scholarly journals Electoral Systems, Ethnic Heterogeneity and Party System Fragmentation

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lublin
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Multivariate Models ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Proper Account

Taking into proper account the geographic distribution of ethnic groups and the operation of electoral systems within individual countries reveals that the impact of ethnic diversity and electoral systems on the number of parties has been underestimated. Contrary to earlier findings, this study reveals that ethnic diversity spurs party proliferation in countries with both majoritarian and proportional electoral systems, though the effect is stronger in the latter. The insights gained here provide a theoretically derived measure of ethnic diversity that is useful for estimating its effect on specifically political phenomena and generating an improved holistic measure of the impact of electoral systems. More crucially, the results indicate that electoral system designers have a greater capacity to structure electoral outcomes. The results rely on multivariate models created using a new database with election results from 1990 through 2011 in sixty-five free democracies.

Impact of Candidate Selection Systems on Election Results: Evidence from Taiwan before and after the Change in Electoral Systems

2013 ◽  
Vol 213 ◽  
pp. 152-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dafydd Fell
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Campaign Strategies ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Extensive Coverage ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Election Results

AbstractA central challenge for scholars of party politics is to explain parties' electoral success or failure. Campaign strategies, candidate personalities, electoral systems, parties' issue emphasis and policy positions all receive extensive coverage in the literature. One variable that has been neglected is the role of nomination systems in election results. This is surprising considering how politicians often blame candidate selection failures for disappointing electoral outcomes and then reform nomination mechanisms in the hope of improving future election prospects. In this study I examine the relationship between nomination systems and electoral results in Taiwan before and after the change in electoral systems. I show that candidate selection methods have played an important role in shaping Taiwan's party system under the old and new electoral systems.

scholarly journals 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)

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Mahmoud Mahgoub
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Representation System ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The 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/approach The 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. Findings The 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/value This 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.

scholarly journals Active and passive: two ways party systems influence electoral outcomes

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-467
Author(s):  
Miroslav Nemčok
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Set Size ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Choice Set

AbstractParties can not only actively adjust the electoral rules to reach more favourable outcomes, as is most often recognized in political science, but they also passively create an environment that systematically influences electoral competition. This link is theorized and included in the wider framework capturing the mutual dependence of electoral systems and party systems. The impact of passive influence is successfully tested on one out of two factors closely related to party systems: choice set size (i.e., number of options provided to voters) and degree of ideological polarization. The research utilizes established datasets (i.e., Constituency-Level Elections Archive, Party System Polarization Index, Chapel Hill Expert Survey, and Manifesto Project Database) and via regression analysis with clustered robust standard errors concludes that the choice set size constitutes an attribute with passive influence over electoral systems. Thus, it must be reflected when outcomes of electoral systems are estimated or compared across various contexts.

Personal vote, spatial registration rules, and party system nationalization in Latin America

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen-Pin Su
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Party System ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Interactive Effect ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Spatial Registration ◽  
Party Registration ◽  
The Impact

While many studies of party system nationalization examine the effects of various institutional factors, few take into account the impact of party formation cost. This paper aims to fill the empirical gap by focusing on the interactive effect of electoral systems and party registration rules. I argue that the effect of electoral systems on party system nationalization is conditional on spatial registration rules, a requirement that requires a party to collect signatures or organize local branches in a specified geographical manner to maintain the party’s legal status. Based on data for 97 legislative elections in 18 Latin American countries from 1978 to 2011, the empirical analysis demonstrates that a country with an electoral system that encourages a personal vote tends to have a much lower level of party system nationalization when that country does not have spatial registration requirements. The result is robust across different model specifications and estimation techniques.

Presidentialism and legislative fragmentation: Beyond coattail effects

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigorii V Golosov ◽  
Kirill Kalinin
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Short Term ◽  
System Properties ◽  
Presidential Regimes ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact

Using data from a nearly comprehensive set of the world’s electoral democracies, 1992–2014, this article empirically evaluates the impact of presidentialism upon legislative fragmentation. The analysis demonstrates that the impact is strong, consistent across a wide variety of political contexts, and conditioned by the type of presidential regime, the scope of presidential powers, electoral system effects, and essential party system properties. While much of the reasoning regarding the interplay between presidentialism and legislative fragmentation has been traditionally focused on short-term coattail effects of presidential elections, this study shows that these effects are real, but they are insufficient to make a significant impact upon the parameter of crucial importance for the functioning of presidential regimes: the number of parties in the legislature. The main impact of presidentialism is systemic, stemming from its tendency to restrict the number of parties to a limited set of viable competitors for the presidential prize.

scholarly journals Electoral Politics in Taiwan: 2008–2012

2016 ◽  
pp. 57-75
Author(s):  
Chiung-chu Lin
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
General Information ◽  
The Political ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Triggered Reactions ◽  
Political Party System ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Impact

This paper conducts an analysis of the implementation of the new electoral system (single-district, two-votes system) in practice in 2008. It is focused on the research of two aspects: first, the voter’s awareness of the new electoral system; second, the impact of the new electoral system on the political party system. In the research methods, this article combines the analysis of an individual survey data and information on the election results, trying to find an answer to the question about Taiwan’s voters knowledge of the electoral system situation, the factors that affect the knowledge of the electoral system, as well as the issues of the new electoral system’s impact on the change and development of the political party system. The research has found out that: Taiwan’s voter awareness of the current electoral system is not high. The further research into the relations between the knowledge of the electoral system and the voting choice, as well as the control of other possible factors of influence, showed that the voters who have a more correct and clear understanding of the electoral system have the tendency to vote for small parties.From the results of the general information, the practice of the electoral system indeed led to the decline in pluralistic views. The number of effective parties in the parliament has significantly decreased to that one before restructuring. The new electoral system has made survival difficult for small parties, while the rate of the wasted vote in the regional constituency increased dramatically, making it more difficult to represent pluralistic views.These possible problems caused by the new electoral system, also triggered reactions and initiatives among the domestic public concerning the reform of the electoral system in 2015.

