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.

Voter Responses to Electoral Complexity: Ticket Splitting, Rational Voters and Representation in the Federal Republic of Germany

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN BAWN
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Major Party ◽  
Minority Party ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Party Support

In order to understand how electoral rules affect political outcomes, we need to know whether and how voters react to them. The ability of voters to react strategically to electoral rules may be limited in cases where the electoral rules are complex. In this article, I look for evidence of rational reactions to a moderately complex electoral system, that used in the Federal Republic of Germany. By examining district-level election results, I find substantial evidence that voters do react rationally, despite the complexity of the two-vote system. The rational reactions by voters lead to excess first votes for incumbents, for candidates of the major party expected to be in government, to major-party candidates in close races and to major-party candidates in districts with significant minority-party support. The findings support both the general claim that voters can react strategically to complex electoral rules, and more specific claims about the value of the two-vote ballot in Germany.

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 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.

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.

scholarly journals ASSESSMENT OF THE STATUS OF DECENTRALIZATION OF UKRAINE’S LOCAL BUDGETS

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (7) ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
Taisiia BONDARUK ◽  
◽  
Oksana VINNYTSKA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Linear Trend ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Method Of Calculation ◽  
Trend Model ◽  
The Status ◽  
Degree Of Certainty ◽  
Local Budget ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Impact

Decentralization of power is a necessary condition for the formation of effective local self-government. Therefore, it is important to deepen theoretical and methodological principles for assessing the status of decentralization of the revenue part of Ukraine’s local budgets. It is determined that the assessment of the status of decentralization of local budget revenues requires the use of a set of indicators that would fully characterize the financial decentralization. It is proposed to allocate the assessment indicators of financial decentralization of local budgets revenues according to three criteria: influence of decentralization on formation of local budget revenues; decentralization of local budgets revenues according to budget classification; dependence of local budgets revenues on interbudgetary transfers. A system of separate indicators that can be used to assess the status of decentralization of local budget revenues is proposed, and criteria for assessing the impact of decentralization on the formation of local budget revenues are determined in accordance with the proposed method of calculation. Based on the results of analysis of some assessment indicators of the status of decentralization of local budget revenues, it is determined that such an analysis does not provide a general idea of the status of their decentralization. Therefore, the authors calculated the indicators by individual criteria using weight coefficients. It is substantiated that parameters of the linear trend model for the criteria for assessing the impact of decentralization on formation of local budget revenues show a high degree of certainty of their decline process. In recent years, there has been a tendency to reduce the criteria for assessing the impact of decentralization on formation of local budget revenues. The authors determined an unstable tendency of changing the criteria for assessing the decentralization of local budget revenues according to budget classification. At the same time, the parameters of linear trend model for sub-indices of the criteria for assessing the dependence of local budget revenues from interbudgetary transfers show a high degree of certainty about its downward trend. In the course of the research, a system of indicators was developed to determine the status of decentralization of local budgets. Approbation of the methodology for calculating the integral indicator confirmed the possibility of its use for analyzing the status of decentralization of local budget revenues.

scholarly journals Electoral Rules and New Parties: Evidence from a Quasi‐experimental Design

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Lago
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Institutional Factor ◽  
Robust Estimate ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
The Impact

Electoral rules are a crucial institutional factor shaping the entry and success of new parties. However, testing how they affect voting behavior is problematic when using observational data in cross-national studies. As district magnitude is usually correlated with politically salient features affecting the likelihood of voting for new (and small) parties, the latent support of small parties differs across electoral systems. Using a quasi-experimental design in Spain focused on the district viability of a new party, Vox, in two elections held within 196 days, I provide a more robust estimate of the impact of electoral systems on the success of new parties. Strong evidence that the electoral system makes a difference for new parties has been identified: strategic considerations found in the districts where Vox was not successful prevented a significant number of voters from supporting the party.

The Impact of Campaign Finance Laws on Party Competition

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Potter ◽  
Margit Tavits
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
System Size ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Social Cleavages ◽  
Campaign Finance Laws ◽  
The Impact

The comparative literature on party systems has convincingly demonstrated that electoral rules, social cleavages and their interaction can explain much of the cross-national variation in the size of party systems. This literature, however, has thus far ignored campaign finance laws. This article argues that various campaign finance laws exert more or less restrictive pressures on party competition. It develops a new theoretical concept, fund parity. The study demonstrates the positive relationship between fund parity and party system size and employs additional tests to supplement the regression analysis in order to account for potential endogeneity issues. The findings underscore an intuitive – but heretofore untested – relationship: increasing parity makes party competition more permissive and increases the size of the party system.

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.

Prospects for the use of the “model budget” in the distribution of equalization grants in Russia

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Deryugin ◽  
Ilya A. Sokolov
Keyword(s):  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Unfunded Mandates ◽  
Interregional Inequality ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Regional Authorities ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Equalization Grants ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Budget Expenditure

The paper analyzes the impact of the “model budget” on the problems of intergovernmental relations in the Russian Federation: a high proportion of expenditure obligations of regional and local budgets and a high degree of interregional inequality in fiscal capacity and socio-economic development. It was concluded that the planned broader use of the “model budget” will not solve the problem of unfunded mandates and will lead first to a significant reduction in incentives for regional authorities to develop the territorial revenue base, and then to economic slowdown in the country. As an alternative approach to improving intergovernmental relations, options are being considered for adjusting the parameters of the equalization transfers distribution formula, the procedure for determining their total volume and calculating the budget expenditure index. In solving the problem of unfunded mandates, an equally important role is given to the procedure for preparing a financial and economic rationale for draft laws.

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