Why electoral reform might improve representation and why it might make it worse (original) (raw)
Related papers
From plurality rule to proportional representation
Economics of Governance
I consider the decision of a parliament that might change the electoral system from the plurality rule to proportional representation for forthcoming elections. Parties are office-motivated. They care about winning and about the share of seats obtained. I examine two different scenarios of how parties in government share the spoils of office: equally or proportionally to their share of seats. If the government is formed by a single party and parties expect that each party will obtain the same share of votes in the next election, the electoral rule will never be changed. Therefore, for a change to occur, the government should be formed by a coalition. I find that a change is more likely to occur when there is a larger number of parties and also when the spoils of office are shared equally among the members in the governing coalition. These results are extended to analyze the decision to change from a less proportional rule to a more proportional one. KeywordsElectoral systems-Plurali...
Electoral reform in systems of proportional representation
European Journal of Political Research, 1992
Does electoral reform produce the effects that would be expected on the basis of those features of the systems that are modified? By using knowledge from the literature on electoral systems it is possible to predict whether a reform should result in a conversion of votes into seats more proportional than that which preceded the reform or less. In each of ten cases of reform in Western Europe and Israel the reform produced the expected results. However, graphical presentation of data pooled from all ten cases suggests that party systems have the ability to adjust after just a few elections, making the effects of the new system less impressive than when it was first adopted. Graphical analysis also reveals that changes to more proportional rules tend to occur when the number of parties was already rising, while changes to less proportional rules (which would tend to decrease the number of 'relevant' parties) occur when the number of parties has already been declining.
Proportional Representation, Majoritarian Legislatures & Coalitional Voting
American Journal of Political Science, 2011
Voters in elections under plurality rule face relatively straightforward incentives when it comes to voting. Voters in PR systems face more complex incentives as electoral outcomes don't translate as directly into policy outcomes as in plurality rule elections. A common approach is to assume electoral outcomes translate into policy as a vote-weighted average of all party platforms. Most of the world's legislatures are majoritarian institutions and elections in PR systems are generally followed by a process of coalition formation. I demonstrate that existing results are not robust to the introduction of minimal forms of majoritarianism. Voters' incentive to engage in strategic voting are shown to depend on considerations about the coalitions that may form after the election. In line with the empirical findings in the literature, the voters' equilibrium strategies are shaped by policy balancing and the post-electoral coalition bargaining situation, including considerations about who will be appointed the formateur.
Microcosms and macrocosms: Seat allocation in proportional representation systems
Theory and Decision, 1988
Three alternative methods are proposed to determine a normative standard concerning the fair proportion of seats a party ought to receive in a representative assembly as a function of the voters' preference orderings. The methods differ from one another in their treatment of indifference relations and the assumptions they make about the type of scale underlying voters' preferences. Common to all three methods is the basic idea that the ratio between the number of voters preferring party i over j to the number of voters preferring party j over i can be tested for consistency, in a precisely defined sense, and if sufficiently consistent, can be appropriately scaled to determine the proportion of seats each party ought to receive. The proposed solutions are shown to satisfy several desiderata when the matrix of preference ratios is consistent. When there are cyclical majorities of equal size, the matrix of preference ratios is inconsistent. The main application of the proposed scheme is as a normative benchmark against which actual or proposed voting procedures can be evaluated in proportional representation systems. The theoretical implications of these solutions are briefly discussed.
Proportional Representation, Majoritarian Legislatures, and Coalitional Voting
American Journal of Political Science, 2011
Voters in elections under plurality rule face relatively straightforward incentives when it comes to voting. Voters in PR systems face more complex incentives as electoral outcomes don't translate as directly into policy outcomes as in plurality rule elections. A common approach is to assume electoral outcomes translate into policy as a vote-weighted average of all party platforms. Most of the world's legislatures are majoritarian institutions and elections in PR systems are generally followed by a process of coalition formation. I demonstrate that existing results are not robust to the introduction of minimal forms of majoritarianism. Voters' incentive to engage in strategic voting are shown to depend on considerations about the coalitions that may form after the election. In line with the empirical findings in the literature, the voters' equilibrium strategies are shaped by policy balancing and the post-electoral coalition bargaining situation, including considerations about who will be appointed the formateur.
Czech Sociological Review, 2000
Due to the longstanding situation in which the Czech Republic has experienced a series of unstable minority governments, serious debate has arisen over the need for changes to be introduced into the electoral system. This paper attempts to find a suitable alternative of the representational system, one capable of ushering in a period of government stability, by modelling the results of the elections held in 1996 and 1998. The aim is to determine which type of proportional electoral system could transform the party system in such a manner so as to render it capable of setting up a "monochromatic" or two-party majority coalition government. The method of modelling the election results is rooted in an exact calculation of specific election results by applying particular mathematical formulas to examples of various sizes of electoral constituencies. This paper reaches three possible solutions, one of which appears to be exceptionally effective. A number of options have been worked out in the paper whereby on the basis of the implementation of the proposed electoral system, the system of political parties in the Czech Republic could be reconstructed. A description and brief evaluation of the proposal for changing the electoral system made by the two largest political parties in January 2000, which is also grounded in making modifications to the representational system, is adjoined to the overall treatise as an actual addendum.
Does Proportional Representation Foster Closer Congruence Between Citizens and Policymakers?
The paper assesses the claim that proportional representation fosters a closer correspondence between the views of citizens and the positions of the government. The study uses the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data set, and compares respondents' self-placements on a left right scale with their perceptions of cabinet parties in 31 election studies. We argue that PR has two contradictory consequences. On the one hand, PR leads to more parties and more choice for voters; but these parties are less centrist, and this increases the overall distance between voters and parties. On the other hand, PR increases the likelihood of coalition governments; this pulls the government towards the center of the policy spectrum and reduces the distance between the government and voters. These two contradictory effects of PR wash out, and the net overall impact of PR on congruence is nil.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020
The idea of proportional representation has been circulating for over two hundred years and is widely practiced, among other, in postwar Europe. The primary focus is to allow smaller parties, minorities and other disenfranchised groups in society systematic representation in the national legislature. This paper proposes a novel idea of jurisdictional-level proportionality specifically targeted at federal systems. Emphasising the primacy of jurisdictions (namely provinces and states) within a federation, we use data on the voting pattern in each such jurisdiction to determine the allocation of elected delegates (or electoral seats for that matter) that would be utilized in the eventual makeup of the ruling government. The proposed scheme is the simplest that we know of. All it requires is the record of all votes cast by individuals in favour of the candidate of their choice in a given constituency. Our design ensures that the mechanism encompass the governance virtues such as (a) inclusivity and stability of the elected government, (b) accountability of elected delegates and their interface with voters, and (c) and fully conform to the principle of proportionality. In the parliamentary mode, while it may tend to predict minority governments more often, it allows each major party a greater degree of freedom to forge a ruling coalition. When reviewing the US Presidential election, it appears that the outcome here may change too, typically in favour of the plurality winner of nationwide popular votes, even though the seat arithmetic is based on proportional votes within each state in the union.