Proportional Representation Elections Research Articles

The Anatomy of Frank Bainimarama’s Defeat at the Fiji December 2022 Election

ABSTRACT Fiji’s 14 December 2022 election saw the defeat of 2006 coup leader turned civilian prime minister Frank Bainimarama’s FijiFirst Party, and victory for an opposition coalition led by Sitiveni Rabuka, the 1987 coup leader and 1992–9 prime minister. This article examines the polling venue-level data to investigate whether regional, class, ethnic, or urban–rural differences determined that outcome, as well as exploring the influence of variations in the personal vote over the three open list proportional representation elections of 2014, 2018, and 2022.

Dynamics of public opinion and policy response under proportional and plurality elections

AbstractWe compare the patterns of adjustment of government policy to changes in public opinion in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. These countries are similar in many ways, except that the United Kingdom has plurality elections and single‐party government, while the Netherlands has proportional representation (PR) and coalition government. This provides the first application of the Macro Polity approach to a country with PR elections. We find that government policy in the Netherlands is highly responsive to public opinion. This cannot be the result of alternation of government, but instead must be the result of some other process, such as coalition bargaining. In the United Kingdom, however, the dynamic of adjustment is far more complex. Alternation of government does not produce responsiveness, but rather seems to get in the way of it. This leads to an over‐correction dynamic in which policy can be out of line with public opinion for long periods of time.

Party-related primacy effects in proportional representation systems: evidence from a natural experiment in Polish local elections

We study the primacy effects that occur when voters cast their votes because a candidate or party is listed first on a ballot. In the elections that we analyzed, there are three potential types of such effects that might occur when voters vote for (1) the first candidate listed on the ballot in single-member district (SMD) elections (candidate primacy); (2) the first party listed on the ballot in open-list proportional representation (OLPR) elections (party primacy); or (3) the first candidate on a party list in OLPR elections (list primacy). We estimated the party primacy effect (2) and established that there was no interaction between (2) and (3). A party primacy effect is especially difficult to estimate because parties’ positions on ballots are typically fixed in all multi-member districts (MMDs) and it is impossible to separate the first-position “bonus” from a party’s normal electoral performance. A rare natural experiment allowed us to estimate the primacy party bonus between 6.02 and 8.52% of all votes cast for the 2014 Polish local elections. We attribute the large size of such bonus to the great complexity of voting in the OLPR elections, especially the much longer ballots, voting in many simultaneous elections, and ballot design as a booklet rather than a sheet.

The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions

We use a policy experiment in Indonesia to show how local political boundaries affect ethnic tension. Redrawing district borders along group lines reduces conflict. However, the gains in stability are undone or even reversed when new boundaries increase ethnic polarization. Greater polarization leads to more violence around majoritarian elections but has little effect around lower-stakes, proportional representation elections. These results point to distinct incentives for violence in winner-take-all settings with contestable public resources. Overall, our findings illustrate the promise and pitfalls of redrawing borders in diverse countries where it is infeasible for each group to have its own administrative unit. (JEL D72, D74, J15, O15, O17, O18)

Voting behavior under proportional representation

Understanding voter preferences in proportional representation (PR) systems is an essential first step towards understanding candidate selection and behavior. We unearth conceptual challenges of constructing a theory of sincere voting in PR elections. Using a rich but tractable framework, we propose a foundational theory of voting behavior in list PR systems. We show how voters’ expectations about the election outcome shape the relative salience of different candidates on a party’s ballot and ultimately determine their induced preferences over a party’s list. Our framework shows how voters allocate their attention across different ranks on a party’s ballot, and how this depends on each party’s relative popularity.

Information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation: A laboratory experiment

This paper documents a laboratory experiment that analyzes voter participation in common interest proportional representation (PR) elections, comparing this with majority rule. Consistent with theoretical predictions, poorly informed voters in either system abstain from voting, thereby shifting weight to those who are better informed. A dilution problem makes mistakes especially costly under PR, so abstention is higher in PR in contrast with private interest environments, and welfare is lower. Deviations from Nash equilibrium predictions can be accommodated by a logit version of quantal response equilibrium (QRE), which allows for voter mistakes.

