We don’t want you to play with them!: Electoral volatility and the dynamics of electoral reform (original) (raw)
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Electoral volatility and the dynamics of electoral reform
West European Politics, 2016
Since the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis, we have seen the emergence of important debates on the need to reorganize democracy and several discussions about institutional reforms. In this research we look into the relationship between electoral volatility and the introduction of electoral system changes. In a context of spread citizens´ dissatisfaction, voters have different ways to express their discontent in the polls. They may vote for other established mainstream parties or they may opt for new non-mainstream parties. According to our argument, it is only in the latter case that ruling parties would really feel threatened and would face incentives to initiate institutional reform. In order to analyze empirically these mechanisms, we have used data from the project 'Electoral System Changes in Europe' (ESCE) and studied the conditions under which electoral reforms affecting the proportionality of the system (formula, assembly size and threshold) have been enacted in 31 European countries between 1945 and 2012. We observe that the entry of new parties is more meaningful to explain how electoral instability may help to explain the emergence of reforms. Reformers are likely to opt for reforms making the system less inclusive when they are confronted to a real threat from new emerging parties challenging them. Under such circumstances, they will try to contain their challengers by making it harder for them to gain parliamentary representation.
Economic crisis, new parties and electoral reform
Since the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis, we have seen the emergence of important debates on the need to reorganize democracy and several discussions about institutional reforms. In this research we look into the relationship between electoral volatility and the introduction of electoral system changes. In a context of spread citizens´ dissatisfaction, voters have different ways to express their discontent in the polls. They may vote for other established mainstream parties or they may opt for new non-mainstream parties. According to our argument, it is only in the latter case that ruling parties would really feel threatened and would face incentives to initiate institutional reform. In order to analyze empirically these mechanisms, we have used data from the project 'Electoral System Changes in Europe' (ESCE) and studied the conditions under which electoral reforms affecting the proportionality of the system (formula, assembly size and threshold) have been enacted in 31 European countries between 1945 and 2012. We observe that the entry of new parties is more meaningful to explain how electoral instability may help to explain the emergence of reforms. Reformers are likely to opt for reforms making the system less inclusive when they are confronted to a real threat from new emerging parties challenging them. Under such circumstances, they will try to contain their challengers by making it harder for them to gain parliamentary representation.
European Political Science Review, 2015
Current theories on institutional change tend to interpret it either as the result of long-term gradual trends, or of disrupting shocks following periods of punctuated equilibrium. Less is known about the moments in which change is more frequent. Focusing on the short-term determinants of reforms of core democratic rules in consolidated democracies, the article shows that proximate shifts in the electoral arena have a distinctive impact on the number of institutional reforms that are adopted in a legislature. Using the empirical and theoretical findings of the literature on electoral reform, the article develops a model tested in statistical analyses aggregating a large sample of institutional reforms in Western European democracies between 1990 and 2010. The results show that rising electoral uncertainty measured by volatility, and the change of preferences of the actors in power measured by the advent of new forces in government lead to the adoption of more institutional reforms. These results appear consistent when some categories of reform are added or subtracted, giving confidence that this model can be applied to a wide range of institutional reforms.
Party system change in EU countries: long-term instability and cleavage restructuring
The European Parliament Elections of 2019, 2019
This chapter deals with the analysis of party system change in Europe after the 2019 European Parliament (EP) elections. Our task is threefold. First, we explore the patterns of electoral instability in Europe at the 2019 EP elections and compare them across countries and over time. Second, we compare trends and variations in electoral instability between national and EP elections, following the expectations derived from the SecondOorder Election (SOE) theory (Reif and Schmitt 1980). Third, we aim to understand the underlying dimensions of competition and cleavage structures in the 28 European party systems. From an empirical viewpoint, our analysis is based on data taken from a recently published dataset on electoral volatility and its internal components in EP elections since 1979 (Emanuele et al. 2019).
