Constituency Effects and Legislative Dissent Under Closed-List Proportional Representation

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-99
Author(s):  
Eduardo Alemán ◽  
Juan Pablo Micozzi ◽  
Pablo M. Pinto ◽  
Sebastián Saiegh
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Party Line ◽  
Ideological Space ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Unique Dataset

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.

Electoral Incentives in Mixed-Member Systems: Party, Posts, and Zombie Politicians in Japan

2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT PEKKANEN ◽  
BENJAMIN NYBLADE ◽  
ELLIS S. KRAUSS
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Parallel System ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Legislative Organization ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Individual

How do electoral incentives affect legislative organization? Through an analysis of Japan's mixed-member electoral system, we demonstrate that legislative organization is strongly influenced not only by the individual legislators reelection incentives but also by their interest in their party gaining power and maintaining a strong party label. Electorally vulnerable legislators are given choice legislative positions to enhance their prospects at the polls, whereas (potential) party leaders disproportionately receive posts with greater influence on the party's overall reputation. Members of Parliament elected from proportional representation (PR) lists and in single member districts also receive different types of posts, reflecting their distinct electoral incentives. Even small variations in electoral rules can have important consequences for legislative organization. In contrast to Germany's compensatory mixed-member system, Japan's parallel system (combined with a “best loser” or “zombie” provision) generates incentives for the party to allocate posts relating to the distribution of particularistic goods to those elected in PR.

scholarly journals Mandate type, electoral safety, and defections from the party line: The conditional mandate divide in the German Bundestag, 1949–2013

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881988163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Sieberer ◽  
Tamaki Ohmura
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Behavioral Differences ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Party Line ◽  
Alternative Hypotheses ◽  
Mixed Electoral Systems ◽  
German Bundestag

Research on mixed electoral systems provides inconclusive findings on the question whether members of parliament (MPs) elected in single-member districts are more likely to vote against the party line than MPs elected via closed party lists. This article rejects both the hypothesis of a general “mandate divide” and the competing claim that contamination effects completely wash out behavioral differences. Instead, we argue that electoral incentives to defect are stronger for a specific type of MP—those who run only in a district and are electorally insecure. Statistical analyses of roll call votes in the German Bundestag covering more than 60 years support this “conditional mandate divide” against alternative hypotheses. These findings suggest a more nuanced view on electoral system effects in mixed electoral systems and highlight the importance of electoral competition for incentivizing MPs to side with district demands if those conflict with the party line.

scholarly journals The personal vote and party cohesion: Modeling the effects of electoral rules on intraparty politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Royce Carroll ◽  
Monika Nalepa
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Lack Of Control ◽  
Degree Of Control ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
Internal Agreement

Conventional wisdom suggests that parties in candidate-centered electoral systems should be associated with less cohesive policy preferences among legislators. We model the incentives of party leaders to achieve voting unity accounting for the costs of discipline, showing that candidate-centered systems have the counterintuitive effect of promoting party agreement on policies and preference cohesion. These implications for cohesion derive from the degree of control over list rank held by leaders under open lists (open-list proportional representation, OLPR) and closed lists (closed-list proportional representation, CLPR). Because discipline is costlier in OLPR, owing to leaders’ lack of control over list rank, leaders seeking voting unity propose policies that promote agreement between members and leadership. Under CLPR, however, leaders can more easily achieve voting unity by relying on discipline and therefore lack incentives to promote internal agreement. We then extend the model to allow the party leader to replace members, showing that preference cohesion itself is greater under OLPR. Further, our baseline results hold when allowing legislative behavior to affect vote share and when accounting for candidates’ valence qualities. We interpret our results to suggest that candidate-centered systems result in stronger incentives for developing programmatic parties, compared with party-centered systems.

Electoral Systems and the Substantive Representation of Marginalized Groups: Evidence from Women’s Issue Bills in South Korea

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110282
Author(s):  
Yesola Kweon ◽  
Josh M. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Relationship

How do electoral rules shape the substantive representation of traditionally underrepresented groups? Using an original dataset of introduced and passed bills in the Korean National Assembly, which has both single-member districts and proportional representation, we examine the extent to which institutions condition the relationship between lawmaker gender and the substantive representation of women. While women lawmakers engage in higher levels of substantive representation of women, proportional representation allows both women and men to introduce more women’s issue bills than their counterparts elected through single-member districts. Furthermore, legislators elected through proportional representation are more effective at achieving passage of women’s issue legislation when compared with those elected in single-member districts, and this effect is especially pronounced for men. Our findings show that electoral systems matter for the representation of marginalized groups and that proportional representation systems allow both female and male politicians to increase their substantive representation of women.

