scholarly journals It's Parties that Choose Electoral Systems (Or, Duverger's Laws Upside Down)

2005 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep M. Colomer
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Party Choice ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The 19Th Century

This article presents, discusses and tests the hypothesis that it is the number of parties that can explain the choice of electoral systems, rather than the other way around. Already-existing political parties tend to choose electoral systems that, rather than generate new party systems by themselves, will crystallize, consolidate or reinforce previously existing party configurations. A general model develops the argument and presents the concept of ‘behavioral-institutional equilibrium’ to account for the relation between electoral systems and party systems. The most comprehensive dataset and test of these notions to date, encompassing 219 elections in 87 countries since the 19th century, are presented. The analysis gives strong support to the hypotheses that political party configurations dominated by a few parties tend to establish majority rule electoral systems, while multi-party systems already existed before the introduction of proportional representation. It also offers the new theoretical proposition that strategic party choice of electoral systems leads to a general trend toward proportional representation over time.

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.

Predicting Party Systems from Electoral Systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rein Taagepera ◽  
Matthew Shugart
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Product Model ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Predictive Relationships ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Quantities Of Interest

The Seat Product Model matters to electoral and party systems specialists in what it is able to predict, and to all political scientists as one example of how to predict. The seat product (MS) is the product of assembly size (S) and electoral district magnitude (M, number of seats allocated). Without any data input, thinking about conceptual lower and upper limits leads to a sequence of logically grounded models that apply to simple electoral systems. The resulting formulas allow for precise predictions about likely party system outputs, such as the number of parties, the size of the largest party, and other quantities of interest. The predictions are based entirely on institutional inputs. And when tested on real-world electoral data, these predictions are found to explain over 60% of the variance. This means that they provide a baseline expectation, against which actual countries and specific elections can be compared. To the broader political science audience, this research sends the following message: Interconnected quantitatively predictive relationships are a hallmark of developed science, but they are still rare in social sciences. These relationships can exist with regard to political phenomena if one is on the lookout for them. Logically founded predictions are stronger than merely empirical relationships or predictions of the direction of effects. Finally, isolated equations that connect various factors are nice, but equations that interconnect pack even more predictive punch. Political scientists should strive for connections among connections. This would lead to a more scientific political science.

scholarly journals The Politics of Service Delivery in Pakistan: Political Parties and the Incentives for Patronage, 1988-1999

2008 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zahid Hasnan
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Service ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Impact

This paper examines the impact of the political party structure on the incentives for politicians to focus on patronage versus service delivery improvements in Pakistan. By analysing inter-provincial variations in the quality of service delivery in Pakistan, the paper argues that the more fragmented, factionalised, and polarised the party systems, the greater are the incentives for patronage, weakening service delivery improvements. Fragmentation and factionalism both exacerbate the information problems that voters have in assigning credit (blame) for service delivery improvements (deterioration), thereby creating the incentives for politicians to focus on targeted benefits. Polarisation, particularly ethnic polarisation, reduces the ability of groups to agree on the provision of public goods, again causing politicians to favour the delivery of targeted benefits.

scholarly journals Electoral Systems and Party Systems in East Asia

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The Past ◽  
Transitions To Democracy ◽  
The Way

Over the past two decades, numerous East Asian states have undergone transitions to democracy. One of the most distinctive aspects of democratization has been the way East Asian democracies have sought to manage political change by institutional innovations that aim to influence the development of the region's party systems. These reforms have typically tried to promote more centrist and stable politics by encouraging fewer, and hence larger, political parties. The result is an increasing evolution of the region's electoral and party system constellations toward more majoritarian elections and, in some cases, nascent two-party systems.

