral systems. We find support for the hypothesis about the greater impact of legislative (assembly) size in majoritarian systems using a cross-national analysis of women's representation. We then employ a within-case empirical analysis of the descriptive representation of several racial and ethnic minorities and women in (majoritarian) U.S. state legislatures. Support for the hypothesis about the effects of relative legislative size (the ratio of seats to persons) is found for most minorities and women. More mixed but still somewhat supportive findings emerge about absolute legislative size (the raw number of seats).

СПОРНЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ ПРИМЕНЕНИЯ ИЗБИРАТЕЛЬНОЙ СИСТЕМЫ НА ПРИМЕРЕ ОРГАНОВ ЗАКОНОДАТЕЛЬНОЙ ВЛАСТИ ТЮМЕНСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ

The subject of the article is a comparative analysis of the Russian electoral system’s features currently employed in the Russian regional and municipal elections and the predominantly majoritarian electoral system. At the same time, in our opinion, the domestic practice of the majority electoral system cannot be reduced to describing its advantages, such as effectiveness, objectivity, and the ability to hold elections in a single round. The issue is relevant since the Russian electoral system at the level of the subjects of the Russian Federation is unique, with no similar systems in foreign practice. In addition, there are only a few studies devoted to the issue in question, mainly due to the insufficient generalization of empir-ical data. Moreover, data on two-stage elections conducted in Russia via the website of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation in the section “Elections, referendums, and other forms of direct expression of will” is not published. The article considers the effect of legislative changes and decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the electoral process. The interrelation between the electoral system and features of the current political regime in Russia is identified. According to the authors’ scientific hypothesis, the existing electoral systems mainly support the existing nature of the hybrid political regime. The authors’ idea of the existing nature of the hybrid political regime is tested on the example of members of representative assemblies of three subjects of the Russian Federation, with a conclu-sion provided. Electoral democracy represents such a state when political competition is manageable and the electoral system is favorable for the dominant position of the party in power. The combination of democratic institutes in Russia today has allowed for the formation of the majority of parties in power in the legislative authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation. In conclusion, the study suggests using an ideal model of the electoral system according to the Russian setting.

How Do Right-Wing Populist Parties Influence Climate and Renewable Energy Policies? Evidence from OECD Countries

Abstract There is increasing evidence that right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) and their supporters are hostile to climate and low-carbon energy policies. In this article, we provide a quantitative analysis of the effects of RWPP representation in the legislature and executive on climate and renewable energy policy for a number of countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development over the period 2007–2018. After controlling for other political, economic, and environmental factors, we find evidence for a significant and large negative effect of RWPPs in power on climate policy. Importantly, we also show that these negative effects vary with the proportionality of the electoral system and European Union membership. Both of these factors significantly moderate the negative influence of RWPPs. In countries with majoritarian electoral systems, the effects of RWPPs on climate policy work through both indirect legislative and direct executive routes. In contrast to climate policy, there is no overall significant relationship with renewable policy.

Parties’ voter targeting strategies: What can facebook ads tell us?

Digital political advertising on social media is an integral part of modern election campaigns. It gives political parties a powerful new tool to target voters, but which voters do they pursue? Tapping into an ongoing debate about party strategy, we examine whether parties seek to maintain their existing demographic and regional strongholds, or whether they aim to expand their voter coalitions. While the (intended) audience of other campaign activities is often unknown, data from the Facebook ads archive provide information on their recipients’ gender, age, and subnational region. Our analysis across five countries, which further brings in recent survey and electoral data, suggests that coalition maintenance is the dominant party strategy for demographic groups. Parties that receive more support from a given gender or age group run ads that reach more members of that demographic group. Consistent with the literature that shows a gender and age gap in voting, left-wing parties are more likely to advertise to women than right-wing parties, and green parties disproportionately reach younger voters. The results for geographic groups are mixed. We do find that parties in majoritarian electoral systems pursue a narrower regional audience than their counterparts in proportional systems. This study is one of the first to explore the potential and limitations of Facebook ad audience data to speak to a targeting literature in need of more comparative research on multiparty systems.

The shift to consensus democracy and limits of institutional design in Asia

A ‘majoritarian turn’ identified by scholars of Asian democracy in the 1990s saw the rise of mixed-member majoritarian electoral systems and more centripetal party competition across both Northeast and Southeast Asia. In this paper, we argue that since the 2000s, the institutional pendulum has shifted, with more consensual approaches to democracy appearing to better represent key identity cleavages of gender, ethnicity, and territory—a trend evident not just in East Asia but South Asia as well. This new ‘Asian model’ typically involves increasing the proportional components of existing electoral formulas and grafting gender quotas, multiethnic party lists, and quasi-federal elements onto ostensibly majoritarian state structures. We show that these reforms have, as intended, mostly increased female and ethnic minority representation and decentralized governance structures. At the same time, however, these de jure changes are not associated with de facto political development in terms of greater democratic quality, counter to theoretical expectations. Indeed, democracy has declined across most of Asia at the same time as its democratic institutions have become more consensual.

Modern federal political parties of Canada in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 parliamentary elections

The article analyzes the balance of power between the leading national political parties in Canada after the early general elections of 2021 in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the main issues of the election campaign, the key tasks and challenges facing the parliamentary parties of Canada in the coming years, and also touches upon the problem of reforming the Canadian majoritarian electoral system, leading to a serious disparity between the number of votes received by parties at the national level and the number of seats in the House of Commons obtained as a result of the elections.