Lawyers and law graduates in parliaments as a consequence of SMD electoral systems: a comparison of Japan, South Korea, and Germany

AbstractThis study addresses the question of why so many of the world's legislators are lawyers or law graduates. Drawing from previous studies on lawyer-legislators and electoral systems, it develops the argument that ‘first-pass-the-post’ single-member district electoral systems presume a principal-agent logic of representation and are therefore conducive to political parties selecting representatives with either occupational experience or educational training in the field of law. By contrast, proportional representation (PR) elections presume a microcosm model of representation incentivizing parties to select candidates representing diverse demographic and occupational backgrounds. This conjecture is tested by examining legislator backgrounds in three large parliaments with mixed electoral systems: Germany, Japan, and South Korea. As expected, single-member plurality elections are linked to a greater share of lawyers and law graduates in parliaments compared to those elected via PR even after controlling for several alternative explanations.

Open or Closed? How List Type Affects Electoral Performance, Candidate Selection, and Campaign Effort

What effect does using open (as opposed to closed) lists in proportional representation elections have on party performance and the quality of candidate selection? We provide novel evidence by studying local elections in Colombia, where parties have discretion to field either open or closed lists. Using panel data covering the 1,100 Colombian municipalities for the 2003–2015 period, we leverage within-party, within-municipality, and over-time variation to identify the effect of ballot structure. We find that the adoption of open list dramatically increases parties’ vote and seat shares. Semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of candidates reveal that parties that use closed list struggle to attract high-quality candidates and to incentivize them to campaign. Consistent with these mechanisms, our statistical analyses confirm that open-list candidates are more experienced, more engaged in their constituencies and campaigns, and less likely to have committed election fraud in the past.

Balancing disproportionality and parliament fragmentation: A simulation study of the mechanical effects of district magnitude on electoral outcomes

I employ computer-aided simulations to reexamine the effect of district magnitude on disproportionality and parliament fragmentation, in proportional representation (PR) elections. In the simulations, I attempt to isolate the purely ’mechanical’ effects of electoral rules. The ’psychological’ effects are represented by the theoretical probability distribution used to simulate PR election results, and also by the assumption as to the number of competing parties in constituencies. In particular, investigating the effect of DM on the disproportionality versus the parliament fragmentation trade-off, I critically reexamine the study of Carey and Hix (2011), who argue that the low-magnitude constituencies (four to eight seats) achieve a ’good’ balance between representativeness (favored by low disproportionality) and government accountability (favored by the low-level of fragmentation in parliament). Even if we accept Carey and Hix's disputable operationalization of the representativeness-accountability trade-off, this study provides evidence that the claim that the low-magnitude electoral districts are optimal is contestable. Also, the simulation results suggest that Carey and Hix's analysis is confounded by the psychological effects; due to strategic voting, low-magnitude districts appear to promote greater proportionality than they actually do.

Elections and durable governments in parliamentary governments

This paper provides a dynamic theory of a parliamentary government system with proportional-representation elections, policy-motivated parties and voters, and an endogenous status-quo policy. The theory identifies the representation of parties in parliament, the governments the parties form, the policies chosen by those governments, and the duration of the governments and their policies. Governments are majoritarian, government parties are equal partners, they and their policies are durable, voters elect minority parliaments in every period, and government policies provide concessions to centrist voters. If crises can occur, governments can fall, but a new government forms after the next election. The theory provides explanations for three empirical findings: equilibria consistent with Gamson’s law, an analog of Duverger’s law for proportional-representation electoral systems, and compensational voting where voters give the out party additional votes when an incumbent government is expected to continue in office.

