scholarly journals Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behavior: Explaining Voting Defection in the European Parliament

2004 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hix
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
European Union Member State ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Selection Rules ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Despite a sophisticated understanding of the impact of electoral institutions on macrolevel political behavior, little is known about the relationship between these institutions and microlevel legislative behavior. This article reviews existing claims about this relationship and develops a model for predicting how electoral institutions affect the relationship between parliamentarians and their party principals in the context of the European Parliament. The European Parliament is an ideal laboratory for investigating these effects, because in each European Union member state, different institutions are used to elect Members of European Parliament (MEPs). The results of this model, tested on four hundred thousand individual MEP vote decisions, show that candidate-centered electoral systems (such as open-list proportional representation or single-transferable-vote systems) and decentralized candidate-selection rules produce parliamentarians independent from their party principals. By contrast, party-centered electoral systems (such as closed-list proportional representation systems) and centralized candidate-selection rules produce parliamentarians beholden to the parties that fight elections and choose candidates: in the case of the European Parliament, the national parties.

Asking territories: the constituency orientation of Italian and French members of the European Parliament

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Sozzi
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Connection ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior ◽  
Members Of European Parliament ◽  
Elected Representatives

In this article, we explore how electoral systems influence attitudes and behavior of elected representatives. Focusing on constituency representation, we consider how variation in electoral systems may shape forms of political representation. An analysis of written parliamentary questions (PQs) is an important instrument to look at the role of parliamentarians even where, as in the European Parliament, political parties enforce discipline in roll-call voting. This kind of investigation offers the opportunity to partially resolve empirical and theoretical problems related to other methods of research. Unlike voting and speeches, PQs face fewer constrains from party leaders. This article analyses the constituency focus of members of European Parliament from France and Italy. These countries differ with regard to two main dimensions of electoral systems: ballot structure and district magnitude. The study is conducted through a content analysis of 5343 written PQs during the sixth term (2004–09). The results suggest that, despite the lack of strong electoral connection, electoral institutions shape the legislative behavior of the Italian and French parliamentarians providing incentives to cultivate personal reputation and constituency-orientation.

scholarly journals Electoral Institutions and Women’s Representation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael FitzGerald ◽  
Melody E. Valdini
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Women's Representation ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Women’S Representation ◽  
The Impact

While there are many factors that drive women’s descriptive representation (i.e., the percentage of women in the legislature) the electoral institutions generate some of the most powerful and consistent effects. In the first breaths of this literature, the focus was firmly on the impact of majoritarian electoral systems versus proportional representation (PR) systems on women’s descriptive representation. Since then, the literature has grown to engage broader ideas regarding the complicated nature of analyzing institutions in different cultural contexts and under different social conditions. Particularly in the later decades of the 20th century, scholars found that structural factors, such as economic disparities between men and women and the balance of women in careers that are typical paths to political office, were important to consider in concert with electoral rules. More recently, as more women gain access to the economic elite, the literature has focused more on cultural factors such as the historical legacies of Communism and the general societal reactions to women’s leadership. These non-institutional factors are now widely engaged as an important component of understanding why and to what extent we can expect an electoral system to generate a certain outcome. Beyond the impact of the electoral system itself, there is also relevant literature that engages how electoral institutions such as gender quotas and candidate selection processes affect women’s descriptive representation. There is wide variation in the design of gender quotas as well as candidate selection processes, just as there is in the design of electoral systems, and therefore a fuller understanding of the relationship between electoral institutions and women’s representation requires consideration of the interaction of candidate selection procedures, gender quotas, and electoral systems. For example, the presence of a placement mandate (i.e., a requirement stipulating where on the list women candidates must be positioned) or a decentralized candidate selection process each has a different effect on women’s representation in an electoral system that includes a preference vote. The sections below highlight some of the existing literature on electoral institutions and their impact on women’s descriptive representation. This is by no means an exhaustive list but does offer insight into the general themes and research areas that are common in this field of study.

scholarly journals The Impact of Candidate Selection Rules and Electoral Vulnerability on Legislative Behaviour in Comparative Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge M. Fernandes ◽  
Lucas Geese ◽  
Carsten Schwemmer
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Selection Rules ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross System ◽  
Mixed Systems

Legislators are political actors whose main goal is to get re-elected. They use their legislative repertoire to help them to cater to the interests of their principals. In this paper, we argue that we need to move beyond treating electoral systems as monolithic entities, as if all legislators operating under the same set of macro-rules shared the same set of incentives. Rather, we need to account for within-system variation, namely, candidate selection rules and individual electoral vulnerability. Using a most different systems design, we turn to Germany, Ireland, and Portugal to leverage both cross-system and within-system variation. We use an original dataset of 345.000 parliamentary questions. Findings show that candidate selection rules blur canonical electoral system boundaries. Electoral vulnerability has a similar effect in closed-list and mixed-systems, but not in preferential voting settings.

