Mixed-member Electoral System Research Articles

Strategic choices and electoral gains: unpacking constituency campaign effectiveness in Germany's mixed-member electoral system

ABSTRACT Election campaigns are a critical component of democratic competition, and existing literature has extensively discussed the rise in personalization and localization in recent campaigns. However, the extent to which campaign strategies influence electoral success remains controversial. Therefore, our study examined the impact of candidate – and constituency-centred campaigns on nominal and party-list votes in mixed-member electoral systems and investigated which strategies were most effective on election day. Our analysis draws on representative national candidate surveys for German federal elections in 2009, 2013, and 2017. Our findings indicate that personalized campaign communication significantly affects electoral success, with greater emphasis on the candidate than the party, resulting in increased nominal votes. Our results also suggest that parties benefit from personalized campaigns as they increase party-list votes as well. However, neither localized campaign issues nor candidate-centred campaign organization pay off in electoral terms. Furthermore, candidates’ party affiliation significantly influences electoral success, demonstrating the continued relevance of parties to campaign dynamics and electoral outcomes.

Candidate awareness in mixed-member electoral systems: A data-driven approach

Voters need to be at least aware of candidates to hold them accountable. How does this work in mixed-member electoral systems where nominal votes often play a subordinate role and voters could entirely rely on party heuristics to choose between candidates? In lieu of existing causal explanations, we compile data on many factors contributing to candidate awareness and use a data-driven approach to identify variables that strongly predict voters’ awareness of district candidates in the run-up of the German Federal Elections 2009, 2013 and 2017. We find factors that describe candidate-, voter-, and district characteristics politically to be important out-of-sample predictors in contrast to factors that describe them socio-demographically. Interestingly, we find that incumbency predicts candidate awareness, but it does not matter whether incumbents were elected nominally or via a party list. These findings can be a starting point for developing causal theories and have implications for our understanding of how voters perceive the different types of MPs a mixed-member electoral system generates.

Still Learning to Make Votes Count? Electoral Coordination in Mexico's Mixed-Member Electoral System

Still Learning to Make Votes Count? Electoral Coordination in Mexico's Mixed-Member Electoral System

The logic of campaign spending in mixed-member electoral systems

In this research note we reason that campaign strategies that are strategic in “pure” majoritarian systems and “pure” proportional systems may (or may not) change when the two are combined in a mixed-member electoral system with a majoritarian and a proportional tier. We argue that campaign effort by individual candidates should be a function of the tier or tiers in which the candidate is competing and whether he or she expects to be a strong contender. We then test our theorizing with candidate campaign spending data from New Zealand, which has used a mixed-member system since 1996. We find support for our reasoning regarding when the strategies appropriate for pure majoritarian and pure proportional systems should be adapted when applied in their mixed counterparts.

Strategies of the Party Selectorate: The Two-Level Game in District Selections in Germany’s Mixed Member Electoral System

The article investigates how the opportunity structure and contextual factors influence the selectorates’ strategies in the process of candidate selection. The article argues that these strategies are an under-researched but important explanatory and dynamic link between the parties’ goals and context factors of candidate selection on the one side and the adopted selection criteria and the outcome of candidate selection on the other side. Based on a mixed-methods design, the study scrutinizes the selectorates’ strategies at district selections in Germany’s mixed-member electoral system. The analysis reveals that the local selectorates adopt the traditional inward oriented selection criteria to find the best candidate for the local party branch if the district seat is safe for the party. If, however, the seat is not safe, the selectorates prioritize the electoral goal over the local party organizational goal and strategically adapt the selection criteria to the opportunity structure. By considering both local inter-party competition and regional intra-party competition, they either take up a local voters’ perspective or anticipate the selection criteria of the state party lists in order to increase the chances for a seat in parliament. Thus, due to the mixed-member electoral system, the prevalence of dual candidacies, and decentralized candidate selection methods, intra-party selection in German districts is a two-level game.