ELECTORAL FORMULA AND FRAGMENTATION IN HONG KONG

AbstractThe directly elected representatives to Hong Kong's Legislative Council are chosen by list proportional representation (PR) using the Hare Quota and Largest Remainders (HQLR) formula. This formula rewards political alliances of small to moderate size and discourages broader unions. Hong Kong's political leaders have responded to those incentives by fragmenting their electoral alliances rather than expanding them. The level of list fragmentation observed in Hong Kong is not inherent to PR elections. Alternative PR formulas would generate incentives to form broader, more encompassing alliances. Indeed, most countries that use PR employ such formulas, and the most commonly used PR formula would generate incentives opposite to HQLR's, rewarding broader electoral alliances rather than divisions.

국회의원 선거 결과의 공간 패턴 변화 분석: 19대 및 20대 국회의원 선거를 중심으로

Election is one of important interests in geography because the members of National Assembly of Korea are elected mainly in spatial unit, which is called Election District. The purpose of this study is to understand the changing spatial pattern between the 19th and the 20th National Assembly Elections in South Korea. For this purpose, spatial statistical analysis was performed to explain the results of the elections in Eup-Myeon-Dong units through out the Capital Region and the study offers three primary findings. First, in general, the voting rate for ruling party decreased in both Local District Election and Proportional Representation Election, which comprise the National Assembly Election. However, considering only two main parties, the total vote rate of the ruling party, and the number and the vote rate in Eup-Myeon-Dong units where the percentage of votes for the ruling party is the highest, did not have significant change. Second, the results of the spatial cluster analysis indicated a strong pattern of spatial clustering in the Eup-Myeon-Dong units than that of election district units. Similarly, the proportional representation election outcomes showed a stronger spatial clustering than those in the local district election. Third, according to the results of bivariate spatial association analysis between two periods, 30% of Eup-Myeon-Dong units are found to adhere to the prior political inclination, while the regions with change in vote rate of the ruling party also showed a strong pattern of spatial clustering.

Electoral Formula and Fragmentation in Hong Kong

The directly elected representatives to Hong Kong's Legislative Council are chosen by list proportional representation (PR) using the Hare Quota and Largest Remainders (HQLR) formula. This formula rewards political alliances of small-to-moderate size and discourages broader unions. Hong Kong's political leaders have responded to those incentives by fragmenting their electoral alliances rather than expanding them. The level of list fragmentation observed in Hong Kong is not inherent to PR elections. Alternative PR formulas would generate incentives to form broader, more encompassing alliances. Indeed, most countries that use PR employ such formulas, and the most commonly used PR formula would generate incentives opposite to HQLR's, rewarding broader electoral alliances rather than divisions.

Open/Closed List and Party Choice: Experimental Evidence from the UK

Which parties benefit from open-list (as opposed to closed-list) proportional representation elections? This article shows that a move from closed-list to open-list competition is likely to be more favorable to parties with more internal disagreement on salient issues; this is because voters who might have voted for a unified party under closed lists may be drawn to specific candidates within internally divided parties under open lists. The study provides experimental evidence of this phenomenon in a hypothetical European Parliament election in the UK, in which using an open-list ballot would shift support from UKIP (the Eurosceptic party) to Eurosceptic candidates of the Conservative Party. The findings suggest that open-list ballots could restrict support for parties that primarily mobilize on a single issue.

Forecasting proportional representation elections from non-representative expectation surveys

This study tests non-representative expectation surveys as a method for forecasting elections. For dichotomous forecasts of the 2013 German election (e.g., who will be chancellor, which parties will enter parliament), two non-representative citizen samples performed equally well than a benchmark group of experts. For vote-share forecasts, the sample of more knowledgeable and interested citizens performed similar to experts and quantitative models, and outperformed the less informed citizens. Furthermore, both citizen samples outperformed prediction markets but provided less accurate forecasts than representative polls. The results suggest that non-representative surveys can provide a useful low-cost forecasting method, in particular for small-scale elections, where it may not be feasible or cost-effective to use established methods such as representative polls or prediction markets.

