Study Of Electoral Systems Research Articles

Engineering Democracy: Electoral Rules and Turnout Inequality

The issue of unequal electoral turnout poses serious concerns for both the overall health of democratic politics, and the extent to which certain groups exert an unequal influence on the political process. This article explores the relationship between electoral rules such as: compulsory voting, electoral system proportionality, and voter registration with voter inequality in terms of age, income and education. This is examined using cross-national survey data and cross-level interactions between electoral institutions and socio-demographic variables. The final dataset is based on waves 2–4 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, and contains information on 133,000 individuals, within 45 countries, between 2001 and 2016. The results indicate that compulsory voting is associated with a significant reduction in turnout inequalities, while the effects of proportionality and voter registration are somewhat more mixed.

Monetary technocracy and democratic accountability: how central bank independence conditions economic voting

Central bank independence (CBI) implies that elected governments delegate monetary policy to technocrats in central banks. I argue that given the substantial influence of monetary policy on consumption, investments, exchange rates, capital flows and government spending, all of which critically determine the performance of the economy, CBI can blur the lines of responsibility for economic performance between elected governments and central banks. It can thereby weaken voters’ ability and willingness to electorally punish (or reward) governments on the basis of economic outcomes. Utilizing data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, I test how CBI conditions the effects of macroeconomic performance on electoral support for incumbents in 38 countries from 1996 to 2016. The results show that CBI significantly attenuates the reward and punishment mechanism of elections based on economic records. The finding of this article sheds new lights on how the problem of democratic accountability caused by the rise of CBI actually materializes in elections, the most important sanctioning mechanism of democracy. Further, it identifies CBI as another crucial condition that can explain variations in the magnitude of economic voting across countries, as yet unexplored in the election literature.

The interplay of economic vote dimensions: inequality, redistribution preferences and support for incumbents

Economic voting is multidimensional (covering valence, patrimony and positional dimensions), and a growing number of research contributions have explored the existence and strength of the effect of these dimensions on voting. However, we know comparatively little about the interplay between these dimensions. This article fills that void by focusing on how the interplay between the rise of income inequality (the valence dimension) and redistribution preferences (the positional dimension) influences support for incumbents. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Modules 4 and 5, I find that preferences for income redistribution reduce the likelihood of voters supporting incumbent parties. Modest evidence demonstrates that this relationship is stronger in countries where inequality increased to a greater degree between elections. Voters who want more redistribution tend to re-elect left-wing governments and want to throw out right-wing incumbents. However, rise of inequality hurts both left-wing and right-wing incumbents.

Only in Queensland? Coal mines and voting in the 2019 Australian federal election

ABSTRACT Australians are deeply divided over the prospect of new coal mines. Heated political debates at the federal level between conservative Coalition governments and Labor and the Greens echo divisions in public opinion. New data from the 2019 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems show that almost half of all Australians agree the government should allow the development of new coal mines, although substantial divisions in support are apparent on the basis of social background, political orientations and party identification. Our social and political background findings are almost the mirror image of the correlates of accepting anthropogenic climate change. State-based differences are also apparent, with Queenslanders more likely than people in other states to support the construction of new coal mines. Yet, while in regional Queensland voting decisions may have been influenced by the prospect of increased employment, in general, voting in Queensland does not appear to be associated strongly with attitudes toward new coal mines. Simplistic binaries of acting to ameliorate climate change versus supporting the fossil fuel industry fail to account for the complexity of Australians’ views on coal mining and carbon emissions.

How individuals’ social characteristics impact the likelihood to waste a vote – evidence from Great Britain, Germany and France

ABSTRACT Which social characteristics of voters reduce the chances to waste a vote? Surprisingly, little is known about the commonalities and differences of citizens who do (not) make their vote count. In this article, we argue that levels of education and income, gender and age shape the likelihood to waste a vote through two channels: the voting motivation and the ability to correctly assess the viability of candidates. Drawing on data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, we analyse voting behaviour in six elections in Great Britain, Germany and France between 2005 and 2015. Our analyses demonstrate that holding a university degree is not related to effective voting. Differences in cognitive capacities as a consequence of formal education are hence not decisive for voters’ ability to assess candidates’ viability correctly. Instead, our results show that many of those wasting their ballots are male and young voters who tend to knowingly decide to support candidates unlikely to win. Overall, these findings shed light on wasted votes as one of the factors that might balance and reinforce existing social inequalities in the political process.

