Single-member District Plurality Research Articles

Why So Little Strategic Voting in India?

Strategic voting is thought to underlie Duverger’s Law and lead to two-party outcomes in single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems. We examine the extent of strategic voting in the world’s most populous democracy, India, where frequent exceptions to Duverger’s Law have long puzzled political scientists. Using an original voter survey from the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state election, we find extremely low rates of strategic voting. Why? We show that the vast majority of respondents believe that their preferred party is likely to win in their constituency. For most voters, their partisan preferences overwhelmingly predict their beliefs about which party will win. Their election forecasts correspond to objective electoral outcomes only with respect to parties that they like less.

What accounts for Duverger's law? The behavioral mechanisms underpinning two-party convergence in India

Duverger's Law states the single-member district plurality rules should produce two-party competition. In district-level election races where this expectation holds, what political behaviors—ranging from elites' strategic formation of political parties to voters' strategic abandonment of losing candidates—account for these outcomes? Using data from state elections in India, this article demonstrates that no single mechanism accounts for most electoral outcomes consistent with Duverger's Law. However, mechanisms related to the behavior elites, far more than voters, produce convergence on two-party competition. This article uncovers relatively little evidence of outcomes driven by strategic voting, instead finding that much of the convergence on two parties is attributable to various forms of strategic entry in which parties selectively field candidates in certain races. In particular, elite collusion—when multiple parties coordinate on where to field candidates—is especially important. Data from other countries confirm that these findings are not unique to India.

Local Candidate Effects in Canadian Elections

AbstractWhat impact do local candidates have on elections in single member district plurality electoral systems? We provide new evidence using data from a large election study carried out during the 2015 Canadian federal election. We improve on the measurement of local candidate effects by asking over 20,000 survey respondents to rate the candidates in their constituency directly. We present three estimates. We find that when all voters are considered together, local candidate evaluations are decisive for approximately 4 per cent of voters. Second, these evaluations are decisive for the outcome of 10 per cent of constituency contests. Third, when models are estimated for each constituency, we find significant evaluation effects for 14 per cent of candidates.

Getting Electoral Systems to Count: Does Candidate's Smile Matter in Japan?

Previous studies examining whether introducing the Mixed-Member-Majoritarian (MMM) electoral system to Japan’s lower house in 1994 makes a difference in Japanese politics have stimulated a number of researchers on comparative politics. By introducing the MMM electoral system, especially its single member district plurality (SMDP) tier, researchers have expected to see policy-oriented electoral campaign. Employing the latest cutting-edge face-recognition technology on candidates, we provide new evidences suggesting that the SMDP system encourages party- oriented elections compared to the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) electoral system which was used prior to 1994 for Japan’s lower house elections. The results of regression analyses using the six lower house election (1980, 1983, 1986, 2000, 2014 and 2017) data show that, compared to the elections under the SNTV, the impact of candidate’s smile on the vote share of candidates under the SMDP has been diminished even after controlling for other covariates.

Making votes count in parliament or government?

ABSTRACTSeveral scholars have sought to elucidate voting strategies in proportional representation (PR) systems. The argument is that the existence of coalition governments forces voters to consider potential alliances and to vote in order to maximize their chances of influencing the outcome. In this paper, we argue that this vision is incomplete as PR, just as single-member district plurality, also creates incentives for voters to desert parties that have little chances of obtaining a seat in their district. We validate this theoretical claim using two different surveys conducted during the 2014 Belgian federal and regional elections. Our results show that both government and district viability have a substantial and distinct effect on vote choice.

Third-Party Strategy under Plurality Rule: The British Liberal Democrats and the New Zealand Social Credit Party

This article examines the strategic options facing small centrist third parties in two-party parliamentary systems operating under the single-member district plurality electoral system. It uses a spatial model to show that centrist third parties are better off targeting the ‘safe’ districts of a major party rather than marginal districts. Furthermore, it is optimal to target one party’s districts, not both, to benefit from tactical and protest voting. This article also questions the implicit conclusion of the median-legislator theorem that pivotality-seeking is the best strategy for a third party, at least under the single-member district plurality system, because that would usurp voters’ ability to select the executive directly, a key feature of two-partism. Finally, this article shows that third parties can damage themselves if they ‘flip’ their strategies from opposing particular major parties to supporting them. Evidence is provided for the British Liberal Democrats and New Zealand’s historic Social Credit Party.

