The Relationship between Seats and Votes in Two-Party Systems

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 540-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward R. Tufte
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
Legislative Power ◽  
The Relationship

An enduring fact of life in democratic electoral systems is that the party winning the largest share of the votes almost always receives a still larger share of the seats. This paper tests three models describing the inflation of the legislative power of the victorious party and then develops explanations of the observed differences in the swing ratio and the partisan bias of an electoral system. The “cube law” is rejected as a description, since it assumes uniformity (which is not observed in the data) across electoral systems. Explanations for differences in swing ratio and bias are found in variations in turnout over districts, the extent of the “nationalization” of politics, and, most importantly, in who does the districting or reapportionment. The measures of swing ratio and partisan bias appear useful for the judicial evaluation of redistricting schemes and may contribute to the reduction of partisan and incumbent gerrymandering.

scholarly journals Enhancing Democracy Through Legislative Redistricting

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gelman ◽  
Gary King
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Methods ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
The Relationship

We demonstrate the surprising benefits of legislative redistricting (including partisan gerrymandering) for American representative democracy. In so doing, our analysis resolves two long-standing controversies in American politics. First, whereas some scholars believe that redistricting reduces electoral responsiveness by protecting incumbents, others, that the relationship is spurious, we demonstrate that both sides are wrong: redistricting increases responsiveness. Second, while some researchers believe that gerrymandering dramatically increases partisan bias and others deny this effect, we show both sides are in a sense correct. Gerrymandering biases electoral systems in favor of the party that controls the redistricting as compared to what would have happened if the other party controlled it, but any type of redistricting reduces partisan bias as compared to an electoral system without redistricting. Incorrect conclusions in both literatures resulted from misjudging the enormous uncertainties present during redistricting periods, making simplified assumptions about the redistricters' goals, and using inferior statistical methods.

The Electoral System, the Party System and Accountability in Parliamentary Government

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 744-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER KAM ◽  
ANTHONY M. BERTELLI ◽  
ALEXANDER HELD
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Party System ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Government

Electoral accountability requires that voters have the ability to constrain the incumbent government’s policy-making power. We express the necessary conditions for this claim as an accountability identity in which the electoral system and the party system interact to shape the accountability of parliamentary governments. Data from 400 parliamentary elections between 1948 and 2012 show that electoral accountability is contingent on the party system’s bipolarity, for example, with parties arrayed in two distinct blocs. Proportional electoral systems achieve accountability as well as majoritarian ones when bipolarity is strong but not when it is weak. This is because bipolarity decreases the number of connected coalitions that incumbent parties can join to preserve their policy-making power. Our results underscore the limitations that party systems place on electoral reform and the benefits that bipolarity offers for clarifying voters’ choices and intensifying electoral competition.

Electoral Systems and Policy Outcomes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Rickard
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Policy Effects ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cross National

Policies as diverse as tariffs, exchange rates, and unemployment insurance vary across democratic countries. In an attempt to explain this cross-national variation, scholars have turned to the institutions that govern countries’ elections. The institutions that regulate elections, also known as an electoral system, vary significantly across democracies. Can these varied electoral institutions explain the diversity of policies observed? This question remains unanswered. Despite a growing body of research, little consensus exists as to precisely how electoral institutions affect policy. Why is it so difficult to untangle the effects of electoral institutions on economic policy? One reason for the confusion may be the imprecise manner in which electoral institutions are often measured. Better measures of electoral systems may improve our understanding of their policy effects. Improved theories that clarify the causal mechanism(s) linking electoral systems to policy outcomes will also help to clarify the relationship between electoral systems and policies. To better understand the policy effects of electoral institutions, both theoretical and empirical work must take seriously contextual factors, such as geography, which likely mediate the effects of electoral institutions. Finally, different types of empirical evidence are needed to shed new light on the policy effects of electoral institutions. It is difficult to identify the effects of electoral systems in cross-national studies because of the many other factors that vary across countries. Examining within-country variations, such as changes in district magnitude, may provide useful new insights regarding the effects of electoral institutions on policy.

The Impact of Mixed-member Districts on Legislators' Behavior: The Case of Bolivia

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Corral ◽  
Francisco Sánchez ◽  
Cristina Rivas Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Personal Assistants ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractMany studies suggest that mixed-member electoral systems produce different attitudes and behaviors among representatives. This article assesses how this type of electoral system shapes Bolivian legislators' perceptions of their roles as representatives, their district activities, and their relationships with their political parties. It examines these dimensions using elite survey data and interviews with legislators and their personal assistants. The results show that the electoral system does not produce a uniform impact. It shapes how legislators perceive their role as representatives and the nature of the relationship they build with their political parties, but it does not produce differences in the kinds of activities that both types of legislators carry out in their districts.