Unequal Geographic Representation in a Mixed-Member Electoral System: Evidence from the German Bundestag

This paper demonstrates a systematic geographic bias in the German mixed-member electoral system. This bias concerns the composition of the individual party groups, and, by extension, the composition of the parliament: The Bundestag is much more urban than it would be under equal geographic representation. The bias is caused by the distribution of list seats across districts: since parties have incentives to give the best list positions to candidates from their strongest districts, regions where the vote is more fragmented systematically get more representatives. Since the vote is more fragmented in urban districts, these districts have more MPs than rural districts. The paper empirically analyses Bundestag elections between 1994 and 2017 and demonstrates that geographic disproportionality has increased strongly with the growing fragmentation of the German party system. This affects substantive representation in terms of leadership positions and voting behaviour in the Bundestag. Unequal representation in the German political system therefore also has a geographic component.

Local Candidates, Place-Based Identities, and Electoral Success

While a large body of literature empirically documents an electoral advantage for local candidates, the exact mechanisms accounting for this effect remain less clear. We integrate theories on the political geography of candidate-voter relations with socio-psychological accounts of citizens’ local attachment, arguing that citizens vote for candidates from their own local communities as an expression of their place-based identity. To test our argument, we exploit a unique feature of the German mixed-member electoral system. We identify the causal effect of candidates’ localness by relying on within-electoral-district variation coupled with a geo-matching strategy on the level of municipalities (hbox {N}=11175). The results show that voters exhibit a strong bias in favor of local candidates even when they are not competitive. More than only expecting particularistic benefits from representatives, citizens appear to vote for candidates from their own local community to express their place-based social identity.

Contamination effects in mixed-member electoral systems: a dissemination of measurement techniques

There is widespread agreement that both tiers of a mixed-member electoral system do not operate independently of one another and that instead they interact, producing contamination effects. These tend to raise the number of parties away from what Duverger’s Law or the M + 1 rule suggest. However, the field has not yet determined an undisputed methodological approach to answer the following question: raised by how much, exactly? This paper identifies and differentiates amongst three major measurement techniques, herein titled the Difference Approach, the Likeness Approach, and the Simulation Approach. By doing so, it provides a more concise map of each of their logics, their varied implementations, their drawbacks, as well as possible ways forward.

The Mandate Divide in Policy Representation: The Substantive Representation of Agricultural Interests in the Hungarian Parliament

Abstract Policy responsiveness is considered an effective tool for representing the aggregated interests of an electoral district. This article asks the question whether or not legislators in a mixed-member electoral system act on the profile of the constituency in their parliamentary work and, if yes, whether the magnitude of their actions is dependent upon mandate type and electoral security. I answer these questions by using data on Hungarian Members of Parliament (MPs)’ parliamentary questions, and the agricultural profile of the constituencies between 1998 and 2010. It is found that a larger share of the agricultural population correlates with a greater frequency of agriculture questions. Furthermore, as expected, single-member district MPs are more vigilant to the share of the agricultural population than list MPs. Interestingly, MPs remain indifferent to the fierceness of competition: they ask just as any many questions in the case of a safe seat as in the case of stiff competition.

Dual candidacy as a source of legislator behaviour. The re-election and the mandate incentive under mixed-member electoral rules

Legislators are often viewed as ‘single-minded seekers of re-election’, and hence their actions are attributed to their ultimate goal of staying in office. However, an alternative approach ‘liberates’ legislators from the ever continuing struggle for re-election and argues that MPs carry out certain tasks simply because it is part of their jobs. This study is an attempt to empirically separate re-election and mandate incentives in the MPs’ behaviour. Hungary’s mixed-member electoral system with dual candidacy creates a situation in which the two types of incentives can be separately observed. If mandate incentives prevail there should be a difference between SMD and list MPs, while re-election motivations offer the dominant explanation to MP behaviour if the difference is between MPs nominated in SMDs and those who are not. Analysing legislators’ attitudes and behaviour between 2010 and 2014 it is found that although re-election incentives indeed prevail in the MPs’ behaviour, the effect of the mandate strongly characterizes attitudes creating a tension between what MPs do and what they think they should be doing.

