Proportional Representation Electoral System Research Articles

Probabilities and seat gains of minor parties in the 2019 municipal legislative election in Surabaya City, Indonesia

This study examines the relationship between seat acquisition probabilities and the acquisition of minor party seats in the 2019 Surabaya City DPRD election. This research is crucial because theoretically the proportional representation electoral system quota/allocation of electoral district seats (dapil) has the probability to be accessed by all parties participating in the election, but in fact in the 2019 Surabaya City DPRD election the quota/allocation of seats was dominated by large parties. This research method is library research with the analysis technique using the Pearson Product Moment statistical test. According to the research results, first, the relationship between seat acquisition probability and minor party seat acquisition is negative and insignificant. The results of the research hypothesis test show rcount (-0.753) < rtable (0.997). Second, the relationship between these two variables controlled by the threshold variable is significantly positive. The research hypothesis test result is rcount (0.000) > rtable (0.997). Based on this research: (1) the electoral system of proportional representation quota/allocation of electoral district seats is not accessible to all minor parties participating in the election; (2) the size of electoral districts with seat quotas in the medium-large criteria does not have a significant positive effect on the acquisition of seats of parties participating in the election; (3) the threshold simultaneously affects the significant positive relationship between the size of the medium-large quota electoral districts and the acquisition of seats of parties participating in the election; and (4) the acquisition of party votes below the lower threshold still has the probability to get the remaining seats.

오스트리아의 개방형 정당명부식 비례대표 선거제도 연구

오스트리아의 개방형 정당명부식 비례대표 선거제도 연구

Exploring the conditions for youth representation: a qualitative comparative analysis of party parliamentary groups

Research on the underrepresentation of youth in parliaments has rarely focused on political parties. This is surprising as parties are central in the selection of candidates and therefore should play an important role in determining the demographic composition of elected politicians. We created a data set of party parliamentary groups between 2017 and 2020 and conducted a linear regression as well as a fuzzy set QCA. Building upon previous literature, we expected the share of young Members of Parliament (MPs) to be higher under the following conditions: a low/high GDP per capita, a proportional representation electoral system, decentralized nomination processes, strong party youth organizations, an inclusive party ideology and young party structures. Our research support previous findings that electoral systems matter. Furthermore, our results indicate that whilst ideology might be a significant factor by itself, it becomes influential especially in combination with PR systems. The role of strong youth organizations, decentralized selectorates and party age seem to be highly context-dependent and more ambivalent. In summary, there is no singular condition under which we observe adequate youth representation, but rather different configurations of conditions. By applying the newest guidelines on good practices in QCA research, we present one of the first applications of these techniques in party and representation research.

Time to Move On

The reform of Canada’s federal electoral system was a key platform promise of the Liberal party throughout the 2015 election campaign. Justin Trudeau famously proclaimed that the 2015 federal election would be the last in Canada under a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system; but, as several years followed, there was no change, and discourse surrounding the issue has largely fizzled out (Small, 41). Canada’s FPTP system has not changed since confederation, and it remains among only four other democracies worldwide that use “this archaic electoral system” (Rebick). FPTP is considered to create two main issues in Canadian politics: distortion of votes, and heightened regionalism. Voting behaviour and outcomes are currently distorted through unequal vote weight, ‘wasted votes’, and the phenomenon of strategic voting. Regionalism leads to national division, skews which issues are considered electorally important, negatively alters party behaviour, and changes how political preferences are perceived in Canada. Together, these effects are disengaging the Canadian public from political participation. This paper will explain the ways in which vote distortion and regionalism plague Canada’s current electoral system and the health of its democracy, and demonstrate how a shift towards a mixed-member proportional representation (MMPR) electoral system can alleviate those issues. Specifically, MMPR’s provision of a broader second vote nullifies the effect of wasted votes and strategic voting, while discouraging political parties from engaging in behaviour that targets specific electoral regions and produces political polarization.

Towards a predominant party system: the May 2023 election in Greece

ABSTRACT The parliamentary election of May 2023 in Greece is historic because it was the first held with a proportional representation electoral system in decades. Notably, there was an unprecedented 20-point difference between the winner, New Democracy, and the second party, SYRIZA. Thus, the election marks a shift towards a predominant party system, which is accompanied by a decrease in all relevant institutionalisation indices, somewhat reversing a period of stabilisation and a return of two-partyism. Empirical evidence points towards economic voting as the main determinant for New Democracy’s second consecutive win, albeit in a media environment of waning pluralism.

