Electoral Systems, Integrated Institutions and Turnout in Local and National Elections: Canada in Comparative Perspective

1997 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Milner
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Weak Links ◽  
Information Costs ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
High Turnout ◽  
The Cost

AbstractIn this article, it is argued that Canada's relatively low rate of political participation is related to its electoral system being nonproportional, but that a complementary factor is to be found in its political institutions being discontinuous. Discontinuous institutions are manifested in relatively weak links between political organizations active municipally, regionally (provincially) and nationally. While the relationship between proportional representation (PR) and high turnout has been well established in the literature, there is still a puzzle surrounding the theoretical explanation for it. The author argues that the key to the solution to this puzzle lies less in the additional potential benefits to the voter in a PR system than in the reduction of costs, specifically information costs under such a system. PR is seen to frame incentives and disincentives for political actors in such a manner as to result in a reduction of the cost of political information. This is especially the case when PR is embedded in integrated (non-discontinuous) political institutional arrangements. The most salient manifestation of this effect is seen in comparative turnout levels in municipal elections.

Initiatives, Referenda and Socialism in Switzerland

1970 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth R. Libbey
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Political Actor ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
British Labour

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS IN DEMOCRATIC STATES HAVE USUALLY COME into existence as the manifestation of a principle of political philosophy or as the result of a compromise among forces with different aspirations for the polity. Often both factors have been involved. Certainly the consequences for political behaviour of introducing any particular structure have been of concern to its architects, but many of these consequences are unforeseeable and the actual impact of an institutional change or the character of a formal role may in time become quite different from that intended.For a political actor, such as an individual, an interest group or a party, formal structures are given attributes of the political environment. Along with the more diffuse qualities of the political culture, they constitute the framework within which political actors must compete for influence over public policy. This framework, both formal and informal, is uneven in its effects on the fortunes of the various political forces. It favours some approaches and some groups more and in different ways than it favours others. The British Labour Party, with its concentrated voting strength, is disadvantaged by the single-member district/plurality electoral system, while its counterpart in Germany is able to maximize its strength in a system of proportional representation.

scholarly journals Las reglas del juego político en Chile: incentivos y restricciones para la gobernabilidad

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Informal Institutions ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
Para Determinar ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Rules Of The Game

RESUMEN: El propósito del artículo es explorar las instituciones y reglas del juego que rigen el comportamiento y las relaciones entre los actores políticos chilenos desde una perspectiva de gobernabilidad democrática. Se examina en qué forma las instituciones y reglas del juego –formales e informales– contribuyen positiva o negativamente a la gobernabilidad democrática en Chile. Se centrará la atención primero en las instituciones políticas de carácter formal y después, en las de carácter informal. Al examinar las instituciones de carácter formal se distinguirá a aquellas que se vinculan más estrechamente con la forma de gobierno, los mecanismos de pesos y contrapesos, el sistema electoral y el sistema de partidos. En las informales se repasarán brevemente aquellas más visibles: clientelismo, circuitos extrainstitucionales del poder y captura del Estado. El punto de partida para este análisis recoge la idea de que un criterio clave para determinar el nivel de la consolidación democrática en un país es el que resulta de una adecuación razonablemente cercana entre reglas formales y comportamientos y prácticas de los actores.ABSTRACT: The intention of this article is to explore the institutions and rules of the game that govern the behavior of and relations between Chilean political actors from a perspective of democratic governability. It examines the ways in which the institutions and rules of the game –both formal and informal– contribute positively or negatively to democratic governability in Chile. It first focuses its attention on formal political institutions and later examines those that are informal in nature. When examining formal institutions, a special emphasis is put on those most closely linked to the form of government, the mechanisms of weights and counterweights, the electoral system and the party system. The examination of informal institutions concentrates on the most visible such institutions: clientelism, extrainstitutional circuits of power and the capture of the State. The point of departure for this analysis is the idea that a key criterion for determining the level of democratic consolidation in a country is the relative fit between formal rules and the behavior and practices of political actors.

scholarly journals Conflict antiquities’ rescue or ransom: The cost of buying back stolen cultural property in contexts of political violence

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Samuel Andrew Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
Revenue Streams ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Safe Zones

Abstract Rescue has long been a defense for the removal of cultural property. Since the explosion of iconoclasm in West Asia, North Africa, and West Africa, there has been a growing demand for cultural property in danger zones to be “rescued” by being purchased and given “asylum” in “safe zones” (typically, in the market countries of Western Europe and North America). This article reviews evidence from natural experiments with the “rescue” of looted antiquities and stolen artifacts from across Asia and Europe. Unsurprisingly, the evidence reaffirms that “rescue” incentivizes looting, smuggling, and corruption, as well as forgery, and the accompanying destruction of knowledge. More significantly, “rescue” facilitates the laundering of “ordinary” illicit assets and may contribute to revenue streams of criminal organizations and violent political organizations; it may even weaken international support for insecure democracies. Ultimately, “rescue” by purchase appears incoherent, counter-productive, and dangerous for the victimized communities that it purports to support.

scholarly journals Electoral Incentives and the Allocation of Public Funds

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederico Finan ◽  
Maurizio Mazzocco
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
Term Limit ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Projects ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cost

Abstract Politicians allocate public resources in ways that maximize political gains, and potentially at the cost of lower welfare. In this paper, we quantify these welfare costs in the context of Brazil’s federal legislature, which grants its members a budget to fund public projects within their states. Using data from the state of Roraima, we estimate a model of politicians’ allocation decisions and find that 26.8% of the public funds allocated by legislators are distorted relative to a social planner’s allocation. We then use the model to simulate three potential policy reforms to the electoral system: the adoption of approval voting, imposing a one-term limit, and redistricting. We find that a one-term limit and redistricting are both effective at reducing distortions. The one-term limit policy, however, increases corruption, which makes it a welfare-reducing policy.