Is Duverger’s law valid?

I show that, contrary to Duverger’s law, three or four parties receive at least 5 per cent of the votes in most districts in British and Canadian elections. This is so because the voters and the parties are not necessarily short-term utility maximizers as the theory assumes. Still, the basic intuition that fewer parties obtain significant support under single-member district plurality elections is absolutely correct. Duverger also makes an important contribution instressing the impact of electoral formulas, a fruitful antidote to the exclusive emphasis that recent research has given to district magnitude.

What’s information got to do with it? Third-party voting in plurality systems

Although strategic voting theory predicts that the number of parties will not exceed two in single-member district plurality systems, the observed number of parties often does. Previous research suggests that the reason why people vote for third parties is that they possess inaccurate information about the parties’ relative chances of winning. However, research has yet to determine whether third-party voting persists under conditions of accurate information. In this article, we examine whether possessing accurate information prevents individuals from voting for third-placed parties in the 2005 and 2010 British elections. We find that possessing accurate information does not prevent most individuals from voting for third-placed parties and that many voters possess reasonably accurate information regarding the viability of the parties in their constituencies. These findings suggest that arguments emphasizing levels of voter information as a major explanation for why multiparty systems often emerge in plurality systems are exaggerated.

Electorate redistricting for a single-member district plurality, two-ballot voting system: Taiwan’s electoral reform

In this study, we formulated a mathematical model for electorate demarcation in line with Taiwan?s electoral reforms, minimizing legislative seats for the main opposition party in Taipei City. The model is compared with historical election data to establish characteristics that are most contested and germane to the reform. Examination of the constituency demarcation for the Seventh Legislator Election ascertains that electorate demarcation can/can not be manipulated to create electoral advantage. Demonstrable evidence of a bias toward disproportionate representation in the single-member district plurality, two-ballot voting system ultimately attests the importance of scenario analysis before adopting new electorate systems.

Pretty faces, marginal races: Predicting election outcomes using trait assessments of British parliamentary candidates

The conventional wisdom on Western European politics leads us to believe that all the “action” lies with parties, because the unified parliamentary delegations in Western Europe draw voters' attention to parties' policies and images. Though British elections take place under a single member district plurality system, British parties, like their continental counterparts, are highly centralised and feature disciplined parliamentary delegations. Despite the strong ties between British candidates and their parties, we demonstrate that perceptions of candidates' personal attributes can be used to predict general election outcomes. Using a computer-based survey where subjects are asked to evaluate real British candidates using only rapidly determined first impressions of facial images, we successfully predict outcomes from the 2010 general election. Moreover, we find that perceptions of candidates' relative attractiveness are particularly useful for predicting outcomes in marginal constituencies.

THE REPRESENTATION OF YOUNGER AGE COHORTS IN ASIAN PARLIAMENTS: DO ELECTORAL SYSTEMS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

This study examines the descriptive representation of younger age cohorts in Asian parliaments. Drawing from literature on women's parliamentary representation, it develops the hypothesis that proportional representation (PR) elections provide more incentives for the inclusion of younger representatives than do single-member district plurality (SMDP) electoral systems. Analysing an original dataset of over four thousand MPs from 14 countries, I find support for the argument that PR electoral systems favour the election of younger MPs even after controlling for multiple alternative explanations.

Entry and Coordination in Mixed-Member Systems: A Controlled Comparison Testing theContaminationHypothesis

Do the logics of entry and coordination that hold in pure single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems and in pure proportional representation (PR) systems hold in the SMDP tier and the PR tier of mixed-member systems? The fact that single-member districts are embedded in multimember districts means the logic of entry and coordination in either may be contaminated by the existence of the other. How can we establish the counterfactual of how many parties we should expect in one tier if the other tier did not exist? We leverage the design of districts in the United Kingdom to address this challenge, observing voting in the same (or very similar) districts but under multiple electoral systems. We find only limited support for the hypothesis that contamination occurs across tiers of mixed-member systems and conclude that there appears to be generally sophisticated decision making about both entry and coordination.1

