Government Formation and Endogenous Parties

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Baron
Keyword(s):  
Formal Theory ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
System A ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
The Government

I provide a formal theory of government for a political system characterized by a proportional representation electoral system, a parliamentary government that exercises collective responsibility, and a government formation process. Political parties are assumed to be policy-oriented and to serve the interests of those who vote for them. Parties choose policy platforms that determine their representation in parliament; and given that representation, the parties bargain over the government to be formed and the policies that government will implement. The model yields equilibria with the property that parties choose dispersed policy positions. Thus, electoral incentives in proportional representation parliamentary systems need not lead to policy convergence. The theory provides predictions of party locations such as those developed in the manifesto project.

Political Agreements — A Critical Introduction

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kretzmer
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
System A ◽  
Absolute Majority ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Dominant Parties

Political agreements are an integral part of the political system in Israel. For various reasons — mainly the proportional representation electoral system and the existence of a “third bloc” of religious parties that do no fit into the centre-right and centre-left political alliances — no political party has ever enjoyed an absolute majority in the Knesset. The dominant parties have therefore always had to rely on coalition agreements with smaller parties in order to obtain, and subsequently maintain, the parliamentary majority required for a government to rule under Israel's parliamentary system. A similar situation exists in many municipal councils and in other elected bodies, such as the Bar Council.

Electoral Incentives in Mixed-Member Systems: Party, Posts, and Zombie Politicians in Japan

2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT PEKKANEN ◽  
BENJAMIN NYBLADE ◽  
ELLIS S. KRAUSS
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Parallel System ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Legislative Organization ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Individual

How do electoral incentives affect legislative organization? Through an analysis of Japan's mixed-member electoral system, we demonstrate that legislative organization is strongly influenced not only by the individual legislators reelection incentives but also by their interest in their party gaining power and maintaining a strong party label. Electorally vulnerable legislators are given choice legislative positions to enhance their prospects at the polls, whereas (potential) party leaders disproportionately receive posts with greater influence on the party's overall reputation. Members of Parliament elected from proportional representation (PR) lists and in single member districts also receive different types of posts, reflecting their distinct electoral incentives. Even small variations in electoral rules can have important consequences for legislative organization. In contrast to Germany's compensatory mixed-member system, Japan's parallel system (combined with a “best loser” or “zombie” provision) generates incentives for the party to allocate posts relating to the distribution of particularistic goods to those elected in PR.

The Impact of the Electoral System on Government Formation: The Case of Post-Communist Hungary

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
CSABA NIKOLENYI
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Coalition Formation Process ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

Conventional theories of government formation have assumed that the coalition formation process starts after legislative elections are over and the distribution of parliamentary seats becomes common knowledge. This perspective, however, ignores the important constraints that the formation of electoral coalitions may exert on the formation of the government. This article argues that the electoral system of Hungary provides very strong incentives for political parties to build electoral coalitions, which are also identified as alternative governments before the electorate.

Quebec Block Voting and the Canadian Electoral System

1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Bakvis ◽  
Laura G. Macpherson
Keyword(s):  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
The Government ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis article examines two contrasting views of Quebec block voting in federal elections. One view has it that the Quebec electorate tends to behave in a monolithic fashion; the other, put by Cairns in 1968, claims that this phenomenon is “a contrivance of the electoral system, not an autonomous social fact.” The evidence shows that block voting, namely, the degree to which an electorate mobilizes behind the largest party, is much more pronounced in Quebec than it is in other provinces, and especially when compared to that in Ontario. Quebec is also more likely than Ontario to determine which party forms the government. The tendency of the electoral system to magnify seat allocations to the largest party, however, is only marginally greater in Quebec relative to Ontario. At the same time, the composition of the Quebec “block” vote has varied considerably over time; it has not always been a distinctively francophone phenomenon. The article further challenges the assumption that the single-member plurality system is inherently inferior to proportional representation as a means of securing the protection of minorities in ethnically diverse societies.

scholarly journals Does Collective Responsibility for Performance Alter Party Strategies? Policy-Seeking Parties in Proportional Systems

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Adams ◽  
Lawrence Ezrow ◽  
Samuel Merrill ◽  
Zeynep Somer-Topcu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Generalized Model ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Strategies ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Foreign Policy Crises

