Electoral rules and minority representation in Romania

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleh Protsyk ◽  
Lupsa Marius Matichescu
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
Legislative Representation

This paper explores the effects that different institutional mechanisms for legislative representation have on ethnic diversity in the lower chamber of the Romanian parliament. It uses an original data set to examine representational outcomes generated by a combination of proportional representation and reserved seats provisions. The findings highlight the benefits that Romania’s choice of electoral rules generated for smaller minority communities and limitations that these rules impose on the nature and extent of legislative representation of large minority groups. The paper provides evidence for qualifying the scholarly support in favour of proportional representation. It also draws attention to potential trade-offs between communal representation and ethnic inclusiveness of main political parties that the use of special mechanisms for minority representation might encourage.

Design Trade-Offs Under Power Asymmetry: COPs and Flexibility Clauses

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jean-Frédéric Morin ◽  
Benjamin Tremblay-Auger ◽  
Claire Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Design Feature ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Power Asymmetry ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Environmental Agreement ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Insurance Mechanism ◽  
Important Design

Abstract Negotiating parties to an environmental agreement can manage uncertainty by including flexibility clauses, such as escape and withdrawal clauses. This article investigates a type of uncertainty so far overlooked by the literature: the uncertainty generated by the creation of a Conference of the Parties (COP) in a context of sharp power asymmetry. When negotiating an agreement, it is difficult for powerful states to make a credible commitment to weaker states, whereby they will not abuse their power to influence future COP decision-making. Flexibility clauses provide a solution to this credibility issue. They act as an insurance mechanism in case a powerful state hijacks the COP. Thus we expect that the creation of a collective body interacts with the degree of power asymmetry to make flexibility clauses more likely in environmental agreements. To test this argument, we draw on an original data set of several specific clauses in 2,090 environmental agreements, signed between 1945 and 2018. The results support our hypothesis and suggest that flexibility clauses are an important design feature of adaptive environmental agreements.

Centralized or decentralized personalization? Measuring intra-party competition in open and flexible list PR systems

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881985571
Author(s):  
Jérémy Dodeigne ◽  
Jean-Benoit Pilet
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Over Time

This article offers a comparative analysis of electoral intra-party competition in four countries – Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland and Luxembourg – based on an original data set of 79,621 candidates and 3150 party lists covering the last quarter century (1994–2017). We use two measures to describe the nature of intra-party competition over time, across countries and across party lists: a Gini coefficient and a measure of the effective number of candidates. First, in terms of change over time (personalization) – unlike hypothesized in the presidentialization thesis – there is no concentration of intra-party competition around a few leaders over time. Second, in terms of the dynamics of concentration of votes (personalized politics), the results invite to move beyond the clear-cut divide found in the literature between centralized and decentralized forms of personalized politics. Instead, personalized politics is best described by the concept of ‘elitization’, meaning the concentration of most votes on a medium-sized group of candidates (5–10 per lists). Finally, three sets of factors condition intra-party electoral competition: the electoral rules organizing preference votes, the level of elections (European, national and regional) and the presence on the party lists of incumbent politicians (party leaders, ministers and parliamentarians).

scholarly journals Electoral Rules or Electoral Leverage? Explaining Muslim Representation in England

2014 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafaela M. Dancygier
Keyword(s):  
Minority Groups ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Substantial Variation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Rule Change

Immigration has fundamentally altered the ethnic and religious makeup of most advanced democracies, but substantial variation is observed in the political representation of immigrant-origin minority groups across countries and cities. Though existing research has highlighted the role of electoral institutions in explaining minority representation, it is often difficult to isolate their effects across contexts. Focusing on Muslims in England and employing a new data set containing over 42,000 candidate-level observations, this article explains Muslim candidate election and selection. To do this, the author makes use of a rule change whereby a subset of localities switched from the use of multimember elections to the use of single-member elections. She finds that these electoral rules have no significant effect on the share of Muslims that gets elected but that they do influence the selection process: in a given election, Muslims are half as likely to be selected when only one seat is up for election as compared with when three seats are in play. Yet parties balance the slate across consecutive single-member elections, leading to similar results across systems. Further, the more undesirable the seat, the more likely it is to have a Muslim on the ticket, but this effect holds only in single-member elections, and it reverses as Muslims gain electoral leverage. Overall electoral leverage proves crucial: the effect of institutions and the potential for institution-based discrimination are conditional on the size and concentration of the local Muslim population and the votes it can deliver at both the election and the selection stages.

scholarly journals Is it time to let go? The Best Loser System in Mauritius

Afrika Focus ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Yonatan Fessha ◽  
Nora Ho Tu Nam
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
National Parliament ◽  
Unique System

As Mauritius was moving towards independence, one contested issue was the electoral system to be adopted. Minority groups were wary of any electoral system which would allow for a Hindu-hegemony and which would leave them unable to access power. To respond to this anxiety, Mauritius adopted the best loser system (BLS), a unique system of ethnic representation in the national parliament. This contribution examines how the adoption of BLS, has over the years, contributed to the management of ethnic diversity. More importantly, it examines the current debate regarding the contemporary relevance of BLS to today’s Mauritius. At times heavily criticized for its communal and ethnic undertones, BLS has ensured continued minority representation in parliament. The article argues that one must be cautious about dismissing the relevance of inclusive institutions such as BLS as such an attitude might well undermine the move towards a more united Mauritius.