Rightward Leanings and Nonstandard Party-Position Perceptions

Some individuals defy the consensus as to parties’ relative ideological positions, asserting that a party is more left-leaning than its rivals even when most observers have the opposite view. Such discrepancies undercut spatial models of politics. Rightward leaners’ tendency to use different, more self-anchored, bases for assessing ideology may make them especially likely to dissent in this way, as might their attention to distinct issues. Results from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems confirm that those on the political right are likelier to reverse typical left-right orderings, even on right-leaning or major parties. Evidence from the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study further shows that right-leaners’ nonstandard ordering extends to parties’ specific issue-positions—particularly, notably, on issues of higher salience to the left. Standard models of politics may accordingly apply less well to those who identify as being on the political right.

Freedom of the Press and Public Responsiveness

Public responsiveness to policy is contingent on there being a sufficient amount of clear and accurate information about policy available to citizens. It is of some significance then, that there are increasing concerns about limits being placed on media outlets around the world. We examine the impact of these limits on the public’s ability to respond meaningfully to policy by analyzing cross-national variation in the opinion–policy link. Using new measures on spending preferences from Wave 4 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, merged with OECD data on government spending and Freedom House measures of press freedom, we assess the role of mass media in facilitating public responsiveness. We find evidence that when media are weak, so too is public responsiveness to policy. These results highlight the critical role that accurate, unfettered media can play in modern representative democracy.

“He’s not my prime minister!”: negative party identification and satisfaction with democracy

ABSTRACTAcross Europe and the United States, negative party identification – an abiding aversion to a particular opposing political party is on the rise. At the same time, satisfaction with democracy is down worldwide. In this article, we explore the potential connection between these two phenomena. We develop a theory that posits a relationship between negative party identification and satisfaction with democracy where institutional structures and outcomes can mitigate the deleterious effects of negative party identification. We test our theory by drawing on data from 25 parliamentary and semi-presidential countries in the third wave of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) from 2006–2011 to assess the cross-national effect of negative party identification on levels of satisfaction with the democratic process in one’s own country. We find that satisfaction with democracy declines among voters in multiparty systems when an “out-group” party holds the prime ministership. At the same time, larger vote margins and the nature of the governing coalition can mitigate the effects of negative party identification. Our findings have important implications for how institutions can reduce the potential effect of negative party identification on satisfaction with democracy.

Political Knowledge: Assessing the Stability of Gender Gaps Cross-Nationally

Abstract This article investigates gender gaps in political knowledge by exploiting a pooled dataset containing the four modules of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, thereby allowing the comparison of seven different measurements of political knowledge, the most comprehensive comparison to date. The paper’s findings are threefold. First, the two conventional types of political knowledge—factual or placement knowledge—belong to different latent constructs and are not interchangeable. Second, most factual knowledge scales produce important variations in the size of gender gaps across and within countries over time. Third, “don’t know” as an incorrect response generally leads to broader gender gaps, given men’s higher propensity to guess.

Too much choice, too little impact: a multilevel analysis of the contextual determinants of preference voting

Despite the rich and growing body of research addressing how turnout and party choice depend on the institutional context, far less is known about the impact of the political environment on voters’ propensity to vote for candidates – not parties. Recent single-country studies have focused almost exclusively on individual-level resource- and identity-based differences in preference voting. Combining data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies (PARTIREP) election studies in six countries, this article provides the first comprehensive, cross-national test of the impact of macro-contextual factors on a voter’s decision to indicate a candidate preference, instead of simply casting a party list vote. It demonstrates that both the failure of preference votes to affect the allocation of seats and choice overload dissuade voters from marking a candidate name on the ballot. These contextual factors affect informed and uninformed voters differently, moreover. The findings have important implications for electoral scholars and political practitioners when designing electoral systems.