‘Friends and Neighbors’ Voting Under Mixed-Member Majoritarian Electoral Systems: Evidence from Lithuania

ABSTRACTThe concept of ‘friends and neighbors’ voting, in which voters are more likely to support locally-affiliated candidates, has a long tradition in the study of elections and representation. The concept was established in the study of American politics and has been tested in other political and social environments. The focus of ‘friends and neighbors’ voting has been on single and multi-seat constituency-based elections. This emphasis leaves open an important question: Does the concept carry over to party-list elections? This article takes advantage of the features of Lithuania's mixed-member electoral system to assess how ‘friends and neighbors’ voting may influence constituency and party-list races. We find that the magnitude of effect for ‘localness’ is greater when candidates dual-list in constituencies and on party lists. However, residency has a significant effect on voting outcomes even for candidates contesting only on the party list and for those in hopeless list positions, suggesting that ‘friends and neighbors’ voting may extend even to electoral systems that are not constituency-based.

Cue-Taking, Satisficing, or Both? Quasi-experimental Evidence for Ballot Position Effects

Ballot position effects have been documented across a variety of political and electoral systems. In general, knowledge of the underlying mechanisms is limited. There is also little research on such effects in preferential-list PR systems, in which parties typically present ranked lists and thus signaling is important. This study addresses both gaps. Theoretically, we formalize four models of voter decision-making: pure appeal-based utility maximization, implying no position effects; rank-taking, where voters take cues from ballot position per se; satisficing, where choice is a function of appeal, but voters consider the options in the order of their appearance; and a hybrid “satisficing-with-rank-taking” variant. From these, we derive differential observable implications. Empirically, we exploit a quasi-experiment, created by the mixed-member electoral system that is used in the state of Bavaria, Germany. Particular electoral rules induce variation in both the observed rank and the set of competitors, and allow for estimating effects at all ranks. We find clear evidence for substantial position effects, which are strongest near the top, but discernible even for the 15th list position. In addition, a candidate’s vote increases when the average appeal of higher-placed (but not that of lower-placed) competitors is lower. Overall, the evidence is most compatible with the hybrid satisficing-with-rank-taking model. Ballot position thus affects both judgment and choice of candidates.

The electoral system and electoral geography -why the Rosato law appeared to be proportional while it is not

ABSTRACTThe 2018 elections confirmed the tri-polar format of the party system, with three opposing aggregations, each of which has a majority (or at least enjoys considerably more support) in a specific area of the country. The paper shows that, in a way, the highly unequal geographical distribution of the vote is revealing of the main social factors underlying the choices of voters. In another respect, it masks the potential disproportionality of the electoral system. The paper also shows that uncertainty about the possible evolution of alliances between parties, the risk that early elections could again produce a hung Parliament, and the high level of mobility of the electorate, make it probable that the electoral law will at some time in the near future, once again be subject to revisions driven by the short-term interests of the political actors involved. In this regard, the paper discusses the nature of the so called ‘Rosatellum’ as a majoritarian or proportional mixed-member electoral system. It proposes an estimate of the SMD candidates’ electoral performances and of the minimum support for the most voted coalition and the minimum level of territorial uniformity of the vote required for the Rosato law to produce a parliamentary majority. Finally, it discusses the possible adaptations of the law that could facilitate such a result.

Institutionalization versus personalization: electoral effects of the mixed-member electoral system in Russia

ABSTRACTThe study of mixed electoral systems has gained in popularity due to frequent experiments with electoral systems in post-communist countries. Russia represents an interesting laboratory for this research, as it is a country that had switched to a proportional system in the 2007 parliamentary elections, and then moved back to mixed-member system in 2016 and over this period its dominance of the party system was strengthened. A comparative analysis of elections on the basis of votes received by party lists and voting in single-mandate districts suggests there is a high level of interrelation between two simultaneous voting processes, confirming the well-known thesis of ‘contamination’ in the mixed system. At the same time, a comparison of the diverse parties allows us to suggest that the level of that interrelation, and the vote ratio, are dependent on the characteristics of the party concerned. The research showed that, in a dominant party system, electoral competition in districts delivers higher results than in voting by party lists, and the voters demonstrate a strategic approach to supporting parties rather than voting for particular candidates in particular districts. This leads to a lower level of electoral support for candidates from large parties in comparison to the vote received by the parties themselves.