scholarly journals Is it time to let go? The Best Loser System in Mauritius

Afrika Focus ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonatan Fessha ◽  
Nora Ho Tu Nam
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
National Parliament ◽  
Unique System

As Mauritius was moving towards independence, one contested issue was the electoral system to be adopted. Minority groups were wary of any electoral system which would allow for a Hindu- hegemony and which would leave them unable to access power. To respond to this anxiety, Mauritius adopted the best loser system (BLS), a unique system of ethnic representation in the national parliament. This contribution examines how the adoption of BLS, has over the years, contributed to the management of ethnic diversity. More importantly, it examines the current debate regarding the contemporary relevance of BLS to today’s Mauritius. At times heavily criticized for its commu- nal and ethnic undertones, BLS has ensured continued minority representation in parliament. The article argues that one must be cautious about dismissing the relevance of inclusive institutions such as BLS as such an attitude might well undermine the move towards a more united Mauritius. 

The Cost of Doing Business: Congressional Requests, Cost, and Allocation of Presidential Resources

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-825
Author(s):  
Brandon Rottinghaus ◽  
Philip D. Waggoner
Keyword(s):  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Cost

Executive-legislative interactions operate with cost-benefit trade-offs. Presidents possess several material options in granting Congressional requests to leverage Congressional support but must also marshal these scarce resources. We argue presidents should strategically grant requests from members of Congress for a range of executive actions based upon the cost of the request and the political context. Using an original data set of nearly 4,000 internal Congressional requests made during the Eisenhower, Ford, and H. W. Bush administrations, we find that presidents are strategic in granting requests, where the cost of the request is an important consideration when deciding whether or not to approve a legislator request, especially on executive appointments but not on legislative matters. Ideological proximity to the president matters more than partisanship in granting requests. Presidents are sensitive to cost when ideology is concerned but less so when granting requests to committee chairs. We conclude by highlighting the implications for interbranch bargaining.

Recruitment and Representation of Ethnic Minorities under Proportional Representation

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleh Protsyk ◽  
Konstantin Sachariew
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Party System ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Original Dataset

This article explores the effects that electoral rules, party ideologies, and structural characteristics of minority communities have on party system responses to the need of accommodating the country’s ethnic diversity. The article uses an original dataset on parliamentary representation in Bulgaria to analyze candidate selection practices of electorally successful political parties. The article’s findings highlight the need to qualify the academic discussion of beneficial effects of proportional representation (PR) electoral rules for minority representation. The authors report the failures of demographically large ethnic groups to secure close-to-proportional representation under Bulgaria’s choice of PR electoral system. The authors also identify costs in terms of reduced competitiveness and accountability that PR-facilitated electoral success of ethnic minority parties can impose on minority constituencies.

scholarly journals Democratic Institutions Beyond the Nation State: Measuring Institutional Dissimilarity in Federal Countries

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imke Harbers ◽  
Matthew C. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Call System ◽  
Institutional Variation

The persistence of subnational undemocratic regimes in new democracies has recently revived interest in intra-national patterns of democratization. This article offers new data and a methodological contribution to this literature, emphasizing the measurement of institutional variation across territorial units and levels of government. Developing new measures of the unevenness of democratic institutions within individual countries, and illustrating these measures with an original data set on electoral rules in Mexico at the federal level and across 32 subnational units, we provide tools to enhance the study of democracy, particularly at the subnational level and in federal or decentralized systems. More specifically, we develop measures of institutional characteristics across a country's spatial units and of federal-to-state institutional dissimilarity – what we call system-wide institutional incongruence.

scholarly journals Determinants of legislative committee membership in proportional representation systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 524-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Riera ◽  
Francisco Cantú
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Committee Membership ◽  
Presidential Democracies ◽  
Committee Assignments

This article explores the determinants of the allocation of parliamentary posts to specific legislators. Using an original data set of biographical information and committee assignments for almost 10,000 legislators in five non-presidential democracies (i.e. Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, and Spain), we provide evidence that distributive posts are more likely to be allocated to electorally vulnerable members of parliament, mainly under candidate-centered electoral rules. We also show that posts in high-policy committees are usually assigned to prominent legislators within the parties. Contrary to what one could expect based on the literature on candidates’ incentives to cultivate a personal vote, we find that the effect of district magnitude on the distribution of legislative posts does not depend on the type of list.

Rotational Characteristics of the Green Solar Corona: 1947-1991

1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 139-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rybák ◽  
V. Rušin ◽  
M. Rybanský
Keyword(s):  
Solar Corona ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Rotation Period ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Coronal Emission ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The World ◽  
Coronal Emission Line ◽  
Homogeneous Data

AbstractFe XIV 530.3 nm coronal emission line observations have been used for the estimation of the green solar corona rotation. A homogeneous data set, created from measurements of the world-wide coronagraphic network, has been examined with a help of correlation analysis to reveal the averaged synodic rotation period as a function of latitude and time over the epoch from 1947 to 1991.The values of the synodic rotation period obtained for this epoch for the whole range of latitudes and a latitude band ±30° are 27.52±0.12 days and 26.95±0.21 days, resp. A differential rotation of green solar corona, with local period maxima around ±60° and minimum of the rotation period at the equator, was confirmed. No clear cyclic variation of the rotation has been found for examinated epoch but some monotonic trends for some time intervals are presented.A detailed investigation of the original data and their correlation functions has shown that an existence of sufficiently reliable tracers is not evident for the whole set of examinated data. This should be taken into account in future more precise estimations of the green corona rotation period.

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