scholarly journals Editorial introduction: Gender and political financing

2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212110409
Author(s):  
Rainbow Murray ◽  
Ragnhild Muriaas ◽  
Vibeke Wang
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

Contesting elections is extremely expensive. The need for money excludes many prospective candidates, resulting in the over-representation of wealth within politics. The cost of contesting elections has been underestimated as a cause of women’s under-representation. Covering seven case studies in six papers, this special issue makes theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding how political financing is gendered. We look at the impact on candidates, arguing that the personal costs of running for office can be prohibitive, and that fundraising is harder for female challengers. We also explore the role of political parties, looking at when and how parties might introduce mitigating measures to support female candidates with the costs of running. We demonstrate how political institutions shape the cost of running for office, illustrate how this is gendered and consider the potential consequences of institutional reform. We also note how societal gender norms can have financial repercussions for women candidates.

Changes in the Political Culture of Italian Younger Politicians

2019 ◽  
pp. 1222-1236
Author(s):  
Flaminia Saccà
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
New Venture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Political Apathy ◽  
Past Millennium

In the last decade, Italy has gone through some deep changes in the political sphere. The fall of the Berlin Wall had forced political parties from opposite sides to re-organize themselves: their targets, ideologies and projects. At the same time, these historical events have been shortly followed by a major national bribe scandal that invested the main political leaders who had governed the Country for half a century. As a result, the last turn of the past Millennium has left a strongly politicized Country with no acknowledged leaders, no clear ideologies, no traditional, recognizable parties. It is in those years that Berlusconi's new venture gained votes and success. The fracture between political organizations, leaders and citizens though, became unhealable. The younger generations seemed to be the ones who suffered the most from political apathy or, worse, distrust. So we wanted to investigate who were the young politicians who, in these times of crises, had chosen politics as an important part of their lives. We have carried out two different surveys in different years and we found that political parties were changing deeply and radically. That their role in the political socialization of young political actors had become very thin. That candidates began to be chosen amongst the affluent few or, at least, amongst those whose personal fame and social/professional/family network would guarantee their party at least a dowry of votes that could make the difference in times of elections. But this method would not guarantee cohesion nor government stability.

scholarly journals Verdict 2019: The expanded support base of the Bharatiya Janata Party

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-22
Author(s):  
Sanjay Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Vote Share ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
The North ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
North Indians ◽  
The Cost

The verdict of 2019 indicates that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) not only managed to retain its support base which it built in 2014, but also expanded it both geographically and socially. It managed to win seats in states where it had not performed well in earlier elections, and to get more votes amongst communities which had not voted for it earlier. The Congress could not improve upon its 2014 performance, but it is important to note that neither its votes nor its tally of seats decreased. The BJP improved upon its performance of 2014 largely at the cost of regional parties. The combined vote share of the regional parties witnessed a decline. Some regional parties did manage to hold onto their support base but others could not secure the support base they had held in 2014. In states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Karnataka and Maharashtra, the regional parties performed badly despite some of them having formed an anti-BJP alliance. The BJP’s gain in terms of vote share and seats, largely at the expense of regional parties in many states, begins a new debate about whether this is the beginning of the end of the dominance of regional parties in the North Indians states, or if it is a passing phase in Indian elections. If this decline in the importance of the regional parties is largely in respect of national elections, could there be a reversal in the trend during state assembly elections?

The political economy of state building

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilia Murtazashvili ◽  
Jennifer Murtazashvili
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
International Investment ◽  
State Building ◽  
Wealth Creation ◽  
Critical Determinant ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Self Sufficiency

Externally assisted state-building efforts cost trillions but typically fail to produce states capable of providing public goods and services on their own. Drawing on the public choice literature and evidence from historical state-building processes, we argue that political self-sufficiency depends on political institutions that allow for self-governance, reasonably high levels of fiscal and administrative capacity, economic institutions that encourage wealth creation, and social institutions that reinforce political and economic freedom. Importantly, we do not expect that democracy is a critical determinant of political self-sufficiency. Our theory explains why state building in Afghanistan in the two decades since 2001 did not produce a more functional state. Despite massive international investment in blood and treasure, the state-building effort prioritised national elections over institutional reforms that encourage local self-governance, failed to establish meaningful constraints on national political decision-makers (especially the president) and disregarded customary private property rights and customary processes to adjudicate land disputes.

Nexus Politics

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Flinders ◽  
Matthew Wood
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
Tribal Politics

Existing research on alternative forms of political participation does not adequately account for why those forms of participation at an “everyday” level should be defined as political. In this article we aim to contribute new conceptual and theoretical depth to this research agenda by drawing on sociological theory to posit a framework for determining whether nontraditional forms of political engagement can be defined as genuinely distinctive from traditional participation. Existing “everyday politics” frameworks are analytically underdeveloped, and the article argues instead for drawing upon Michel Maffesoli’s theory of “neo-tribal” politics. Applying Maffesoli’s insights, we provide two questions for operationally defining “everyday” political participation, as expressing autonomy from formal political institutions, and building new political organizations from the bottom up. This creates a substantive research agenda of not only operationally defining political participation, but examining how traditional governmental institutions and social movements respond to a growth in everyday political participation: nexus politics.

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