Comparing the PRI Experience to Kenya and Taiwan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy K. Langston
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
National Union ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The Impact

The final chapter applies the argument based on the Mexican experience to other authoritarian regimes with strong parties that transitioned to democracy: Kenya and Taiwan. Kenya African National Union (KANU) practically disappeared because electoral rules allowed politicians to win elections without strong labels. In Taiwan, the Kuomintang survived and returned to power after two terms out of executive power, in large part because its divisions did not lead to fragmentation and because voters continued to support the label. Thus, the work’s argument: that party leaders must learn to garner electoral victories under democratic circumstances while avoiding the pressures to fragment, holds. Federalism, the mixed-member electoral system, and generous party financing all play a role in determining how electoral competition creates winners and losers within the party organization. These institutions also reduce the impact of the electoral opening on the party’s tendency to fragment.

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 Electoral competition in the elections of the representative local self-government bodies in Chelyabinsk: before and after the 2014 reform

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 69-82
Author(s):  
Oleg Vydrin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Municipal Elections ◽  
Agent Model ◽  
Observation Units ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Principal Agent Model ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

Introduction. The article examines the dynamics of electoral competition over four electoral cycles from 2005 to 2019 as exemplified by forming representative bodies of local self-government in the city of Chelyabinsk. Particular attention is paid to the impact that the transition of Chelyabinsk to a twotier model of forming local self-government bodies in 2014 had on the electoral competition. The purpose of the paper is to study the dynamics of electoral competition in municipal elections in Chelyabinsk before and after the 2014 reform. Methods. The empirical basis of the study is the database “Electoral competition in the elections of municipal deputies of Chelyabinsk (2005—2019)”, which includes 414 observation units. The analysis of the empirical material is carried out according to the method of G.V. Golosov’s triangle of relative sizes, proposed for classifying party systems and adapted for analyzing elections in single-mandate constituencies. Scientific novelty. The author suggests a methodology for analyzing electoral competition in singlemandate constituencies. For the first time, the phenomenon of “controlled competition” is analyzed on the basis of 4 municipal elections cycles. Results. The analysis makes it possible to speak about fluctuations in electoral competition, its decline in 2009 and 2014 compared to the 2005 elections and increasing by the 2019 elections Conclusions. The “controlled competition” was formed in Chelyabinsk in the period preceding the reform of 2014. The reform introduced a level of local self-government, the effectiveness and necessity of which is not obvious with the existing design of the electoral system. In the course of the reform, the principal-agent model of relations between local self-government bodies and state authorities was finally consolidated. The reform contributed to conserving the “controlled competition”.

When rotten apples spoil the ballot: The conditional effect of corruption charges on parties’ vote shares

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ceron ◽  
Marco Mainenti
Keyword(s):  
Selection Process ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Conditional Effect ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The impact of corruption charges on the electoral performance of parties is conditioned by specific institutional factors. This article shows the extent to which the effects of political corruption depend on the control that party leaders exercise over the ballot. It is argued that voters might abstain or support other lists if they cannot select individual candidates to revitalize the reputation of the political party. Employing data on judicial investigations in Italy from 1983 to 2013, we provide evidence of the role of electoral rules and intra-party xcandidate selection in shaping the relationship between corruption and voters’ behaviour. Parties implicated in corruption or related crimes experience a loss of votes when they compete under a closed list formula or when the candidate selection process is strongly centralized.

scholarly journals Two-tier proportional electoral system in Ukraine: cross-regional analysis of the first approbation