To vote or to abstain? An experimental test of rational calculus in first past the post and PR elections

We test the rational choice model of turnout in the lab. We performed laboratory experiments in which participants had to decide whether to vote or not in a number of first past the post and proportional representation elections. We test the predictions of rational choice theory from three different angles:(i) First, we compare aggregate turnout with the Nash equilibrium predictions.(ii) Second, we compare individual decisions with those derived from a rational calculus and count the number of decisions which are consistent with the rational recommendation, and.(iii) Third, we determine, still at the individual level, whether, at the margin, people are more likely to vote as the expected payoff increases.The overwhelming thrust of the evidence is inconsistent with the rational calculus paradigm.

Proportionality and Turnout

Many studies find that voter turnout is higher in proportional representation (PR) elections than in plurality elections, but because the two systems differ in multiple ways and are used in different contexts it is difficult to know precisely why. I focus on municipal elections in France, where cities above a certain population threshold are required to use a PR system while those below use a type of plurality rule; this setting allows me to compare political outcomes across electoral systems while holding fixed a large set of social and political features. I find that the PR system noticeably increases turnout compared with plurality. I provide evidence suggesting that it does so in part by encouraging turnout in lopsided races and in part by inducing entry of new candidates. The findings highlight the importance of electoral proportionality in explaining cross-national differences in voter turnout.

Lone fighters: Intraparty competition, interparty competition, and candidates' vote seeking efforts in open-ballot PR elections

In their seminal paper, Carey and Shugart (1995) argue that electoral rules predetermine whether election campaigns are predominantly characterized by competition between parties, or among candidates within parties. In particular, electoral systems that provide weak party control over ballot access, that allow voters to express a preference vote for individual candidates, and that select candidates on the basis of the votes they earn individually are supposed to offer strong incentives for candidates to cultivate a personal vote. In this paper, we investigate Carey and Shugart's original claims about the instrumental motivations of candidates in open-ballot proportional representation (PR) elections using survey data and election statistics from the 2007 Swiss National Council elections. As opposed to previous work, we develop and employ more direct and valid measures of intra- and interparty incentives to wage personal campaigns. Our empirical results suggest that the candidates' campaign focus and expenditures are closely linked to intraparty competition, but not interparty competition. Previously used proxies of intraparty competition, such as district magnitude or the number of candidates on a party list (or ratios thereof), turn out to be but remotely related to the candidates' campaign behavior.

AN UNDERRATED 1911 RELIC CAN MODIFY DIVISOR METHODS TO PREVENT QUOTA VIOLATION IN PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION AND U.S. HOUSE APPORTIONMENT

Allocating seats to parties and apportioning seats to geographic areas are equivalent processes mathematically. The Hamilton method, or method of largest remainders, provides one approach. The five ‘divisor’ methods—Adams, Dean, Hill-Huntington, Webster (Sainte-Laguë) and Jefferson (d'Hondt)—provide another. Either is imperfect: the former observes quota but allows paradoxes, whereas the latter allows quota violation but avoids paradoxes. A fresh approach introduced herein had its genesis in 1911. Illustrations use Macedonian and Portuguese proportional-representation elections and US House apportionment scenarios.

Three-party competition in parliamentary democracy with proportional representation

This article studies the long-run dynamics of policy choices, government formations, and voting behavior under a parliamentary constitution and proportional representation. I develop an infinite period game where, in each period, voters participate in a proportional representation election, and three farsighted parties bargain over one-dimensional policy programs and government positions. The model incorporates the interaction between elections and coalition bargaining, which is the essence of politics in most parliamentary systems, as well as a dynamic environment of policymaking: a policy once implemented remains in effect until another replaces it. I find a Markov perfect equilibrium in which (1) there is no majority party in any election; (2) election results converge over time to a stable vote distribution; (3) policy outcomes change over time but eventually stay within a set of three points; (4) minimal winning coalitions and minority governments are formed with positive probability and alternate over time.