Geographically Targeted Spending in Mixed-Member Majoritarian Electoral Systems

ABSTRACTCan governments elected under mixed-member majoritarian (mmm) electoral systems use geographically targeted spending to increase their chances of staying in office, and if so, how? Although twenty-eight countries usemmmelectoral systems, scant research has addressed this question. The authors explain howmmm’s combination of electoral systems in two unlinked tiers creates a distinct strategic environment in which a large party and a small party can trade votes in one tier for votes in the other tier in a way that increases the number of seats won by both. They then explain how governing parties dependent on vote trading can use geographically targeted spending to cement it. These propositions are tested using original data from Japan (2003–2013) and Mexico (2012–2016). In both cases, municipalities in which the supporters of governing parties split their ballots as instructed were found to have received more money after elections. The findings have broad implications for research onmmmelectoral systems, distributive politics, and the politics of Japan and Mexico.

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.

Balancing Accountability and Effectiveness: A Case for Moderated Parliamentarism

In this article, I bring two key issues in constitutional studies — institutional regime type and electoral system choice — in conversation with each other, and examine their interaction through a normative framework concerning the role that constitutions ought to play in shaping their party systems. The main goal is to offer a theoretical defense (ceteris paribus) of moderated parliamentarism — as superior to its alternatives such as presidentialism, semi-presidentialism, and other forms of parliamentarism. Moderated parliamentarism entails a strong bicameral legislature in which the two chambers are symmetric (i.e. they have equal legislative powers) and incongruent (i.e. they are likely to have different partisan compositions). It has a centrist chamber whose main function is to supply confidence to the government, and a diversified chamber whose main function is to check this government. The confidence and opposition chamber is elected on a moderated majoritarian electoral system (such as approval vote or ranked-choice/preferential vote system, but not first-past-the-post); the diversified chamber — a fully independent checking and appointing chamber — is constituted on a proportional representation model (moderated by a reasonably high threshold requirement for translating votes into seats). The confidence and opposition chamber is elected wholesale for shorter terms. It alone has the power to appoint and fire a unified political executive headed by a prime minister. The checking and appointing chamber is independent of the confidence and opposition chamber as well as of the political executive; its members have longer and staggered terms. Moderated parliamentarism combines the benefits of different regime types and electoral systems in a way that optimizes four key constitutional principles in relation to political parties: it protects the purposive autonomy of parties and enables their ability to keep the four democratic costs low; it serves the party system optimality principle by making it more likely that every salient voter type will have a party to represent it, but also distinguishes between governance parties (which are likely to dominate the confidence and opposition chamber) and influence parties (which will have a space in the checking and appointing chamber); it aids the party-state separation principle by giving significant (and over-weighted) checking powers to smaller parties in the checking chamber; and it promotes the anti-faction principle by distinguishing between smaller influence parties that are polarizing factions from those that are not factional (and punishing the latter a lot less severely than the former). The traditional debates between presidentialism and parliamentarism, and between majoritarian and proportional electoral systems have endured for as long as they have because each system brings something attractive to the table. Moderated parliamentarism seeks to combine the most attractive elements of each — checks and balance from presidentialism, continuous precarity of the political executive from parliamentarism, anti-factionalism of majoritarian electoral systems, and political pluralism of proportional representation systems. Because these virtues are in tension, no system can maximize each of them without incurring a cost for another. Moderated parliamentarism is one way to optimize the virtues of each system and yet yield a stable and effective regime type.

Routes to credible climate commitment: the UK and Denmark compared

ABSTRACT Credible commitment is central to regimes for climate mitigation policy. In the climate policy literature, it is widely argued that the solution to the credible commitment problem is legislation and delegation of goal-setting to a technical body insulated from political incentives, and the UK’s Committee on Climate Change is in part modelled on this approach. However, drawing on the comparative politics literature, this paper argues that the focus on legislation and delegation as the solution to the credible commitment problem is too narrow. Seen within the context of comparative political institutions, it is a response that fits the political logic in countries with majoritarian electoral systems. By contrast, in countries with electoral systems based on proportional representation, while legislation plays a role, an important element in the creation of credible commitment comes in the form of negotiated long-term agreements between political parties. This contrast is explored through a comparison between the Climate Change Act and associated Committee on Climate Change in the UK on the one hand, and a series of Energy and Climate Agreements in Denmark over the 2010s. Both approaches appear to have worked to date. However, while negotiated long-term agreements typically have an internal process for managing conflicts that inevitably arise after the respective mechanisms have been put in place, disputes arising following legislation and delegation must be resolved within the more informal processes of intra-party politics. Mechanisms of accountability also differ between the two approaches. Key policy insights Legislation and delegation is widely seen as the key route to credible commitment for climate policy, but other routes are possible. Legislation and delegation is particularly suited to countries with majoritarian, or first-past-the-post electoral systems and resulting political dynamics. In countries with proportional representation, an alternative route to credible commitment is possible via formal agreement between political parties. Both routes can work well, but political agreements tend to have internal mechanisms for mediating conflicts that subsequently arise, whereas delegation relies on intra-party politics.

ДЕМОКРАТИЧНІСТЬ ЯК КРИТЕРІЙ ОЦІНКИ ВИБОРЧИХ СИСТЕМ

This article examines the influence of the electoral system on the functioning of democracy. On the example of the majoritarian and proportional electoral system, the adequacy of the criteria for democratic criteria is analysed.