Electoral Systems and the Substantive Representation of Marginalized Groups: Evidence from Women’s Issue Bills in South Korea

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110282
Author(s):  
Yesola Kweon ◽  
Josh M. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Relationship

How do electoral rules shape the substantive representation of traditionally underrepresented groups? Using an original dataset of introduced and passed bills in the Korean National Assembly, which has both single-member districts and proportional representation, we examine the extent to which institutions condition the relationship between lawmaker gender and the substantive representation of women. While women lawmakers engage in higher levels of substantive representation of women, proportional representation allows both women and men to introduce more women’s issue bills than their counterparts elected through single-member districts. Furthermore, legislators elected through proportional representation are more effective at achieving passage of women’s issue legislation when compared with those elected in single-member districts, and this effect is especially pronounced for men. Our findings show that electoral systems matter for the representation of marginalized groups and that proportional representation systems allow both female and male politicians to increase their substantive representation of women.

scholarly journals Corruption and satisfaction with democracy: the conditional role of electoral disproportionality and ballot control

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Pellegata ◽  
Vincenzo Memoli
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Satisfaction With Democracy ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Levels

Existing literature has analysed the relationship between electoral systems and either corruption or satisfaction with democracy (SWD) focussing on the traditional distinction between majoritarian and proportional systems. This paper, instead, investigates if and how specific aspects of electoral systems moderate the negative effects of corruption perceptions on SWD. We argue that two mechanisms act simultaneously but at different levels. The first mechanism is the relationship between voters and the national government, while the second links single representatives to their constituents. We advance conditional hypotheses that postulate an attenuating effect of disproportionality and a reinforcing impact of personal vote. Empirical results from 35 elections in 33 democracies, using both individual and aggregate-level data, confirm the research hypotheses. More disproportional electoral systems weaken the impact of citizens’ perceived corruption on their democratic satisfaction, while this is strengthened by systems in which the ballot control is mostly in the hand of the voters.

scholarly journals Geography Matters: The Conditional Effect of Electoral Systems on Social Spending

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Jurado ◽  
Sandra León
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
Conditional Effect ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

There is a large body of research showing that the provision of social policies is higher under proportional electoral systems than under majoritarian systems. This article helps advance this literature by showing that the geographic distribution of social recipients plays an essential role in moderating the impact of electoral institutions on social provision. Using data from twenty-two OECD countries, the results show that majoritarian systems increase the provision of social spending when recipients are concentrated in certain regions. When levels of concentration are high, social spending in majoritarian countries can surpass levels of provision in proportional representation systems.

scholarly journals Tipos de lista y perfiles parlamentarios en España y Alemania

2020 ◽  
pp. 557
Author(s):  
Carles Pamíes
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Comparative Data ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Educational Levels ◽  
European Survey ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Demographic Representation ◽  
Informal Rules ◽  
The Relationship

Los tipos de listas son un elemento central en los sistemas electorales, en particular por sus implicaciones en el funcionamiento de la democracia. Sin embargo, no es habitual encontrar estudios sobre cómo esos atributos pueden estar relacionados con el tipo de candidatos que se incluyen en esas listas. Tras una panorámica general de los distintos tipos de listas y la justificación de los casos de España y Alemania —dos sistemas distintos tanto en sus reglas formales como informales—. Tras esto, usamos los datos comparados de una encuesta trasnacional de ámbito europeo para ver las diferencias en los perfiles de los parlamentarios en las cámaras bajas de ambos países. Nuestra primera expectativa era encontrar mayor inclusividad en la selección en sistemas de listas más abiertas como el alemán, lo cual se confirma. Paralelamente, nuestra expectativa era que un sistema de listas cerradas como el español favorecería mayor inclusividad en los perfiles parlamentarios, pero esto es solo para el caso del género, mientras que ocurre lo contrario para edad y para el nivel y el perfil educativo. Estos resultados abren una vía de investigación sobre la relación entre los factores formales e informales de la selección de candidatos y los perfiles demográficos de representación.Electoral lists are a key element in electoral systems, particularly because of their implications for the functioning of democracy. However, it is not usual to find studies on how these attributes may be related to the type of candidates included in the electoral lists. We start with an overview of the different types of lists and we portray the cases of Spain and Germany - two different systems in both their formal and informal rules. After that, we use the comparative data of a transnational European survey to see the differences in the profiles of the parliamentarians in the lower houses of both countries. We firstly expected that a more open list system —the German case— would be more inclusive in terms of selection, which was confirmed. We also expected our close-list system in Spain to be more inclusive in parliamentary profiles, and this was the case only for gender, while in terms of age and educational levels and profiles was not. These results allow new inquiries to further research on the relationship between formal and informal factors of candidate selection and demographic representation profiles.

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.

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