Same Species, Different Breed: The Conditional Effect of Legislator Activities in Parliament on Re-Selection in a Mixed-Member Electoral System

The article investigates whether or not the amount of work legislators carry out in parliament affects their chances of re-selection in a mixed-member electoral system. A unique dataset collecting Hungarian Members of Parliaments’ (MPs) publicly available electoral, socio-demographic and parliamentary activity data between 1998 and 2010 is analysed. The study concludes that activity in parliament positively influences re-selection chances when selectors decide on party list nominations. Additionally, MPs whose parties do not count on as future Single Member District (SMD) candidates benefit from parliamentary work to a greater extent than prospective SMD candidates. At the same time, extra work in parliament does not bring MPs closer to SMD nominations. Results confirm that selectors evaluate MPs along how well they carry out the tasks dedicated to their groups.

Political Constraints and the Limited Effect of Electoral System Change on Personal Vote-Seeking in Hungary

This article aims at capturing how the recent changes in Hungary’s mixed-member electoral system altered the candidates’ personal vote-seeking strategies. Based on the literature, one might expect that strengthening the role of the Single-Member District (SMD) tier increases the incentives for personalisation. By utilizing the data from two consecutive waves of the Comparative Candidate Survey, we show that contrary to these expectations the average level of campaign personalisation decreased from 2010 to 2014. Semi-structured interviews with nine campaign staff members confirm that the political constraints were more important in determining campaign strategies than the institutional setting. Our findings challenge the dominating effect of electoral rules on personal vote-seeking.

Das Einstimmen-Mischwahlsystem bei baden-württembergischen Landtagswahlen: Wie fehlende Listen zur ungleichen deskriptiven Repräsentation von Stadt und Land in den Fraktionen beitragen

State-level elections in Baden-Wurttemberg are run under an unusual mixed-member electoral system, which gives citizens just one vote, but does not use party lists - allocating seats in the second tier to the “best losers” from the plurality tier instead. Several aspects of this system have already been criticized. This article presents a novel systematic analysis of how the lack of party lists affects the descriptive representation of urban and rural constituencies. For this purpose the distribution of votes and seats within parties is compared, since bias caused by the electoral system is likely to appear at this level, where it also particularly matters due to the key political role of parliamentary party groups. There is a considerable seats-votes-disproportionality along the urban-rural dimension within all parties. A counterfactual analysis of the results of the state-level election in North Rhine-Westphalia from 2005 corroborates the argument that the electoral system drives this pattern. The reform of the Baden-Wurttemberg electoral system announced in the 2016 coalition agreement is therefore overdue also from the perspective of adequate representation of urban and rural areas.

A Study of Voting Behavior under the Bolivian Mixed-Member Electoral System

A Study of Voting Behavior under the Bolivian Mixed-Member Electoral System

WHEN IT PAYS TO LOSE: THE FUNDAMENTAL FLAW OF THE POSITIVE VOTE TRANSFER ELECTORAL SYSTEM

This comment shows that the positive vote transfer (PVT) system—deemed a preferable alternative to the mixed-member proportional electoral system—suffers from a fundamental flaw. The problem with this system combining elections within single-seat districts and the allocation of compensation seats is that parties may find it rational to try to lose district races in order to gain greater parliamentary representation. The PVT system may suffer from strategic manipulation and in the process can cause a vote cast for a party to be detrimental to its success. The general lesson is that in multitier electoral systems the relative value of votes in different tiers may induce strategic behaviour notwithstanding the number of votes at the voter's disposal.

Campaign-Personalization and Constituency Focus in a Mixed-Member Electoral System. The Case of Hungary

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to uncover the micro-factors structuring campaign personalization in the case of Hungarian Members of Parliament. It is presumed that in a party-centred environment, the effects of the various independent characteristics are filtered by the parties. Thus, due to the electoral rules, personalization cannot contradict party centeredness. Representatives do not wish to distance themselves from their parties. Personalization is more of the result of the positions they hold or wish to fill in than the desire to defy party lines out of individualistic motivations. Based on the data from the 2010 MP-survey of the Hungarian Election Study, the article unveils the circumstances under which campaign personalization prevails. The international scholarly literature sets several hypotheses with regards to the factors influencing three dimensions of campaign personalization (norms, means and agenda), out of which several will be tested in this article. The analysis concludes that even under party-centred circumstances, the role of individual motivations and habits cannot be overlooked in defining the degree of personalization, nevertheless the interpretation of such effects requires caution.