Ranking of candidates on slates: Evidence from 20,000 electoral slates

Using over 20,000 electoral slates from municipal elections in the Czech Republic, we document that in proportional representation electoral systems political parties rank candidates on the slates systematically according to their valence, measured by educational attainment, and intra-party value, measured by political donations and membership. The observed patterns are consistent with market mechanisms where the party leaders benefit from the valence and intra-party value of candidates and offer slate positions (i.e. the probability of winning a mandate) in exchange. We show that candidates with high valence and those who possess more intra-party value are placed in better-ranked positions, despite the fact that candidates with more intra-party value, conditional on observables, tend to receive relatively fewer votes than candidates with low intra-party value. We further show that as a party expects to hold more council seats, the share of their candidates with higher intra-party value increases.

Exploring Suitable Electoral Systems for Promotion of Women’s Representation in Tanzania and Rwanda

This article explores suitable electoral system(s) for the promotion of women’s representation in the Tanzania and Rwanda from a legal standpoint. The scrutiny of international law finds an absence of legal guidance on the favorable electoral system for enhancing the participation of women in elections, except trivially under the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The Declaration calls for states and parties to adopt electoral systems that encourage political parties to nominate women candidates. The first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system as applied in Tanzania operates without candidate gender thresholds, and consequently does not encourage political parties to nominate women candidates. While the proportional representation (PR) electoral system has placed Rwanda as a global leader in women’s representation in parliament, the system is set at 30 percent and does not expressly decree the gender quota or the positioning of women in the political parties’ candidate lists. This article discusses the advantages and challenges associated with the FPTP electoral system as well as the PR electoral system in Tanzania and Rwanda respectively, in light of international law principles, and offers recommendations on needed adjustments.

Electoral reform in authoritarian regimes: veto player uncertainty in Jordan

What explains the move of Jordan to a proportional representation (PR) electoral system in 2016 but not in 2012? This is puzzling given the high public pressure for electoral reform in 2011–12 in the wake of the Arab uprisings compared to 2016. Applying veto player theory to Jordan, this article argues that the non-adoption of PR in 2012 and the subsequent move to PR in 2016 lies mainly in the regime’s perceived uncertainty associated with the results of elections. In 2012, it was feared that elections under a PR system would replicate the 1989 opposition-dominated parliament. The regime, therefore, opted for a mixed system by complementing the single non-transferable vote system with a national party list. To justify such a system, compared to the demanded PR system, the regime resorted to rhetoric directed at both elite and mass levels. In 2016, however, the uncertainty associated with adopting a PR system ceased to exist. The fragmentation of Jordan’s strongest opposition group, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, reduced uncertainty about their electoral strength. At the same time, malapportionment reduced uncertainty regarding the outcomes of the elections. The article shows how electoral reform in authoritarian regimes, as in some democracies, can be explained through the perceived uncertainty of elections’ outcomes.

Simulation of the Implementation of the Single Transferable Vote in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the Case of Elections for the Parliamentary Assembly in 2000

The electoral system is deeply divided and post-conflict societies have a prominent place in the existing literature studying political and institutional regulation. One of the assumptions is that the electoral system encourages political actors to act and behave more moderately or radically. Proportional representation electoral systems are widespread and are generally considered the most suitable for the representation of social groups, although the success of their outcomes remains disputable. Two types of proportional systems – party lists and single transferable vote – stand mutually opposed from the standpoints of incentives of political actors to political moderation. The party lists system (list-PR) was criticized for encouraging more radical behavior as opposed to the single transferable vote (STV) which instigated more moderate behavior. The outcomes of the named two types of proportional systems will be compared based on the case study of the elections for the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina which were held in 2000, using counterfactual simulation. Contrary to the expected outcomes of the STV, the electoral simulation will show that the list-PR has proven to be a more successful institutional solution in terms of encouraging political moderation. A STV would not significantly lead to an interethnic exchange of preferences, nor the representation of the small moderate parties, contrary to the list-PR that enabled their representation.

Two and a Half Crises: Serbian Institutional Design as the Cause of Democratic Declines

This article investigates the effects of Serbian semi-presidentialism and the proportional representation electoral system on democratic performances. Both electoral and political systems provide incentives for power-sharing mechanisms and the pluralistic character of the party system. However, in situations when one party becomes much stronger and predominant, there is a growing probability for the presidentialization of politics and excessive centralization of power that might lead to competitive authoritarianism. I am analysing three such cases from different periods – Milošević regime (1990–2000), the first transitional decade (2000–2012) and the return of the old regime (2012–2020) in order to identify causes of democratic crises that are embedded in institutional design.

When Covid-19 first struck: Analysis of the influence of structural characteristics of countries - technocracy is strengthened by open democracy.