Party system volatility, regeneration and de-institutionalization in Western Europe (1945–2015)
Despite a great flourishing of studies about Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, the issue of party system institutionalization has been widely neglected in Western Europe, where the presence of stable and predictable patterns of interactions among political actors has been generally taken for granted for a long time. Nevertheless, party system institutionalization is not something that can be gained once and for all. This article proposes a theoretical reconceptualization and a new empirical operationalization of party system (de-)institutionalization. Furthermore, it tests the presence of patterns of de-institutionalization in Western Europe from 1945 to (March) 2015 (336 elections in 19 countries) by using an original database of electoral volatility and of its internal components (regeneration and alteration). Data analysis shows that Western Europe is facing great electoral instability and party system regeneration and that many countries have experienced sequences of party system de-institutionalization, especially in the last two decades.
This article examines why some democracies and semi-democracies develop relatively stable party systems, while others continue to be roiled by high levels of electoral volatility. It is the first broadly cross-regional analysis of electoral volatility, and it is based on the most extensive data assembled on electoral volatility. Our most original finding is that competitive regimes inaugurated in earlier periods have much lower electoral volatility than regimes inaugurated more recently, even controlling for a variety of other factors that have been hypothesized to affect electoral volatility. Parties had very different functions according to when democracy was inaugurated, and these congenital differences had longterm effects on the stabilization of party competition. What matters for the stabilization of party competition is when democracy was born, not how old it is. Our results support social science approaches that emphasize historical sequences and path dependence.
2013
This piece reviews comparative research on electoral systems and voting behaviour, identifying analytical gaps in the tactical voting literature. It starts by examining the core assumptions underpinning the classic approach to tactical voting. It then displays some empirical data about the estimates of this behaviour reported in the literature. Contrasting experiences of theoretical and methodological issues in majoritarian and non-majoritarian systems are discussed. Focusing on some difficulties in the application of the "avoiding wasted vote" motivations under PR and mixed-member rules, I further the consolidation of research on tactical voting beyond FPTP systems. In the last section, the piece suggests that future scholarship in this field should move beyond the "wasted vote" approach to tactical voting and distinguish between instrumental and expressive motivations; consider the longterm consequences of tactical voting; and stress the endogenous nature of tactical voting and the role of parties and media to spread it.
European Journal of Political Research, 2015
There is an assumption in much of the electoral engineering literature that domestic episodes of electoral system choice occur in a vacuum, isolated from international influences. Yet this assumption remains largely untested, despite the comparative focus of much of that literature. This article focuses on part of this gap by considering two electoral mechanisms that seek to limit party system fragmentation under proportional representation -low district magnitudes and high electoral thresholds -and shows that the mechanisms have spread across many European countries during the post-1945 period. Analyses reveal that national legislators are more likely to adopt one of these electoral mechanisms when a large number of peer countries have made similar choices within the last two or three years. This effect is robust to various model specifications and to the inclusion of multiple controls. The article also offers some qualitative evidence from case studies and parliamentary debates.
Dataset of Electoral Volatility and its internal components in Western Europe (1945-2015)
This dataset provides data on electoral volatility and its internal components in parliamentary elections (lower house) in 19 countries of Western Europe for the period 1945-2015. It covers the entire universe of Western European elections held after World War II under democratic regimes. Data for Greece, Portugal and Spain have been collected after their democratizations in the 1970s. Altogether, a total of 339 elections (or, more precisely, electoral periods) are included. This dataset will be regularly updated so as to include latest elections. How to cite this dataset? Emanuele, V. (2015), Dataset of Electoral Volatility and its internal components in Western Europe (1945-2015), Rome: Italian Center for Electoral Studies, http://dx.doi.org/10.7802/1112 Publications based on this dataset Chiaramonte, A. and Emanuele, V. (2015), Party System Volatility, Regeneration and De-Institutionalization in Western Europe (1945-2015), Party Politics, doi:10.1177/1354068815601330