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.

Voters reward hard-working MPs: empirical evidence from the French legislative elections

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abel François ◽  
Julien Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Political System ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Vote Share ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Legislative Election

AbstractThis paper studies the relationship between incumbent MPs’ activities and their electoral fortune. We address this question in the context of the French political system characterized by an executive domination, a candidate-centered electoral system, and an electoral schedule maximizing the impact of the presidential elections. Given the contradictory influence of these three institutional features on the relationship between MPs’ activities and electoral results, the overall link can only be assessed empirically. We test the effects of several measurements of MPs’ activities on both their vote share and reelection probability in the 2007 legislative election. We show that MPs’ activities are differently correlated to both the incumbents’ vote shares in the first round and their reelection. Despite the weakness of the French National Assembly, several parliamentary activities, especially bill initiation, have a significant effect on MPs’ electoral prospects.

A Reply to J. A. A. Lovink, “On Analysing the Impact of the Electoral System on the Party System in Canada”

1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan C. Cairns
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
Systematic Bias ◽  
Relative Paucity ◽  
Respective Treatment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Academic Resources

Analysis of the Canadian political system has suffered from a relative paucity of competing interpretations of the same phenomena. Too many interpretations of our polity have gone unchallenged, probably on the assumption that our scarce academic resources should not be wasted on internecine controversy while virgin fields remain untapped. Professor Lovink's article is a hopeful indication that this stage of disciplinary immaturity is ending. His sophisticated dissection of my previous article is a helpful contribution to the discussion of the effects of the electoral system on the party system. These comments, by concentrating on some of the problems raised by Lovink, are designed to contribute to a further clarification.Initially, it can be noted, that the disagreement between us is not over the data dealing with votes and seats, but with the interpretation to be given the data. It was perhaps in the very nature of a somewhat polemical article attacking the “conventional wisdom” that I stressed the effects as I saw, or deduced, them, and in the nature of Lovink's rejoinder that the possible effects are minimized.This difference is noteworthy in our respective treatment of the electoral system's systematic bias against Conservative Quebec voters. The data indicate that the ratio of 5.6 Liberals to 1 Conservative mp resulted from a ratio of 1.9 Liberals to 1 Conservative voter. This struck me as pregnant with consequences for the party system, some of which I tried to suggest.

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 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.

Electoral formula, legal threshold and the number of parties

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 617-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maciej A Górecki ◽  
Paula Kukołowicz
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Standard Form ◽  
Representation Formula ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Mechanical Effect ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
Recent Reform ◽  
Number Of Parties

We exploit a rare natural experiment, a recent reform of local elections in Poland, to study an extension of Duverger’s laws. We analyse party system fragmentation under single-member plurality rule vis-à-vis a proportional representation formula accompanied by a legal threshold. We demonstrate that the presence of a threshold alters Duverger’s ‘psychological’ effect. Proportional representation with a threshold tends to be on a par with single-member plurality as regards restricting the effective number of electoral parties, largely due to the absence of smaller groupings with spatially concentrated support. At the same time, Duverger’s ‘mechanical’ effect takes a rather standard form, single-member plurality being relatively powerful at constraining the effective number of legislative parties.

Back to the Westminster model? The Brexit process and the UK political system

2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212096737
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Baldini ◽  
Edoardo Bressanelli ◽  
Emanuele Massetti
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Westminster Model ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Quantitative Indicators ◽  
The Impact

This article investigates the impact of Brexit on the British political system. By critically engaging with the conceptualisation of the Westminster model proposed by Arend Lijphart, it analyses the strains of Brexit on three dimensions developed from from Lijphart’s framework: elections and the party system, executive– legislative dynamics and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Supplementing quantitative indicators with an in-depth qualitative analysis, the article shows that the process of Brexit has ultimately reaffirmed, with some important caveats, key features of the Westminster model: the resilience of the two-party system, executive dominance over Parliament and the unitary character of the political system. Inheriting a context marked by the progressive weakening of key majoritarian features of the political system, the Brexit process has brought back some of the traditional executive power-hoarding dynamics. Yet, this prevailing trend has created strains and resistances that keep the political process open to different developments.

Crowded Space, Fertile Ground: Party Entry and the Effective Number of Parties

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Kselman ◽  
Eleanor Neff Powell ◽  
Joshua A. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Effective Number ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Effective Number Of Parties ◽  
Number Of Parties

This paper develops a novel argument as to the conditions under which new political parties will form in democratic states. Our approach hinges on the manner in which politicians evaluate the policy implications of new party entry alongside considerations of incumbency for its own sake. We demonstrate that if candidates care sufficiently about policy outcomes, then the likelihood of party entry shouldincreasewith the effective number of status quo parties in the party system. This relationship weakens, and eventually disappears, as politicians’ emphasis on “office-seeking” motivations increases relative to their interest in public policy. We test these predictions with both aggregate electoral data in contemporary Europe and a data set on legislative volatility in Turkey, uncovering support for the argument that party system fragmentation should positively affect the likelihood of entry when policy-seeking motivations are relevant, but not otherwise.

Wahlsystemreform in Deutschland

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy Matauschek
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Parallel Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Suitable Alternative ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Alternative Vote

Is plurality or majority electoral reform a sensible option in Germany’s muddled electoral system debate? Yes, it is. Since Germany’s mixed-member proportional system fails to concentrate the party system in a sufficient way, Peggy Matauschek searches for a suitable alternative to the principle of proportional representation. She discusses the following options according to their contextual conditions: single-member plurality and majority electoral systems—like the alternative vote system—, parallel systems, proportional representation systems with a low district magnitude and majority bonus systems. In light of its balanced performance, the study advocates the introduction of a system with a majority bonus for a coalition.

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