Winners, losers, and protest behavior in parliamentary systems

In this paper, I examine the impact of winning and losing in parliamentary systems on protest behavior. I argue that losers in parliamentary systems with single party, majority governments are more likely to protest than losers in systems with coalition governments. In the empirical analysis, I provide support for my argument using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) survey from 2001 to 2006. The results suggest that losers in single party, majority systems were more likely to protest than their counterparts in coalition systems. In addition, while it is unclear whether winning and losing had an effect on protest behavior in coalition systems, losers in single party, majority systems were more likely to protest than winners.

The Comparative Effects of Electoral Laws on Voter Rationality: Plurality versus Proportional Election Rules

Electoral rules inherently structure the development of not only a political party system, but also create incentives and disincentives for individuals to participate in politics. Few scholars study the interaction between various electoral arrangements and how they encourage or discourage voting based on the characteristics of individuals. This research uses the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to investigate the relationship between plurality and proportional electoral arrangements, on the one hand, and how they influence levels of political knowledge, sophistication, and the likelihood to vote, on the other hand. The countries studied are the United States which uses simple plurality rules, Australia which employs the alternative vote with compulsory voting, and Ireland which uses the single transferable vote. We find that plurality electoral arrangements result in consistently lower levels of political knowledge and voter sophistication. Furthermore, low levels of knowledge but not sophistication reduce turnout in plurality systems. These decreased turnout levels are greatest among individuals with the lowest levels of political knowledge, where individuals experience the highest burdens of voting. Strikingly, turnout among the highest educated citizens in the United States is still lower than participation by the least educated in Ireland.

Norms, Corruption, and Voting for Berlusconi

Why do people vote for corrupt politicians? Taking Silvio Berlusconi as an example of a politician who continually succeeded in attaining public office despite corruption accusations, corruption charges, and corruption convictions, I explore several hypotheses to understand voter support for Berlusconi. I show that social norms that justify corruption in one's peer group extend to voting and increase the likelihood of supporting Berlusconi at all points on the ideological spectrum. This work builds on previous work in psychology and sociology and brings into question assumptions that voters fail to sanction corrupt politicians because of a lack of information. By focusing on individual-level political behavior, this article shows that increased information on corruption by the media and others may not have the intended effect: perceiving corruption as common may increase tolerance for corruption, rather than encouraging voters to punish corruption. Related Articles Pasquino, Gianfranco. 2014. “Italy: The Triumph of Personalist Parties.” Politics & Policy 42 (4): 548-566. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12079/abstract Lagunes, Paul F. 2012. “Corruption's Challenge to Democracy: A Review of the Issues.” Politics & Policy 40 (5): 802-826. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2012.00384.x/abstract Caillier, James. 2010. “Citizen Trust, Political Corruption, and Voting Behavior: Connecting the Dots.” Politics & Policy 38 (5): 1015-1035. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2010.00267.x/abstract Related Media The Quality of Government Institute. http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/ The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. http://www.cses.org/ Talk by Jeremy Weinstein on a project examining political accountability around corruption and performance in Uganda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6w3_w360rw

Women’s representation and gender gaps in political participation: do time and success matter in a cross-national perspective?

ABSTRACTThis analysis challenges the notion that women’s representation does not influence gender gaps in political participation in cross-national studies by arguing that women’s representation should be measured differently. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, the paper demonstrates that long-term effects of women’s representation are more important than short-term measures in understanding gender gaps in a variety of political activities. The length of time since women have gained access to the political system explains gender gaps to a greater extent than the presence of women in the legislature and cabinet at one point in time. Additionally, when women’s representation is measured by the presence of women politicians in cabinet, findings show that the conclusions of previous work on women’s representation and political behavior may not extend beyond the US case. Finally, this study demonstrates that the type of political activities matter when analyzing the effect of women’s representation.

Understanding the Impact of Electoral Systems on Women's Representation

The study of electoral systems is a key area of research within political science. In part, the attention paid to electoral systems reflects their importance to democratic political systems. Electoral systems define “what constitutes” a vote, establish “a rule for how votes are totaled,” and create a mechanism for “translating vote share into seat allocations” for representative institutions (Bawn 1993, 966). These roles mean that electoral systems impact not only how interests are represented, but also how accountability is structured.