The Theoretical Limits of Maximum Distortion: Some Analytic Expressions for Electoral Systems

1971 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Loosemore ◽  
Victor J. Hanby
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Empirical Relationship ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Mechanical Effects ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
Analytic Expressions

The role of the electoral system in the political process is one which has long concerned political scientists. Traditionally, the emphasis has been on the ‘mechanical’ effects that such systems have or are assumed to have, on such features as the number and strength of parties in a given political system. More often the debate became of a polemical nature, fought on the respective merits of one or other of the major electoral systems. The culmination of all this effort was that, until recently, research in this area of the discipline consisted almost entirely of a body of material, basically unsystematic in scope and essentially descriptive by nature. More contemporary research has concentrated on discovering the precise nature of the empirical relationship between electoral systems and party systems, with some degree of success. Our concern in this paper however, is not to contribute to the knowledge of the ‘mechanical’ effects of electoral systems but, in a related fashion, to examine some possible theoretical properties that may have an equal importance for democratic theory.

scholarly journals Increasingly ‘Irrational’ Party Systems: Evidence that There Are Increasingly More Than Two Parties at the District Level

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 506-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
District Level ◽  
Number Of Parties

Recent work has noted an increase in the number of parties at the national level in both proportional and majoritarian electoral systems. While the conventional wisdom maintains that the incentives provided by the electoral system will prevent the number of parties at the district level from exceeding two in majoritarian systems, the evidence presented here demonstrates otherwise. I argue that this has occurred because the number of cleavages articulated by parties has increased as several third parties have begun articulating cleavages that are not well represented by the two larger parties.

District magnitude and electoral mobilization: how uneven electoral systems shift the focus of campaign efforts by political parties

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Michio Umeda
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Survey Period ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Party Strategies ◽  
Electoral Mobilization ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This paper shows how an uneven electoral system in Japan shapes political parties' mobilization strategies by utilizing a majoritarian electoral system with heterogeneous district magnitudes, which in turn contributes to the gap in turnout across districts. Scholars have long debated the relationship between electoral systems and turnout; it is known that countries with proportional representation electoral systems – those with larger district magnitude – tend to have higher turnout rates than countries with majoritarian electoral systems, especially single-member district (SMD) systems. The current discussion on turnout and district magnitude of an electoral system assumes a monotonic relationship between these factors: the larger the district magnitude of the electoral system, the more (or less) participatory the electorate, due to competitiveness and mobilization efforts by political parties and other relevant groups. In contrast, this paper shows a mixed relationship between district magnitude of the electoral system and party mobilization and subsequent turnout, investigating a majoritarian electoral system with uneven district magnitude in the Japanese Upper House. During the survey period, the party system in Japan consisted of two major parties and a few smaller parties; consequently, the two major parties focused their efforts on SMDs in order to maximize their seat share, while smaller parties focused their resource on districts electing more than two members (where they have some chance to elect their party's candidates). In combination, these party strategies have resulted in the lowest mobilization and turnout rates in districts with two members.

scholarly journals Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 626-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Carl Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Single Transferable Vote ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The United Kingdom is well known for the single-member plurality or, more colloquially, the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system. Devolution of power in the late twentieth century, however, introduced new bodies and positions with new electoral systems, with the total reaching six. These consisted of three majoritarian systems (FPTP, multiple nontransferable vote, and supplementary vote) and three proportional systems (single transferable vote, mixed-member proportional representation, and regional list proportional representation). Sample election results are presented and examined. Despite the presence of several different electoral systems and party systems in the United Kingdom with the development of multilevel governance, FPTP appears to be entrenched at Westminster, just as FPTP systems abroad have, in most cases, also resisted change.

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.

Electoral Systems and Voter Turnout

2017 ◽  
pp. 192-212
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
General Question ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
The Relationship

What is the relationship between electoral rules and voter turnout? To answer this question, this chapter begins with the more general question of why voters turn out on Election Day at all. The chapter then reviews the main theoretical arguments and empirical evidence of how electoral rules affect voters’ turnout decisions, as well as the puzzles that have emerged from that literature. It then highlights some recent theoretical, methodological, and empirical advancements using subnational data and electoral system reforms that have refined our understanding about the interaction between electoral rules, competitiveness, and turnout. Finally, the chapter explores new and promising directions for further research.

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