The choice of electoral systems in new democracies: a case study of South Korea in 1988

Most theories about electoral system choice are based on the experiences of Western European countries, many of which shifted from majority/plurality rule to proportional representation (PR) at the turn of the twentieth century. This article aims to explain the choice of the South Korean legislative electoral system in 1988 as an example of electoral institution choices in new democracies, which may be different from those in the Western European countries. Through analysing multiple steps leading to the choice of a single-member district plurality voting system, this article suggests three potentially generalizable findings. First, in new democracies, labour parties can only induce old parties to shift to a proportional representation system if they have mobilized the working class prior to democratization. Secondly, parties in the developing world at times face unusual systems that are neither majoritarian nor fully PR. Under such unusual systems, party size would not be a reliable predictor for the party's preference over electoral institutions. Finally, when parties choose a legislative electoral institution in a presidential system, parties tend to prefer an institution that helps them in the subsequent presidential election even though the institution might harm them in the upcoming legislative election.

Legislative organization in MMP

How do electoral systems affect legislative organization? The change in electoral systems from Single Member District plurality (SMD) to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) in New Zealand can illuminate how electoral incentives affect the distribution of cabinet positions. Because in SMD the outcome of individual local districts determines the number of seats a party wins collectively, New Zealand parties deploy cabinet posts in order to shore up the electoral fortunes of individual members. In MMP, the total number of seats a party receives is determined by the votes in the proportional representation (PR) portion for the party, which eliminates the incentives to reward electorally unsafe members with cabinet positions. We show that strong cabinet members, measured through experience as prior terms in the cabinet position, are still likely to be retained.

Does Tactical Voting Matter? The Political Impact of Tactical Voting in Canadian Elections

Tactical voting primarily takes place under single-member district plurality electoral institutions and takes the form of third-party supporters voting for one of the major parties. Although much has been written about tactical voting, few studies have attempted to show its impact on seat distribution within the parliament or on the makeup of the subsequent government, in countries with single-member plurality systems. In this article, we assess the magnitude and impact of tactical voting in0 the Canadian general elections between 1988 and 2000. We build a model of tactical voting by identifying factors that are known to affect the level of tactical voting that we can measure using available data. Based on this model, we generate predicted levels of tactical voting for all parties within each district, and then use these predicted values to adjust the actual election data to produce a new set of data containing a would-be election outcome in the absence of tactical voting. By comparing actual election data, adjusted election data, and the seat share of political parties in the parliament after these elections, we discuss the political impact of tactical voting in Canada. The results of our study affirm that, in some cases, tactical voting does lead to election outcomes different from those in its absence and that arguments based on voter rationality are to some degree valid in the real world. At the same time, our results demonstrate that the impact of tactical voting on election outcomes, and thus on the actual distribution of seats within the parliament, has been minimal in Canada. It had no impact on the partisan composition of the government in any of the four elections studied.

Russia's Political Party System as a (Continued) Impediment to Democratization: The 2003 Duma and 2004 Presidential Elections in Perspective