scholarly journals Peculiarities of determining election results in proportional electoral systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-29
Author(s):  
Oleksandr DROZDYK ◽  
Daniil POLISHCHUK
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Constituent Elements ◽  
The Impact

Introduction. This paper examines the issue of proportional electoral system, its constituent elements and types. Most types of elements of this system are analyzed here, indicating the specific countries that use them. This paper discusses in detail the basic electoral formulas of the proportional system, these formulas are usually based on the quota method or the method of divisors. The use of different methods makes it possible to favor smaller parties or, conversely, to restrict access to representative bodies to weak political forces. In practice, the application of appropriate formulas can achieve the required level of representation. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the impact of electoral formulas and voter lists on the results of popular will. Results. In recent decades, there has been a trend towards a shift from a majority electoral system to other types. Most countries choose a proportional electoral system. The relevant system has the highest number of qualitative indicators of minority representation, by minimizing the loss of votes. According to the experience of the countries listed in the paper, comparative characteristics of each type of proportional system are obtained. Properly selected and implemented electoral system is the key to the proper functioning of all democratic institutions. The analysis of electoral systems is based on modern tasks, such as the formation of authorities by persons with real support in society, increasing the representation of the interests of regions and minorities. For example, with the change of parameters, such as quotas, the order of counting of votes changes, which in turn affects the distribution of different interests in the representative body. Conclusion. For countries reforming their electoral system in the direction of proportionality, it is first necessary to determine the parameters of the electoral formula and the formation of electoral lists, then determine the method of voting. These issues are considered in this paper and give a general idea of the features of the most popular elements of the classification of the proportional electoral system and are justified by the practice of each of them.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 580-600
Author(s):  
Reuven Y. Hazan ◽  
Reut Itzkovitch-Malka ◽  
Gideon Rahat
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Reform Initiatives ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
System P ◽  
Election Results

This chapter, which focuses on the Israeli electoral system as a prototype of an extreme PR system, has five main sections. First, it uses the 2015 election results to analyze the properties of the electoral system and the nature of its outputs. Second, it reviews the three prominent features of the Israeli electoral system and their origins: its PR electoral formula, its nationwide electoral district, and its closed party lists. Third, it examines the developments that led to the consideration and implementation of reform initiatives. Fourth, it assesses the political consequences of the system for parties and the party system, for government formation and durability, and for the legislature and legislative behavior. Fifth, it addresses the puzzle of increased personalization despite the absence of a personalized electoral system.

5. Winning and Losing Elections

2021 ◽  
pp. 146-180
Author(s):  
Peter John
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Rules Of The Game ◽  
Developing Strategies

This chapter assesses what politicians and members of political parties really care about: getting into office on the back of a successful election campaign. Rather than the general determinants of voting outlined in the previous chapter, this is about the choices voters and parties face within a particular system, so they can organize themselves to win. For that they need to play by the rules of the game, which includes developing strategies within electoral systems. The chapter then discusses the impact of electoral systems on that calculus, and how the number of parties is affected by the electoral system in place. It also looks at the factors that assist the winning of elections, and the extent to which the choices of parties and voters are affected by growing instability in the system. Overall, the chapter provides an overview of British political parties and party systems.

Federal and Subnational Elections in Russia: Coherence and Divergence in Electoral Outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-353
Author(s):  
Rostislav Turovsky ◽  
Marina Sukhova
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Electoral Authoritarianism ◽  
Subnational Elections ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Regional Elections

Abstract This article examines the differences between Russian voting at federal elections and regional legislature elections, both combined and conducted independently. The authors analyse these differences, their character and their dynamics as an important characteristic of the nationalisation of the party system. They also test hypotheses about a higher level of oppositional voting and competitiveness in subnational elections, in accordance with the theory of second-order elections, as well as the strategic nature of voting at federal elections, by contrast with expressive voting during subnational campaigns. The empirical study is based on calculating the differences in votes for leading Russian parties at subnational elections and at federal elections (simultaneous, preceding and following) from 2003, when mandatory voting on party lists was widespread among the regions, to 2019. The level of competitiveness is measured in a similar way, by calculating the effective number of parties. The study indicates a low level of autonomy of regional party systems, in many ways caused by the fact that the law made it impossible to create regional parties, and then also by the 2005 ban on creation of regional blocs. The strong connection between federal and regional elections in Russia clearly underlines the fluid and asynchronic nature of its electoral dynamics, where subnational elections typically predetermine the results of the following federal campaigns. At the same time, the formal success of the nationalisation of the party system, achieved by increasing the homogeneity of voting at the 2016 and 2018 federal elections, is not reflected by the opposing process of desynchronisation between federal and regional elections after Putin’s third-term election. There is also a clear rise in the scale of the differences between the two. At the same time, the study demonstrates the potential presence in Russia of features common to subnational elections in many countries: their greater support for the opposition and presence of affective voting. However, there is a clear exception to this trend during the period of maximum mobilisation of the loyal electorate at the subnational elections immediately following the accession of Crimea in 2014–2015, and such tendencies are generally restrained by the conditions of electoral authoritarianism.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document