2021 ◽  
pp. 62-79
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Fisun ◽  
◽  
Anton Avksentiev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Regional Analysis ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
High Figure ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The article examines some effects from the first approbation of a two-tier proportional system with „flexible” lists in the local elections in Ukraine in 2020. In the comparative-regional context, the impact of the new system on the increase in the number of invalid ballots is analyzed and the percentage of voters who exercised the right to preferential voting for a particular candidate from the district list of the elected party is calculated. Hypotheses about regional differences in these quantitative parameters are formulated: in particular, the share of invalid ballots may be influenced by ethnolinguistic and urban factors. It was found that about 80% of voters who took part in the autumn 2020 vote exercised the right to preferential voting by entering the number of a particular candidate on the ballot – this unexpectedly high figure is in the context of other national cases using proportional systems with „flexible” or clean „open” lists. Particular attention is focused on the relationship between the two levels of the electoral system – the single closed and district flexible lists, and, accordingly, the balance of influence of voters and party leaders on the passage of candidates to local councils. This ratio was calculated for all oblast councils, and the material of the Kharkiv and Lviv oblast councils determined the empirical probability of changing the order of candidates in the district party lists under the influence of voters. Although supporters and lobbyists called the introduction of a new electoral system in Ukraine a model with „open” lists, the article identifies two key institutional mechanisms for significantly downplaying the role of preferential voting in the final determination of candidates. It is argued that according to the results of the personal distribution of seats among the candidates in the party lists, this model of „flexible” lists was closer to the pole of „closed” than „open” lists. Keywords: electoral systems, electoral lists, Electoral Сode of Ukraine, proportional electoral system, „flexible” lists, preferential voting, invalid ballots.

Party systems, electoral systems, and legislative fragmentation

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 487-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigorii V Golosov
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Incentive Structures ◽  
Strong Negative Association ◽  
Degree Of Certainty ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Sovereign Territory ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Impact

Using electoral data from a nearly comprehensive set of the world’s electoral democracies (1992–2014), including 131 independent countries and one non-sovereign territory, this article develops an explanatory model of legislative fragmentation that incorporates electoral fragmentation, the territorial patterns of party support, district magnitude, specific electoral system effects, and the balance of personal and party vote components within the incentive structures generated by electoral rules. The analysis proves that there is a strong negative association between the territorial homogeneity of the vote and legislative fragmentation, and shows that those varieties of electoral rules that increase the salience of personal component in party-centred elections tend to enhance legislative fragmentation. Due to its statistical properties, the model allows for establishing the impact of each of the factors, as well as their relative weights, with a high degree of certainty.

scholarly journals Do Voters Affect Policies? Within-Coalition Competition in the Chilean Electoral System

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Pablo Argote ◽  
Patricio Navia
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Policy Convergence ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Moderate Policy

It has been argued that close elections lead to policy convergence, as legislators elected by a small margin are more likely to adopt moderate policy positions (Downs 1957). However, Lee, Moretti, and Butler (2004) find that electoral competition does not affect legislators’ policy preferences in the United States, questioning the median voter paradigm. To help to discern this paradox, we estimate the effect of close elections on legislators’ subsequent policy positions under different electoral rules. With Chile's two-seat open-list proportional representation system, we exploit the dynamics of within-coalition competition to test both hypotheses. Using the margin of victory in 383 races in four different parliamentary elections and 3,741 roll-call votes for the 120-seat Chamber of Deputies from 1998 to 2014, we find that electoral competition did not lead to policy convergence under either the center-left Concertación coalition or the rightist Alianza coalition. We contend that policy convergence responds to electoral incentives but is also conditioned by the nature of the political regime (presidential or parliamentary) and government–opposition dynamics.

scholarly journals Is All Politics Local? Determinants of Local and National Election Campaigns

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (14) ◽  
pp. 1899-1934
Author(s):  
Colm A. Fox
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Campaign Strategies ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
National Orientation ◽  
Mixed Electoral System ◽  
Textual Content