The primary purpose of this research note is to offer a brief assessment of 2003 Duma and 2004 presidential elections in light of arguments concerning development of Russia's party system that we presented earlier in Demokratizatsiya (Riggs and Schraeder 2004). In that article, we argued that Russia's transition to democracy has been inhibited by development of a dysfunctional and unstable party system. Specifically, we made three arguments: (1) sudden collapse of Soviet system disrupted development of nascent party system, severing its connections to society and leaving it to be reconstituted from above by elites in circumstances that limited its connections with society and political system; (2) later changes made to overall political system during 1993-95 and 1999-2000 election cycles have reinforced party system's susceptibility to behavior of elite at expense of developing links between political and civil society; and (3) those changes also shaped incentives for self-interested elite action in ways that have led away from development of a well-structured party system. We concluded that, until Russian party system re-establishes its links with society and incentives of party elite behavior are shaped by need to promote societal interests rather than their own, Russia's party system will continue to be dysfunctional, contributing to democratic decay as opposed to assisting democratic consolidation. Unfortunately, proponents of strengthening democratic consolidation in Russia cannot take heart from 2003 Duma and 2004 presidential elections, which have become more elite driven, contributing to Mexicanization of Russian political party system (i.e., creation of a one-party dominant political system).The More Things Change, More Things Remain SameThe 1993 elections for newly created Duma and elections that followed were held under new rules designed to foster a stable party system. Half of Duma's 450 seats are elected by party list through a proportional representation system (in which votes are cast for parties, and seats are apportioned to based on percentage of vote attained), while remaining half are elected through a single-member district plurality system (in which votes are cast for individual candidates in electoral districts, and one with greatest number of votes wins). Rules were added to minimize insignificant and concentrate votes.A cursory examination of results of 2003 Duma election might suggest that a stable multiparty system is developing in Russia (see table 1). Most of have an established identity, whereas new are result of party consolidation rather than constituting elite parties of convenience. The Motherland (People's Patriotic Union) party has brought together more than thirty political organizations under one umbrella. The United Russia party was formed by merger of Unity and Fatherland-All Russia parties. The People's Party of Russian Federation represents transformation of People's Deputies Duma faction of independent candidates into an electoral party. Yeltsin's party of (Our Home Is Russia) has disappeared. Other in Duma hold only six seats divided among four parties, and contingent of independents is down to sixty-eight. In short, 2003 Duma election encouraged a less fragmented party system than had previously existed in Russia.These patterns do not signal that Russian civil society is becoming more vibrant and politically engaged, however. Russia's are still primarily elite driven, with main difference in 2003 and 2004 elections being that President Vladimir Putin became prime mover in Russian politics. The structure United Russia party was not as popular as outcome suggests. In a December 2003 survey that asked what party or political outlook respondents sympathized with most, only 20 percent responded the party of power (United Russia) while 30 percent responded none of them (Russia Votes 2004a). …

Interaction Effects in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems

The past decade has witnessed a surprising growth in the popularity of mixed-member electoral systems. Under these systems, voters choose representatives simultaneously under both proportional representation (PR) and single-member district plurality (SMDP) rules. It is widely accepted that SMDP rules tend to winnow competition down toward two large parties, and evidence from mixed systems suggests that this Duvergerian “gravity” reduces the number of parties surviving SMDP competition under mixed systems as well. Nevertheless, we argue, simultaneous balloting under PR rules softens this winnowing effect, operating as a “centrifugal force” that prevents Duvergerian gravity from reducing competition to the degree it does under pure SMDP systems. Thus, these newsystems produce effects unanticipated by their designers. To test for the presence of this centrifugal force, we examine elite-level electoral strategies in Germany, Japan, and Italy and compare district-level SMDP election results from pure systems with those of mixed-member systems.

Why is there so Little Strategic Voting in Canadian Plurality Rule Elections?

Using the 1988 Canadian Election Study I examine why there was only restricted strategic voting in single-member district plurality elections. In that election 19 percent of Canadian voters preferred the party that actually finished third in their constituency, but among these third party supporters only one in eight decided to vote strategically for one of the top two contenders. Strategic voting was relatively rare for two key reasons. First, many third party supporters had a strong preference for their party over all others and were therefore reluctant to rally to either of the top two contenders. Second, many overestimated their party's chance of winning and as a consequence did not feel that their vote would be wasted.

District magnitude, electoral formula, and the number of parties

Abstract. Duverger's propositions concerning the psychological and mechanical consequences of electoral rules have previously been examined mainly through the lens of district magnitude, comparing the properties of single–member district plurality elections with those of multimember proportional representation elections. The empirical consequences of multimember plurality (MMP) rules, on the other hand, have received scant attention. Theory suggests that the effect of district magnitude on the number and concentration of parties will differ with regard to whether the allocation rules are plurality–based or proportional. I test this theory by drawing on a uniquely large–sample dataset where district magnitude and electoral formula vary but the basic universe of political parties is held constant, applying regression analysis to data from several thousand Hungarian local bodies elected in 1994 consisting of municipal councils, county councils, and mayors. The results indicate that omitting the variable of electoral formula has the potential to cause significant bias in estimates of Duvergerian consequences of district magnitude. In addition, the analysis of multi–member plurality elections from the local election dataset reveals counter–intuitively that candidate and party entry may increase with district magnitude under MMP, suggesting important directions for future investigation of MMP rules.