Challenges to multiparty governments

How does governing in coalitions affect coalition parties’ responsiveness to voters? In this article, we seek to understand the relationship between political parties’ participation in multiparty governments and their responsiveness to voters. We argue that the extent to which coalition parties respond to policy priorities of voters is influenced by the divisiveness of policy issues within the cabinet and the ministerial responsibility for policies. To test our hypotheses, we combine data on the issue attention of 55 coalition parties from the Comparative Manifestos Project with data on government composition and data on the policy priorities of voters from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various election studies in 45 elections across 16 European countries from 1972 to 2011. While we find that intra-cabinet divisiveness decreases coalition parties’ responsiveness, we find no effect for portfolio responsibility. Our findings shed light on the relationship between party competition and coalition governments and its implications for political representation.

Political Elections as an Element of Democracy

The article examines electoral systems in relation to democratic theory; and it links the study of electoral systems to that of voting systems. It compares elections in various other kinds of systems, and it looks at the differences between Azerbaijan experience and that of other countries. The article tries to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The literature regarding the formation of party systems in different transition societies, reflects that establishment of institutionalized party system where competing parties exist is an extended process and needs a long time. Also, this study accounts for different electoral system in terms of political modernization and democratic transformation. All these problems have been analyzed from both a comparative and a theoretical stand point. Today, to attain a healthy and stable political structure is one of the main problems of political science. As a result, political parties and political elections are indispensable elements of democracy.

Facilitating the Electorate: A Multilevel Analysis of Election Timing, Registration Procedures, and Turnout

This study suggests that certain election administration arrangements can have a modest but significant impact on the probability of voting. Using data from Module 3 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, supplemented by contextual data from the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, I explore the effects of election timing and voter registration procedures on turnout in 30 democracies. I show that when voter registration is in the hands of an independent electoral management body, there is a greater likelihood of an individual voting. Contrary to conventional wisdom, election timing has little impact on the probability of voting. Weekend voting, polling hours, and the timing of the election during the year have no significant impact, even among young people, supposedly the beneficiaries of such arrangements. The results show the potential for certain election arrangements to stimulate turnout. They also reveal that facilitating voters by lessening voting costs is not a cure to the problem of growing abstention. These findings have implications for our understanding of voter turnout and the means by which declining electoral engagement is addressed.

Local Districts, National Contexts, and the Number of Parties

To date, electoral systems are conceptualised as setting an ‘upper bound’ to, or defining a ‘carrying capacity’ for, the number of parties or lists, and their effect is assessed at the district level. This article adds to the empirical study of electoral systems by analysing a vast database of district-level electoral returns. The argument focuses on the demand and supply of viable electoral candidates, which are conditioned by the interplay of strategic entry (by the party rank and file) and strategic voting (by the electorate). Drawing on a database of almost 18,000 electoral districts taken from 15 West European countries, the empirical analysis yields a number of insights: most specifically, (1) district magnitude only becomes binding and effective when a higher social demand meets a lower carrying capacity of the electoral district; (2) the provision of upper tiers undermines the emergence of Duvergerian equilibria within the primary electoral districts.

Comparing Party-Voter Linkages Across Parties and Party Systems: Ideological Partisanship in Voterss Minds

This study answers the question of why an ideological party system emerges in some democracies but not in others. Despite the importance of ideology in party competition, the relationships between parties and voters in developing democracies and how these are different from, or similar to, that of established democracies with respect to ideology have received relatively less attention. Scholars have long agreed that parties of late democratizers have failed to develop ideological linkages to the same extent as their well-established Western counterparts, with the comparability between the two worlds often questioned. Even recent efforts to account for the party-voter relationships in developing democracies fall short of providing valid measures for cross-national comparison. To address these theoretical and empirical gaps, I investigate the cross-national variations in the nature of party-voter linkages and the underlying conditions for the development of ideological linkages. First, I provide novel measures of ideological linkages at the party and the party system level in 46 established and developing democracies, by using the public opinion survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (1996-2011). Next, I evaluate competing theories of party-voter relationships: institutional, socioeconomic and democratic. I find that neither being a third wave democracy nor being a less matured democracy is as critical for the development of ideological linkages as institutional and socioeconomic factors. By providing a basis for both cross-party and cross-national comparisons for future research in party-voter relationships, this study challenges the 'incomparability thesis' in the study of party politics.