ContextThe Covid-19 pandemic hit the developed world differentially due to accidental factors, and countries had to respond rapidly within existing resources, structures, and processes to manage totally new health challenges. This study aimed to identify which pre-existing structural factors facilitated better outcomes despite different starting points, as understanding of the relative impact of structural aspects should facilitate achieving optimal forward progress.MethodsDesk study, based on selecting and collecting a range of measures for 48 representative characteristics of 42 countries’ demography, society, health system, and policy-making profiles, matched to three pandemic time points. Different analytic approaches were employed including correlation, multiple regression, and cluster analysis in order to seek triangulation.FindingsPopulation structure (except country size), and volume and nature of health resources, had only minor links to Covid impact. Depth of social inequality, poverty, population age structure, and strength of preventive health measures unexpectedly had no moderating effect. Strongest measured influences were population current enrolment in tertiary education, and country leaders’ strength of seeking scientific evidence. The representativeness, and by interpretation the empathy, of government leadership also had positive effects.ConclusionStrength of therapeutic health system, and indeed of preventive health services, surprisingly had little correlation with impact of the pandemic in the first nine months measured in death- or case-rates. However, specific political system features, including proportional representation electoral systems, and absence of a strong single party majority, were consistent features of the most successful national responses, as was being of a small or moderate population size, and with tertiary education facilitated. It can be interpreted that the way a country was lead, and whether leadership sought evidence and shared the reasoning behind resultant policies, had notable effects. This has significant implications within health system development and in promoting the population’s health.

Heeding to the Losers: Legislators' Trade‐Policy Preferences and Legislative Behavior

Electoral incentives affect legislators' responsiveness to voters, parties, and other stakeholders. Proportional representation (PR) electoral systems with party control over nominations foster party discipline and reduce legislators' responsiveness to local constituents when at odds with the party. Yet, even under closed‐list PR regimes policymakers have incentives to respond to local interests who help advance their political careers. We illustrate this argument using evidence from a survey of Argentine legislators and a roll‐call vote on a salient export tax bill. Despite the incentives created by the electoral regime, we find that legislators' trade‐policy preferences and legislative behavior reflect the expected consequences of trade on local constituents. Our evidence suggests that catering to voters, rather than organized interests, are more likely to motivate legislators to defy their parties. These findings underscore the importance of understanding when and how catering to local constituents can affect politicians’ trade policy choices.

Finding the One: Ease of Candidate Choices in High Information Open‐List PR Systems

Vote choice in an open‐list proportional representation (OLPR) electoral system can be considered a complex process. In systems where votes are cast for individual candidates the choice is complicated by the large number of candidates, the two layers of competition involving both individual candidates and parties, and the amount of information required to make an informed choice. Hence, voters are expected to apply strategies to narrow down the pool of candidates from which the actual choice is made, that is, to create a delimited consideration set using cognitive heuristics. The types of strategies that facilitate voters' candidate choice are studied. More specifically, the voters' perceptions of the ease with which they choose their candidate and how this is related to three decision‐making patterns are studied: the party‐centric, in which the voter looks for party‐related and ideological cues; the socio‐normative, in which the voter considers their social in‐group; and the candidate‐related, in which the voter puts emphasis on specific features of the candidates, such as political experience, age and gender. Our study is situated in the Finnish OLPR system, characterized by many candidates, intense intra‐party competition and mandatory preferential voting. Using data from the 2019 Finnish National Election Study and ordinal probit selection models, the mechanisms that facilitate the ease of candidate choice are outlined. Our findings suggest that voters feeling close to a political party and knowing the candidate personally or through friends or family perceive their candidate choice as easier.

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.

Squaring the circle: The consolidation of incumbency advantage in the Argentine provincial elections of 2019

ABSTRACT The Argentine provincial elections in 2019 consolidated the control governors had over their own territories. Despite a profound economic crisis, provincial politics reinforced patterns of continuity rather than change. This was possible thanks to a series of institutional reforms enacted since the 1980s designed to protect governors and their parties, and whose lock-in effects are still in force. In some districts, power-concentrating reforms such as removing gubernatorial term limits and electoral laws with majoritarian effects solidified governors’ powers. In other provinces, power-sharing reforms that established term limits and enacted proportional representation electoral systems provide fertile ground for the emergence of new political parties. In both districts, the strategic use of the prerogative of choosing the date of provincial elections helped create provincial safe-havens. This article delves into the foundations of provincial incumbency advantage and sheds light on the institutional mechanisms that set it in motion.

Constituency Effects and Legislative Dissent Under Closed-List Proportional Representation

ABSTRACTAccording to conventional wisdom, closed-list proportional representation (CLPR) electoral systems create incentives for legislators to favor the party line over their voters’ positions. However, electoral incentives may induce party leaders to tolerate “shirking” by some legislators, even under CLPR. This study argues that in considering whose deviations from the party line should be tolerated, party leaders exploit differences in voters’ relative electoral influence resulting from malapportionment. We expect defections in roll call votes to be more likely among legislators elected from overrepresented districts than among those from other districts. We empirically test this claim using data on Argentine legislators’ voting records and a unique dataset of estimates of voters’ and legislators’ placements in a common ideological space. Our findings suggest that even under electoral rules known for promoting unified parties, we should expect strategic defections to please voters, which can be advantageous for the party’s electoral fortunes.