In recent decades election campaigns have shifted their focus from the local to the national level, increasingly featuring party leaders, labels, and national platforms. Despite this trend, there remains significant variation in the local/national orientation of campaigns across countries and parties. This article tests several propositions on why campaigns adopt a local or national orientation by analyzing a unique collection of more than 12,000 geocoded Thai election posters. Specialized software was used to measure the spatial proportions of visual and textual content on each poster. Using Thailand’s mixed electoral system to enable a controlled comparison of electoral rules, I demonstrate that proportional rules were associated with national campaign strategies whereas majoritarian rules fostered local strategies. In addition, large parties ran party-centered, policy-focused campaigns whereas small parties relied more on their leader’s image. This contrasts with Western countries, where large parties increasingly promote their leader’s image and small parties emphasize narrower policy objectives.

scholarly journals Candidates rather than context shape campaign sentiment in French Presidential Elections (1965–2017)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Haselmayer
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
French Presidential Elections ◽  
Candidate Characteristics ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Context Shape ◽  
Negative Tone ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe manuscript explores whether and how the strategic context of elections and candidate attributes affect campaign sentiment. Studying five decades of French presidential elections, it provides the first longitudinal test of campaign tone outside the USA. Thereby, the paper examines concerns of an increase in negativity due to changes in electoral competition. It takes leverage from the electoral system, to study whether the strategic environment of elections (first vs. second rounds of elections) or candidate characteristics (ideology and outsider status) determine the use of positive and negative tone. To this end, the paper applies sentiment analysis to personal manifestos (professions de foi) issued by all candidates running in presidential elections (1965–2017) and validates the French Lexicoder Sentiment Dictionary for longitudinal studies of campaign tone. Results reject worries about an increase in negativity in French elections over time. Moreover, while context matters to some extent, candidate attributes are by far more important for explaining campaign sentiment in presidential races. The findings contribute to research on the role of sentiment in electoral competition and tackle broader issues related to the impact of positive and negative political communication for elections and democracies.

Democratization and Authoritarian Party Survival

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Langston
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
National Party ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Party Funding

Mexico’s Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) held executive power continuously from 1929 to 2000, when its candidate suffered a shocking defeat in the presidential elections. This study, which covers the years 1980–2012, uses an institutional focus to understand why the PRI survived its defeat and loss of the resources of the executive bureaucracy to return victoriously after two six-year terms out of office. The book offers a model of the difficulties authoritarian parties must face after they are ousted from the executive through fair and free elections: the danger of dramatic fractures that could destroy the party and the possibility of mass voter rejection. The institutional context of Mexico allowed the party’s factions to continue to cooperate and win elections. Mexico is a federal, presidential regime with a two-tiered electoral system, with no consecutive reelection and generous public party funding. The PRI changed dramatically in organizational terms as its directly elected state governors became power brokers within the party (though governors cannot be reelected). Yet, because of the nation’s electoral rules, the national party office remained a central player, both in party and national politics. The national party headquarters continued to mount an important response to the new government’s executive and coordinated the party’s legislators in Congress. The institutional context played a crucial role in creating spaces for both factions (the governors and the national party) and allowing them to cooperate. The former hegemonic party did not, however, develop a consistent ideology or try to purge itself of its clientelist or corrupt practices, because the governors had no authority strong enough to force them the change their conduct.

Appealing broadly or narrowing down? The impact of government experience and party organization on the scope of parties’ issue agendas

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sjoerd van Heck
Keyword(s):  
Current System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Government Experience ◽  
Policy Agendas ◽  
External Stimuli ◽  
The Impact

Why do parties offer broad or narrow policy agendas to voters? Taking up the call to focus more on ‘issue diversity’ in election campaigns, this article argues that agenda scope is informed by (1) parties’ experience with government participation and (2) their internal organizational structure. Non-governing challengers, which are losers in the current system, seek to change the political status quo by focusing on a few issues only, whereas mainstream parties have an incentive to reinforce existing patterns of competition and thus distribute their attention across a wide range of issues. However, the extent to which parties respond to these external stimuli depends on intraparty politics. Party leaders seek to satisfy vote- and office-seeking motivations and want to ‘appeal broadly’, whereas activists want the party to ‘speak to the base’ and narrow down its issue appeals. Analyses of party agendas in 18 European democracies (1950–2013) support these expectations.

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