A House Divided

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank C. Thames
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Representation Election ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Party Discipline ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Empirical Results

Mixed-member electoral systems embrace two views of representation by electing some legislators in single-member district elections and others in a proportional representation election. This can potentially create a “mandate divide” in legislatures, because single-member district legislators have an incentive to embrace parochial issues and proportional representation legislators have an incentive to center on national issues. Previous studies of this question have only found limited evidence of its existence. The author argues that the level of party system institutionalization will fundamentally determine whether a mandate divide will exist in a mixed-member legislature. Using roll-call voting data from the Hungarian National Assembly, the Russian Duma, and the Ukrainian Rada, the author analyzes patterns of party discipline in each legislature. The empirical results show that a mandate divide only existed in the legislature with the most weakly institutionalized party system, the Russian Duma.

scholarly journals Parties, Legislators, and the Origins of Proportional Representation

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary W. Cox ◽  
Jon H. Fiva ◽  
Daniel M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Proportional Representation ◽  
District Level ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Prominent Line

A prominent line of theories holds that proportional representation (PR) was introduced in many European democracies by a fragmented bloc of conservative parties seeking to preserve their legislative seat shares after franchise extension and industrialization increased the vote base of socialist parties. In contrast to this “seat-maximization” account, we focus on how PR affected party leaders’ control over nominations, thereby enabling them to discipline their followers and build more cohesive parties. We explore this “party-building” account in the case of Norway, using roll call data from six reform proposals in 1919. We show that leaders were more likely to vote in favor of PR than rank-and-file members, even controlling for the parties’ expected seat payoffs and the district-level socialist electoral threat facing individual legislators. Moreover, using within-legislator variation, we show that the internal cohesion of parties increased significantly after the introduction of PR.

Electoral Systems and System Reforms in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian F. Crisp ◽  
Patrick Cunha Silva
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Clear Pattern ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Defining System ◽  
The Individual

Electoral systems impose incentives for relationships between parties and relationships within parties. In interparty terms, weak systems encourage many parties to enter and voters to vote sincerely for their most preferred options. Strong systems discourage many parties from entering and encourage voters to think strategically about viability (the likelihood a preferred option will win seats). In intraparty terms, centralized systems empower party leaders and put an emphasis on the party’s shared reputation. Individualistic systems empower individual candidates and members of congress and put an emphasis on their personal reputations. The individual rules examined when defining system incentives include ballot type (can voters choose among copartisans), the level to which votes are pooled before seats are awarded, the number and level at which votes are cast, district magnitude (the number of seats to be decided in a district in a given election), and legal thresholds (predefined vote total barriers to being awarded seats). The electoral systems used to elect lower houses, upper houses (where they exist) and presidents in Latin America are located in a two-dimensional space based on these incentives. In interparty terms, weak systems outnumber strong ones in the region. In intraparty terms, there is a great deal of diversity with centralized systems slightly outnumbering individualistic ones. Instances of electoral reform are captured as changes in incentives or movements in this space. Reforms are frequent but no clear pattern emerges in terms of countries across the region converging toward imposing similar electoral incentives.

MPs’ Constituency Orientation in the Absence of Electoral Districts: The Case of Extreme Proportional Electoral Systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reut Itzkovitch-Malka
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Incentives

Abstract This article examines MPs’ constituency orientation in two of the most ‘extreme’ cases of proportional representation, Israel and the Netherlands. Both countries are considered as limiting cases, providing evidence of the type of geographically based representation we are likely to see when there are no electoral institutions which encourage a geographical link between voters and representatives. While the literature predicts the geographical connection between voters and representatives in extreme proportional electoral systems to be minimal, this article finds this to hold true for the Netherlands but not for Israel. It then seeks to find factors explaining variation in MPs’ constituency orientation in the absence of electoral incentives.

scholarly journals Electoral Systems and Legislative Organization

2017 ◽  
pp. 302-320
Author(s):  
Shane Martin
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Legislative Organization ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Legislatures are a cornerstone of representative democracy at the local, subnational, national, and even supra-national levels. Electoral systems determine how votes are transformed into legislative seats. Because of this, what legislators must do to get re-elected is shaped by electoral rules. The impact of electoral incentives goes beyond behavior, potentially shaping the rules and procedures of the legislature itself. This chapter analyzes theories and evidence that link legislative organization to members’ electoral incentives. However, not all legislative structures have a clear electoral basis. As this chapter suggests, the relationship between electoral systems and how a legislature chooses to organize itself is a conditional one.

scholarly journals The electoral foundations to noncompliance: addressing the puzzle of unlawful state aid in the European Union

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Franchino ◽  
Marco Mainenti
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
State Aid ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Reforms ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Individual

AbstractElectoral institutions shape the incentives of governments to rely on distributive measures and to comply with international obligations because of the misalignment they may engender between the collective objectives of a government party and the individual objectives of its members in the legislature. We use this argument to explain the puzzle of unlawful state aid measures in the European Union (EU). Existing theories of EU compliance and implementation offer no convincing explanation to their persistence and patterns. Using data from 2000 to 2012, we find that an increase of district magnitude improves compliance. However, compliance decreases with higher magnitude where either party leaders have no control over the ballot rank or other electoral rules strengthen the incentives to search for a personal vote. We also provide evidence for the effects of electoral reforms on compliance. These results have implications for the broader literature on compliance with international regimes.

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