AbstractAdams and Merrill have developed a model of policy-seeking parties in a parliamentary democracy competing in a PR electoral system, in which party elites are uncertain about voters’ evaluations of the parties’ valence attributes such as competence, integrity and charisma. This article extends that model to situations where voters hold coalitions of parties collectively responsible for their valence-related performances, such as how voters evaluate governing parties’ competence in handling issues like the economy, crime and foreign policy crises. It may also be relevant to voters’ evaluations of proto-coalitions of opposition parties. Computations suggest the central substantive conclusions reported in Adams and Merrill extend to this generalized model, and that collective responsibility enhances coalition members’ incentives to converge to similar policy positions but depresses their prospects of achieving their policy objectives.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 556-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristof Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government

The Netherlands has one of the most proportional electoral systems in the world. This chapter details the origins, functioning, and effects of the Dutch electoral system. After providing the historical background of the electoral system, the chapter discusses the allocation of seats both to parties and to candidates and gives practical examples. Afterward, the chapter outlines the effects of the electoral system on the party system, the parties themselves, the composition of the parliament, and the government formation. Lastly, the chapter covers historical and more recent electoral reform debates. It turns out that in the Netherlands, electoral reform is a Sisyphean task: because of the low electoral threshold, electoral reform is always on the table, but given the broad coalitions and rigid constitution, reform attempts typically fail, and the reform discussions have to start all over again.

scholarly journals Do Voters Affect Policies? Within-Coalition Competition in the Chilean Electoral System

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Pablo Argote ◽  
Patricio Navia
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Policy Convergence ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Moderate Policy

It has been argued that close elections lead to policy convergence, as legislators elected by a small margin are more likely to adopt moderate policy positions (Downs 1957). However, Lee, Moretti, and Butler (2004) find that electoral competition does not affect legislators’ policy preferences in the United States, questioning the median voter paradigm. To help to discern this paradox, we estimate the effect of close elections on legislators’ subsequent policy positions under different electoral rules. With Chile's two-seat open-list proportional representation system, we exploit the dynamics of within-coalition competition to test both hypotheses. Using the margin of victory in 383 races in four different parliamentary elections and 3,741 roll-call votes for the 120-seat Chamber of Deputies from 1998 to 2014, we find that electoral competition did not lead to policy convergence under either the center-left Concertación coalition or the rightist Alianza coalition. We contend that policy convergence responds to electoral incentives but is also conditioned by the nature of the political regime (presidential or parliamentary) and government–opposition dynamics.

Germany's Mixed-Member Electoral System: A Victim of its Sophistication?

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-237
Author(s):  
Christian Tomuschat
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
General Public ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Homogeneous Body ◽  
System A ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Tremendous Challenge

To shape a legitimate electoral system is a tremendous challenge for any parliamentary body. It cannot evade the responsibility of enacting the requisite statutory rules since no other State organ has the authority to make determinations which are substantially of a constitutional character. How, and under what conditions, citizens choose their representatives pertains to the key issues in a democratic system. But it is a truism to state that a parliament is not a homogeneous body; it is normally composed of different groups with highly divergent interests. Groups representing large political parties tend to favor a majoritarian electoral system, following with greater or slighter variations the British model of first past the post where the highest number of ballots in a given constituency determines the winner of the seat in issue, even though the candidate may have obtained only a relative plurality. Smaller parties, on the other hand, put their preferences on proportional representation, which ensures them a share of the seats corresponding to their share of the vote. To their regret, parties supported only by a low fraction of the electorate cannot, which is self-evident, impose their preferred option, having to wait for pressure to build up in the general public to promote their concerns. Thus, parliaments are neither neutral nor objective when they make determinations in electoral matters.

A Spatial Bargaining Theory of Government Formation in Parliamentary Systems

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Baron
Keyword(s):  
Formation Process ◽  
Political System ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Bargaining Theory ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
Large Party ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Ideal

A theory of government formation in parliamentary systems is developed from a model incorporating policy-oriented parties with spatial preferences and a formation process in which parties are selected in sequence to attempt to form a government. A government is formed when the policy proposed by the party selected is sustained on a vote of confidence. The equilibria identify the government and the policy it will implement and depend on the configuration of preferences and on the government formation process. For example, in a political system with two large parties and one small party and in which one of the two large parties will be selected to attempt to form a government, the government will be formed by a large party with the support of the small party. The policy will reflect the preferences of the small party but will be closer to the ideal point of the large party.

Electoral Systems and Proportional Tenure of Government: Renewing the Debate

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACK VOWLES
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Parliamentary Systems

Debates between advocates of the two major alternative forms of electoral system often proceed at cross-purposes. In parliamentary systems, governments not only wield executive power, they strongly influence the agenda of the legislature and in some cases dominate it. The core literature on electoral systems focuses almost entirely on the relations between vote shares and legislative seat shares, leaving government formation aside. Yet the main debate about democratic accountability focuses on representative government, of which a representative legislature is at most only one part.

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