scholarly journals Determinants of legislative committee membership in proportional representation systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 524-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Riera ◽  
Francisco Cantú
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Committee Membership ◽  
Presidential Democracies ◽  
Committee Assignments

This article explores the determinants of the allocation of parliamentary posts to specific legislators. Using an original data set of biographical information and committee assignments for almost 10,000 legislators in five non-presidential democracies (i.e. Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, and Spain), we provide evidence that distributive posts are more likely to be allocated to electorally vulnerable members of parliament, mainly under candidate-centered electoral rules. We also show that posts in high-policy committees are usually assigned to prominent legislators within the parties. Contrary to what one could expect based on the literature on candidates’ incentives to cultivate a personal vote, we find that the effect of district magnitude on the distribution of legislative posts does not depend on the type of list.

scholarly journals Making Sense of an Unstable Legislature: Committee Assignments in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, 1946–2001

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-64
Author(s):  
Silvina Lilian Danesi ◽  
Ludovic Rheault
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Legislative Organization ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Committee Assignments ◽  
Chamber Of Deputies

Latin American legislatures have gone largely unstudied, with the functioning of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies prior to the 1980s being an entirely unexplored subject. This paper fills that gap by examining the organization of the Chamber, with particular focus on its standing committee system from 1946 to 2001. We assess the portability of two U.S.-based theoretical approaches to legislative organization by applying them to committee assignments. An original data set of Argentine deputies was constructed and a way of measuring political power in committees was devised for this study. Despite weak democratic governments, military interventions, and changes to the electoral system, we find that ruling parties have consistently influenced the committee system, shaping its structure and securing an over-proportion of their deputies in key committee positions. These results support the applicability of the U.S. originated Cartel Theory of legislative organization to understanding and studying legislatures outside that country.

Constituency preferences and MP preferences: The electoral connection

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 619-627
Author(s):  
Danielle Martin ◽  
Simon Hug
Keyword(s):  
Median Voter ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Electoral Connection ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
Common Scale ◽  
Ideal Points

The question how voter preferences relate to preferences of representatives under different electoral rules has attracted scholarly attention for some time. Although theoretical work suggests that proportional rule leads to more dispersion of representatives than plurality rule, empirical studies of this nexus have not yet reached a consensus. We argue that this is because they are plagued by serious problems as they rely on measures that differ for both sets of actors. We use behavioral data to estimate ideal points of voters and representatives on a common scale by taking advantage of the high frequency of referendums in Switzerland. We find that members of parliament elected in proportional representation systems are more widely dispersed around the median voter. Probing at what stage this difference in dispersion occurs, we also demonstrate this is the voters’ doing, as it only applies to candidates who are elected.

Effects of Ballot Type and District Magnitude on Local Public Goods Bill-Initiation Behavior: Evidence from Honduras

2020 ◽  
pp. 106591292090588
Author(s):  
Juan Muñoz-Portillo
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Local Public Goods ◽  
High Poverty ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Small Magnitude ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Seeking Behavior

An influential literature predicts that incentives to provide local public goods are conditioned by how electoral systems expose a legislator to the need to seek a personal vote. Carey and Shugart theorize that district magnitude and ballot type interact affecting the legislators’ personal vote-seeking behavior. Another literature challenges the idea that electoral systems affect the behavior of legislators, particularly in highly clientelist settings, usually associated with high poverty. I empirically evaluate these arguments on an original data set of local goods bills presented by legislators of the National Congress of Honduras between 1990 and 2009. Honduras changed its electoral system from closed-list to open-list in 2004 while keeping its district magnitude constant. The results suggest that the Ballot Type × District Magnitude interaction does not affect the behavior of legislators in small magnitude constituencies, where poverty is more significant. However, support for the hypotheses is found in the largest, more developed constituency where M is equal to twenty-three seats.

Centralized or decentralized personalization? Measuring intra-party competition in open and flexible list PR systems

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881985571
Author(s):  
Jérémy Dodeigne ◽  
Jean-Benoit Pilet
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Over Time

This article offers a comparative analysis of electoral intra-party competition in four countries – Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland and Luxembourg – based on an original data set of 79,621 candidates and 3150 party lists covering the last quarter century (1994–2017). We use two measures to describe the nature of intra-party competition over time, across countries and across party lists: a Gini coefficient and a measure of the effective number of candidates. First, in terms of change over time (personalization) – unlike hypothesized in the presidentialization thesis – there is no concentration of intra-party competition around a few leaders over time. Second, in terms of the dynamics of concentration of votes (personalized politics), the results invite to move beyond the clear-cut divide found in the literature between centralized and decentralized forms of personalized politics. Instead, personalized politics is best described by the concept of ‘elitization’, meaning the concentration of most votes on a medium-sized group of candidates (5–10 per lists). Finally, three sets of factors condition intra-party electoral competition: the electoral rules organizing preference votes, the level of elections (European, national and regional) and the presence on the party lists of incumbent politicians (party leaders, ministers and parliamentarians).

scholarly journals LEGISLATIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: SHOULD BRAZIL BREAK UP ITS BIG ELECTORAL DISTRICTS?