Electoral Systems and Policy Congruence

2020 ◽  
pp. 003232171989542
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ferland
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
International Social Survey Programme ◽  
Citizen Preferences ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
International Social

Many studies examined the state of citizen-elite congruence at the party system, legislative and government stages of representation. Few scholars examined, however, whether citizen preferences are adequately represented in enacted policies. The article addresses this gap in the literature and examines the role of electoral systems in fostering citizens-policy congruence. Building on studies of government congruence and responsiveness, we expect levels of policy congruence to be greater under majoritarian electoral systems than under proportional representation electoral systems and as the number of parties in government decreases. In order to test these expectations, we make use of data from the International Social Survey Programme and examine the proportions of respondents whose preferences are congruent with government levels of spending in eight major policy domains. Overall, the results do not support our expectations and indicate that levels of policy congruence are similar across electoral systems and government types. In line with recent works on electoral systems and representation, our findings support the claim that majoritarian and proportional representation electoral systems both have mechanisms which allow governments to represent their citizens similarly.

Electoral Systems and the Number of Parties in Postcommunist States

1999 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Standard Pattern ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
Party Institutionalization ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Over Time

Scholars studying electoral systems have consistently found that single-member plurality elections tend to constrain the number of parties operating in a polity to a much greater extent than multimember proportional representation systems. This article tests this hypothesis in the post-communist context by examining the effects of proportional representation and single-member district elections on the number of parties in five postcommunist states. It is shown that some postcommunist states, most notably Poland and Hungary, have followed the standard pattern of party consolidation over time in reaction to incentives of electoral systems, while others, most notably Russia and Ukraine, have not. The author argues that the different effects of electoral systems can be attributed to different levels of party institutionalization found in postcommunist states.These findings have policy implications. Under conditions of extreme party underdevelopment, the electoral system that promotes the use of party labels—proportional representation—may be more effective than the plurality system in constraining the number of parties, provided a legal threshold is used. This runs counter to the conventional wisdom that plurality elections offer the greatest constraint on the number of parties.

Interaction Effects in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (9) ◽  
pp. 1027-1053 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen E. Cox ◽  
Leonard J. Schoppa
Keyword(s):  
Centrifugal Force ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
District Level ◽  
The Past ◽  
Electoral Strategies ◽  
Elite Level ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Mixed Systems

The past decade has witnessed a surprising growth in the popularity of mixed-member electoral systems. Under these systems, voters choose representatives simultaneously under both proportional representation (PR) and single-member district plurality (SMDP) rules. It is widely accepted that SMDP rules tend to winnow competition down toward two large parties, and evidence from mixed systems suggests that this Duvergerian “gravity” reduces the number of parties surviving SMDP competition under mixed systems as well. Nevertheless, we argue, simultaneous balloting under PR rules softens this winnowing effect, operating as a “centrifugal force” that prevents Duvergerian gravity from reducing competition to the degree it does under pure SMDP systems. Thus, these newsystems produce effects unanticipated by their designers. To test for the presence of this centrifugal force, we examine elite-level electoral strategies in Germany, Japan, and Italy and compare district-level SMDP election results from pure systems with those of mixed-member systems.

10. Political Parties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Political ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Different Types

This chapter deals with political parties: why they emerged, how they can be classified, what functions they perform, how they interact, and what challenges they are facing today. One of the paradoxes about democracies is that there is almost a unanimous consensus about the indispensability of political parties. On the other hand, the benefits of being a member of a political party are bound to be minuscule compared to the costs of membership. Thus it is irrational for people to join parties. They should only form (small) interest groups. The chapter first provides a historical background on the development of political parties before discussing their functions, such as legitimation of the political system, structuring the popular vote, and formulation of public policy. It then considers different types of political parties as well as the characteristics of party systems and concludes with an analysis of the problems facing political parties today.

13. Party systems

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Caramani
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Competitive Interactions ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Multiparty Systems

This chapter examines how competition between political parties gives rise to different party systems. In liberal democracies, competition for power is based on popular votes. The shape and dynamics of party systems are determined by the electoral game, with parties as main actors. A party system is thus essentially the result of competitive interactions between parties. A party system has three main elements: which parties exist, how many parties exist and how big they are, and how parties behave. An obvious but important point is that party systems must be composed of more than one political party. The chapter begins with a discussion of the origins of party systems, followed by an analysis of the format of party systems, such as two-party systems and multiparty systems. It then considers the influence of the electoral system on party systems before concluding with an assessment of the dynamics of party systems.

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