Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 870-900
Author(s):  
Steven L. Taylor ◽  
Matthew S. Shugart
Keyword(s):  
Rare Case ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Open Versus ◽  
Democratic Elections

Colombia represents a rare case of a political context with a number of electoral system changes over a period of years. It serves as a natural experiment that demonstrates that party systems do react to changes in institutional parameters. There have been uninterrupted democratic elections that allow for long-term comparative study of the effects of electoral reform. From 1974 to 2014, several different basic electoral rules can be observed including single nontransferable vote (SNTV), and the D’Hondt form of party-list proportional representation. Additionally, other factors have changed including a major shift in district magnitude for the election of the Senate, a move from plurality to a two-round system for electing the president, and other areas of change including ballot format and open versus closed lists. Few cases demonstrate as many different areas of electoral study as does Colombia.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 942-964
Author(s):  
Karen E. Ferree
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Institutional Expectations

South Africa’s post-apartheid election outcomes demonstrate how contextual factors interact with electoral rules to shape party systems. South Africa’s national electoral system represents one of the most permissive in the world, combining parliamentary rules with an extreme form of proportional representation. These rules were selected to encourage broad representation of parties in the National Assembly. However, South Africa’s party system consistently defies expectations, with a low effective number of seat-winning parties at the national level and dominance by a single party, the African National Congress (ANC). Provincial and municipal outcomes also confound simple institutional expectations. In addition to describing electoral rules and party systems at all three levels of South Africa’s political system, this chapter argues that contextual factors like the salience of racial divisions and the ability of the ruling party to shape institutions and resource flows critically interact with electoral institutions to shape party system outcomes.

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.

Electoral System Effects on Party Systems

2017 ◽  
pp. 40-68
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Shugart ◽  
Rein Taagepera
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
System Configuration ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Do So

The question of how electoral institutions affect party systems has been central to the literature on elections. For a given electoral system configuration, how many parties earn votes and win seats? How large is the largest party’s share of all votes and seats? This varies from country to country, from election to election, and, inside the country, from district to district. Yet two institutional inputs—district magnitude and assembly size—determine the worldwide averages surprisingly well, and they do so for well-defined logical reasons. These worldwide averages supply benchmarks against which to compare individual countries, elections, and districts: given their two basic institutional inputs, do they have rather many or few parties, and by how much are they off, compared to logical average expectations? History, culture, and current politics account of course for which parties form and which of them is the largest, but institutions shape their number and sizes.

Electoral Rules and Corruption

2021 ◽  
pp. 308-334
Author(s):  
Georgios Xezonakis ◽  
Stephen Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The State ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Literature Reviews ◽  
Accountability Mechanism ◽  
Individual Accountability ◽  
The Relationship

A large literature reviews the effects of constitutional arrangements and electoral rules on various aspects of QoG. The state of the debate, so far, is not one that provides straightforward answers regarding the important institutions, the magnitude of the effects, or even their direction. Through a meta-analysis of the relevant literature, we seek in this chapter to evaluate the relationship between electoral rules and corruption. The results of the meta-analysis suggest support for an individual accountability mechanism that transcends the crude majoritarian–proportional distinction. We show that absence of corruption can be positively correlated with systems in which district magnitude is at its lowest (plurality systems) and its highest (proportional systems). The important electoral system features appear to be those that cultivate a “personal vote,” strengthening accountability between voters and individual legislators.

Electoral System Design in New Democracies

2017 ◽  
pp. 84-112
Author(s):  
John M. Carey
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
National Data ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Choice Sets ◽  
Moderate Scale ◽  
Proportional Elections ◽  
High Uncertainty ◽  
Cross National

Elections in the wake of dramatic transitions from authoritarian regimes to democracy may confront voters with choices that are unattractive or bewildering, or both. This chapter examines the conditions that produce tractable sets of party options for voters, presents cross-national data on the choice sets and competitiveness in elections after dramatic transitions, and examines how the electoral formula used in proportional elections can affect electoral outcomes. The chapter argues that, in transitional contexts characterized by high uncertainty, electoral rules that reward economies of moderate scale, such as the Hare quota formula, can encourage the development of attractive choice sets. As democracies and party systems develop, however, the case for electoral rules that confer representational bonuses on winning parties gains traction.