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
pp. 72-86
Author(s):  
John M. Carey
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Individual Accountability

This paper proposes that Brazil could improve the political accountability by breaking up many of the statewide districts it uses to elect its deputies into smaller districts, each electing fewer deputies.  The central argument is that districts that elect low-to-moderate numbers of legislators make it possible to optimize the well-known trade-off between inclusive representation and accountable government. I suggest there are three broad goals that we should seek in legislative representation; representativeness, collective accountability, and Individual accountability.  I acknowledge that there are inevitable trade-offs among these goals, but I suggest that the trade-offs are not linear, and that electoral rules can be designed to maximize the quality of representation.  I suggest that the most straightforward way to achieve such gains is by maintaining proportional representation systems of elections, but by limiting district magnitude (the number of representatives elected per district) to moderate levels, in the range from 4 to 8. Elections; Election Rules; Electoral Systems; Electoral Reform; Accountability; Representation.

scholarly journals Committee chair selection under high informational and organizational constraints

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihail Chiru ◽  
Sergiu Gherghina
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Logit Models ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Privileged Access ◽  
Committee Chair ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Conditional Logit ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Organizational Constraints

This article draws on major theories of committee organization to explain committee chair selection in contexts with high informational and organizational constraints. We test our theoretical expectations through a series of fixed effects conditional logit models run on an original data set which includes all legislators who have served in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 2012. The findings indicate that sector knowledge matters more for committee chair selection in the first post-communist terms, while chair seniority and party credentials acquire relevance later on. The effect of sector knowledge is stronger than that of chair seniority for the committees that the members of parliament perceive to be the most important, while party leaders have privileged access to the chair position irrespective of how salient the committee is.

Electoral rules and minority representation in Romania

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleh Protsyk ◽  
Lupsa Marius Matichescu
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
Legislative Representation

This paper explores the effects that different institutional mechanisms for legislative representation have on ethnic diversity in the lower chamber of the Romanian parliament. It uses an original data set to examine representational outcomes generated by a combination of proportional representation and reserved seats provisions. The findings highlight the benefits that Romania’s choice of electoral rules generated for smaller minority communities and limitations that these rules impose on the nature and extent of legislative representation of large minority groups. The paper provides evidence for qualifying the scholarly support in favour of proportional representation. It also draws attention to potential trade-offs between communal representation and ethnic inclusiveness of main political parties that the use of special mechanisms for minority representation might encourage.

‘It will be a Scandal to show what we have done with such a number:’ House of Commons Committee Attendance Lists, 1606–1628

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 179-235
Author(s):  
Chris R. Kyle
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
History Of ◽  
Committee Membership ◽  
Parliamentary History ◽  
Debt Collection

That committee membership has played a significant role in parliamentary history is beyond question. It formed an important part of the analysis of the importance of Members of Parliament in the Elizabethan History of Parliament volumes and appointments have frequendy been used to illustrate the particular interest of Members in parliamentary issues and legislation. However, much of the analysis has been undertaken in a simplistic fashion, derived solely from the Underclerk's record in the Commons Journal and subjected to little more than superficial scrutiny. Stuart historians have been slow to heed Lord Macaulay's advice that Victoria Tower is ‘that dark repository in which the abortive statutes of many generations sleep a sleep rarely disturbed by the historian or antiquary’, for it is in the House of Lords Record Office that the majority of committee lists survive. And the existence of these attendance records allows us to expand and clarify previous analyses of Commons attendance. In particular, they show the munutiae of Parliament at work on a day-to-day basis as well as providing valuable biographical information. Viewed individually or taken as a whole, the documents also allow the development of broad and far-reaching conclusions about Parliament itself. The thirty-three committee lists transcribed below cover the period 1606–1628 and offer insights into local issues, such as the presentment to the parsonage of Radipoll, Dorset, and matters which concerned the commonweal, for example, purveyance and debt collection.

scholarly journals Democratic Institutions Beyond the Nation State: Measuring Institutional Dissimilarity in Federal Countries

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imke Harbers ◽  
Matthew C. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Call System ◽  
Institutional Variation

The persistence of subnational undemocratic regimes in new democracies has recently revived interest in intra-national patterns of democratization. This article offers new data and a methodological contribution to this literature, emphasizing the measurement of institutional variation across territorial units and levels of government. Developing new measures of the unevenness of democratic institutions within individual countries, and illustrating these measures with an original data set on electoral rules in Mexico at the federal level and across 32 subnational units, we provide tools to enhance the study of democracy, particularly at the subnational level and in federal or decentralized systems. More specifically, we develop measures of institutional characteristics across a country's spatial units and of federal-to-state institutional dissimilarity – what we call system-wide institutional incongruence.

Rotational Characteristics of the Green Solar Corona: 1947-1991

1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 139-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rybák ◽  
V. Rušin ◽  
M. Rybanský
Keyword(s):  
Solar Corona ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Rotation Period ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Coronal Emission ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The World ◽  
Coronal Emission Line ◽  
Homogeneous Data

AbstractFe XIV 530.3 nm coronal emission line observations have been used for the estimation of the green solar corona rotation. A homogeneous data set, created from measurements of the world-wide coronagraphic network, has been examined with a help of correlation analysis to reveal the averaged synodic rotation period as a function of latitude and time over the epoch from 1947 to 1991.The values of the synodic rotation period obtained for this epoch for the whole range of latitudes and a latitude band ±30° are 27.52±0.12 days and 26.95±0.21 days, resp. A differential rotation of green solar corona, with local period maxima around ±60° and minimum of the rotation period at the equator, was confirmed. No clear cyclic variation of the rotation has been found for examinated epoch but some monotonic trends for some time intervals are presented.A detailed investigation of the original data and their correlation functions has shown that an existence of sufficiently reliable tracers is not evident for the whole set of examinated data. This should be taken into account in future more precise estimations of the green corona rotation period.

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