PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY AND THE FIGHT TO CHANGE THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM

2021 ◽  
pp. 118-135
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy

Limits of Electoral Equality and Political Representation

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kostas Chryssogonos ◽  
Costas Stratilatis
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Normative Standards ◽  
Tyranny Of The Majority

Constitutional limits to the discretion of the legislature in forming the electoral system — Political equality — Equal suffrage — Equal opportunities for political parties — Free expression of popular will — Functionality of the parliament — Concrete normative standards for assessing the constitutionality of an electoral system — Conception of parliamentary democracy emphasising representation of political minorities and protection from ‘tyranny of the majority’

scholarly journals Israeli Politics

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gideon Rahat ◽  
Avi Shilon
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Political System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The State ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Zionist Movement ◽  
Multiparty Politics

Israel is a parliamentary democracy that was established in 1948. However, the foundations of its political system were laid before the state was established, in the framework of the Zionist movement and the Jewish community in Palestine, especially at the time of the British Mandate (1920–1948). Israel is a multi-cleavage society. The main rift is between Jews (about 75 percent of the population, as of 2019) and Arab/Palestinian citizens (about 20 percent). Prominent rifts also exist among the Jews: the religious–secular rift, the intra-Jewish communal rift (Ashkenazi-Mizrachi), the ideological rift (left-right), and the rift between new and veteran immigrants and the natives. Partly as a result of the highly proportional electoral system, these social rifts are translated into multiparty politics and coalition governments.

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.

Evolution of manifestos in a developing parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and multiparty coalition governments

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-306
Author(s):  
Samo Kropivnik ◽  
Simona Kustec Lipicer
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Issue Emphasis

In exploring the first two decades of evolution of political programmes applied for the electoral processes in Slovenia, a young European multiparty parliamentary democracy with a proportional electoral system and multiparty government coalitions, the article contributes to a rich tradition of studying the programmes of political parties as relevant narrators of the development of democratic systems and suggests an answer to ‘why do parties write manifestos?’ The main findings include the distinct issue emphasis of parliamentary and non-parliamentary parties’ manifestos and convergence in issue emphasis over time among parliamentary parties who go on to form coalition governments. Regarding the ‘why’, these and other findings indicate that the manifestos considered here are intended more for post-election purposes – in particular, for the formation of alliances and negotiating and running a coalition government – than for attracting voters in the pre-election period. Party programmes are seen more as self-intended tools for political struggle than as promoters or control mechanisms for the further development of the democratic political system.

The Role of the Electoral System in Turkish Politics

1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hale
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Turkish Politics ◽  
Economic Background ◽  
The Impact

Over the last twenty years there have been several interesting attempts by scholars working both in Turkey and elsewhere to offer a critical examination of the workings of the competitive party system in Turkey, and to relate changes in the parliamentary arena to the tensions created in a rapidly developing society. This emphasis on the social and economic background to political change has tended to turn attention away from the constitutional and legal arrangements on which the proper functioning of parliamentary democracy also depends. What follows tries to assess the impact of one of these factors — the electoral system — on Turkish political development since 1950. It closes with some suggestions about the possible effects on Turkish politics of some hitherto untried systems of election.

Israel

2021 ◽  
pp. 484-504
Author(s):  
Or Tuttnauer ◽  
Chen Friedberg
Keyword(s):  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
National Parliament ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Speech Time ◽  
Rules Of Procedure

This chapter investigates the factors affecting floor access in the Israeli national parliament—the Knesset. Although Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a proportional, closed-list electoral system, the Knesset’s rules of procedure give little control to parties over floor access. Analyzing over 46,000 speeches over three terms between 2009 and 2019, even in debates where party leadership does have control over who takes the floor, we find no strong evidence that such control is used to give more speech time to highly ranked representatives. This is at odds with predictions made by others in two ways: First, in that the parliamentary rules do not reflect the electoral incentives of party leadership; Second, in that parties do not appear to utilize whatever ability they possess to control their representatives’ speechmaking.

2018 Fiji Election Results: Patterns of Voting by Provinces, Rural-Urban Localities, and by Candidates

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruo Nakagawa
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Election Results

Akin to the previous, 2014 event, with no data on voter ethnicity, no exit polls, and few post-election analyses, the 2018 Fiji election results remain something of a mystery despite the fact that there had been a significant swing in voting in favour of Opposition political parties. There have been several studies about the election results, but most of them have been done without much quantitative analyses. This study examines voting patterns of Fiji’s 2018 election by provinces, and rural-urban localities, as well as by candidates, and also compares the 2018 and 2014 elections by spending a substantial time classifying officially released data by polling stations and individual candidates. Some of the data are then further aggregated according to the political parties to which those candidates belonged. The current electoral system in Fiji is a version of a proportional system, but its use is rare and this study will provide an interesting case study of the Open List Proportional System. At the end of the analyses, this study considers possible reasons for the swing in favour of the Opposition.

Brabantia: decoding the main characters of Utopia

Moreana ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (Number 187- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-182
Author(s):  
Maarten M.K. Vermeir
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political System ◽  
Desiderius Erasmus ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Home Town ◽  
Christian Humanism ◽  
Political Thinker

In this study, we propose a new understanding, according to the principles of ‘humanistic interpretation’, of a fundamental layer of meaning in Utopia. In the work of Thomas More, major references can be found to the particular genesis and a crucial purpose of Utopia. Desiderius Erasmus arranged the acquaintance of Thomas More with Peter Giles, a key figure in the development of Erasmus as political thinker. More and Giles together in Antwerp (Giles’s home town), both jurists and humanists, would lay the foundation of Utopia. With this arranged contact, Erasmus handed over to More the knowledge of a particular political system - the earliest form of ‘parliamentary democracy’ in Early modern Europe - embedded in the political culture of the Duchy of Brabant and its constitution, named the ‘Joyous Entry’. We argue that Erasmus, through the indispensable politicalliterary skills of More in Utopia, intended to promote this political system as a new, political philosophy: applicable to all nations in the Respublica Christiana of Christian humanism. With reference to this genesis of Utopia in the text itself and its prefatory letters, we come to a clear recognition of Desiderius Erasmus in the figure of Raphael Hythlodaeus, the sailor who had discovered the ‘isle of Utopia’ and discoursed, as reported by More, about its ‘exemplary’ institutions.

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