Electoral Systems and Ethnic Minority Representation

2017 ◽  
pp. 158-174
Author(s):  
David Lublin ◽  
Shaun Bowler
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Ethnic Geography

Every democratic process short of unanimity produces opinion minorities. Political divisions along anchored demographic characteristics like language, religion, race, or ethnicity challenge pluralist models of governance by threatening to entrench the exclusion of minority groups from political power. Especially when attuned to ethnic geography, electoral engineering through manipulation of the electoral system and other rules governing the electoral process, such as boundary delimitation, reserved seats, ballot-access requirements, and ethnic party bans, can help promote either inclusion or exclusion of minorities. Ensuring long-term interethnic peace has proved more difficult. Scholars continue to grapple with how to ensure minority inclusion without freezing existing divisions.

Enhanced Seasonal Exchange of CO2 by Northern Ecosystems Since 1960

Science ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 341 (6150) ◽  
pp. 1085-1089 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. D. Graven ◽  
R. F. Keeling ◽  
S. C. Piper ◽  
P. K. Patra ◽  
B. B. Stephens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forests ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Ecosystem Models ◽  
The North ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Global Carbon

Seasonal variations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Northern Hemisphere have increased since the 1950s, but sparse observations have prevented a clear assessment of the patterns of long-term change and the underlying mechanisms. We compare recent aircraft-based observations of CO2 above the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans to earlier data from 1958 to 1961 and find that the seasonal amplitude at altitudes of 3 to 6 km increased by 50% for 45° to 90°N but by less than 25% for 10° to 45°N. An increase of 30 to 60% in the seasonal exchange of CO2 by northern extratropical land ecosystems, focused on boreal forests, is implicated, substantially more than simulated by current land ecosystem models. The observations appear to signal large ecological changes in northern forests and a major shift in the global carbon cycle.

scholarly journals Behavioral medicine challenges in the shadow of a global pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa T Brooks ◽  
Hannah K Allen ◽  
Louise Thornton ◽  
Tracy Trevorrow
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Health Behavior ◽  
Health Behaviors ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Direct Effects ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Future Data ◽  
Short And Long Term

Abstract Health behavior researchers should refocus and retool as it becomes increasingly clear that the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic surpass the direct effects of COVID-19 and include unique, drastic, and ubiquitous consequences for health behavior. The circumstances of the pandemic have created a natural experiment, allowing researchers focusing on a wide range of health behaviors and populations with the opportunity to use previously collected and future data to study: (a) changes in health behavior prepandemic and postpandemic, (b) health behavior prevalence and needs amidst the pandemic, and (c) the effects of the pandemic on short- and long-term health behavior. Our field is particularly challenged as we attempt to consider biopsychosocial, political, and environmental factors that affect health and health behavior. These realities, while daunting, should call us to action to refocus and retool our research, prevention, and intervention efforts

scholarly journals Phenylketonuria and juvenile idiopathic arthritis: a case report

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Ting Zhu ◽  
Jin Wu ◽  
Li Yuan Wang ◽  
Xiao Mei Sun
Keyword(s):  
Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis ◽  
Case Report ◽  
Autoimmune Diseases ◽  
Hip Joint ◽  
Metabolic Disorder ◽  
Rare Case ◽  
Molecular Data ◽  
Methotrexate Therapy ◽  
Case Presentation

Abstract Background Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a genetic metabolic disorder in which patients have no ability to convert phenylalanine to tyrosine. Several autoimmune diseases have been reported to combine with PKU, co-existent of PKU and Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) has not been presented. Case presentation The girl was diagnosed with PKU at the age of 1 month confirmed by molecular data. At the age of 3.5 years, she presented with pain and swelling of her right ankle, right knee, and right hip joint. After a serial of examinations, she was diagnosed with JIA and treated with a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Conclusions We report a rare case of a 4-year-old girl with PKU and JIA, which supports a possible interaction between PKU and JIA. Long-term metabolic disturbance may increase the susceptibility to JIA. Further chronic inflammation could alter the metabolism of tryptophan and tyrosine to increase blood Phe concentration. In addition, corticosteroid and methotrexate therapy for JIA may increase blood Phe concentration.

scholarly journals Long‐term outcomes of open versus closed rectal defect after Transanal Endoscopic Microscopic Surgery

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran Altaf ◽  
Simone Slawik ◽  
Dana Sochorova ◽  
Sukhpreet Gahunia ◽  
Timothy Andrews ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Long Term Outcomes ◽  
Microscopic Surgery ◽  
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