The Long-Term Governmental Parties in Post-Communist Democracies

ABSTRACT Post-communist democracies have been notorious for their under-institutionalized party systems and unstable governments. However, two exceptional cases stand out in the region: Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (LDS) ruled the country for 12 years uninterrupted, and the Estonian Reform Party (RE) was in government for an unbroken 17 years. The article explores the factors that contributed to the success of both parties. The results show that long-term governmental parties may emerge under the conditions of proportional representation (PR) electoral systems and in fragmented and less-institutionalized party systems, if those parties use clever coalition strategies, introduce a politico-ideological hegemony, and rely on their own internal resources in which leadership or organizational capacities are crucial.

Multiple vote electoral systems: a remedy for political polarization

ABSTRACT We examine the mechanical effect of a multiple vote, proportional representation electoral system on party vote share in n dimensions. In one dimension, Cox (1990) has proven that such a system is centripetal: it drives parties to the center of the political spectrum. However, as populism has swept across Western Europe and the United States, the importance of multiple policy dimensions has grown considerably. We use simulations to examine how a multiple vote system could alter electoral outcomes in all possible parliamentary systems. We find that multiple vote systems act centripetally in multiple dimensions too, though weakly in extreme cases where parties are sorted into ideological clusters at opposite corners of the ideological space. Even in these cases, though, we find that a slight disturbance of the conditions (by introducing an additional party- even if it is very small) strengthens the centripetal properties of the multiple vote system.

Taxing the Tails in a Global Economy: How Electoral, Party and Wage Bargaining Systems Interact to Determine the Taxes Paid by the Poor and Rich

AbstractA prominent line of research on electoral systems and income redistribution argues that proportional representation (PR) leads to tax-and-transfer policies that benefit the poor at the expense of the rich. This is because PR produces encompassing center-left coalitions that protect the poor and middle classes. Yet countries with PR electoral systems tend to rely heavily on consumption taxes and tax profits lightly, both of which are inconsistent with this expectation. Both policies are regressive and seem to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. This article argues that PR electoral institutions, when combined with trichotomous multipartism, are not as hostile to the rich as commonly believed, and that it is important to understand how electoral and party systems interact with labor market institutions in order to explain the puzzling pattern of taxation that is observed. The author develops a theoretical model and evaluates its empirical implications for a world in which production has become multinational.

The impact of using proportional representation system on the fragmentation of the party system in Algeria. Applied to the elections of the National People’s Assembly (1997–2017)

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of using proportional representation system on the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system within the period from 1997 to 2017, in which Algeria has experienced five legislative elections regularly every five years by testing a hypothesis about adopting the proportional representation system on the basis of the closed list during the foregoing legislative elections has obviously influenced the exacerbation of the Algerian party system’s fragmentation, compared to other factors.Design/methodology/approachThe essence of the theoretical framework of this study is to address the effect of the electoral system as an independent variable on the party system as a dependent variable. The starting point for that framework is to reassess the “Duverger’s law,” which appeared since the early 1950s and has influenced the foregoing relationship, and then to review the literature on a new phase that tried to provide a more accurate mechanism for determining the number of parties and their relative weight, whether in terms of electoral votes or parliamentary seats. This means that researchers began to use a measure called the effective number of parties (ENP) for Laakso and Taagepera since 1979. The study elaborates the general concepts of the electoral system and the party system. It used Laakso, Taagepera index of the “ENP” to measure the phenomenon of fragmentation party during the five legislative elections from 1997 to 2017 in Algeria.FindingsThe results of the study reveal that the proportional representation electoral system – beside other factors – had clear impacts on the fragmentation of the Algerian party system by all standards, whether on the level of the apparent rise in the number of the parties represented in the Algerian parliament from 10 parties in 1997 election to 36 parties in 2017 election or according to the index of Laakso and Taagepera (ENP). The average number of effective number of electoral parties in the five elections was around 7.66, and the average number of effective number of parliamentary parties in the five elections was around 4.39, which puts Algeria in an advanced degree of the fragmentation of the party system.Originality/valueThis study about the phenomenon of the fragmentation of the party system, which is one of the new subjects in the field of comparative politics – globally and in the Arab world. Hence, the value of this study aims to shed light on this mysterious area of science, the fragmentation of the party system in the Algerian political system during the period from 1997 to 2017.