The Effects of Electoral Rules Upon Legislators’ Campaign Promises and Legislative Performance - A Comparison of Taiwan Legislative Yuan between its Sixth Term (2005-2008) and Seventh Term (2008-2012)

During Latin America’s third democratic wave, a majority of countries adopted a runoff rule for the election of the president. This book is the first rigorous assessment of the implications of runoff versus plurality for democracy in the region. Despite previous scholarly skepticism about runoff, it has been positive for Latin America, and could be for the United States also. Primarily through qualitative analysis for each Latin American country, I explore why runoff is superior to plurality. Runoff opens the political arena to new parties but at the same time ensures that the president does not suffer a legitimacy deficit and is not at an ideological extreme. By contrast, in a region in which undemocratic political parties are common, the continuation of these parties is abetted by plurality; political exclusion provoked disillusionment and facilitated the emergence of presidents at ideological extremes. In regression analysis, runoff was statistically significant to superior levels of democracy. Between 1990 and 2016, Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy scores plummeted in countries with plurality but improved in countries with runoff. Plurality advocates’ primary concern is the larger number of political parties under runoff. Although a larger number of parties was not significant to inferior levels of democracy, a plethora of parties is problematic, leading to a paucity of legislative majorities and inchoate parties. To ameliorate the problem, I recommend not reductions in the 50% threshold but the scheduling of the legislative election after the first round or thresholds for entry into the legislature.

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Ballot spoilage as a response to limitations on choice and influence

Party Politics ◽

10.1177/1354068821990258 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135406882199025

Author(s):

Patrick Cunha Silva ◽

Brian F Crisp

Keyword(s):

Regression Discontinuity ◽

Electoral Systems ◽

Electoral Rules ◽

Municipal Elections ◽

Proportional Systems ◽

Reasoning Systems

Electoral systems vary in terms of the choice and influence they offer voters. Beyond selecting between parties, preferential systems allow for choices within parties. More proportional systems make it likely that influence over who determines the assembly’s majority will be distributed across relatively more voters. In response to systems that limit choice and influence, we hypothesize that voters will cast more blank, null, or spoiled ballots on purpose. We use a regression discontinuity opportunity in French municipal elections to test this hypothesis. An exogenously chosen and arbitrary cutpoint is used to determine the electoral rules municipalities use to select their assemblies. We find support for our reasoning—systems that do not allow intraparty preference votes and that lead to disproportional outcomes provoke vote spoilage. Rates of vote spoilage are frequently sufficient to change control over the assembly if those votes had instead been cast validly for the second-place party.

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Corruption, Campaigning, and Novelty: The 2020 Parliamentary Elections and the Evolving Patterns of Party Politics in Slovakia

East European Politics and Societies and Cultures ◽

10.1177/08883254211012765 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088832542110127

Author(s):

Tim Haughton ◽

Marek Rybář ◽

Kevin Deegan-Krause

Keyword(s):

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

Good Governance ◽

Political Competition ◽

General Trend ◽

Party Politics ◽

Ordinary People ◽

Electoral Rules ◽

Forward Movement ◽

Parliamentary Elections ◽

The Impact

Party politics across Central and Eastern Europe has become less structured. Many of the divides that anchored political competition have waned in recent years, weakening the attachment of voters to the existing palette of parties and making them more likely to be attracted to new and non-traditional electoral vehicles. But for such parties to succeed at the ballot box, they need to be able to frame elections and campaign effectively. Drawing on data from a specially commissioned survey, we find that the success of Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) led by Igor Matovič in the 2020 parliamentary elections in Slovakia owed much to the crafting of an anti-corruption appeal combined with an effective campaign. Both mobilization and conversion of voters, particularly through television and the leaders’ debates, in the months leading up to election day ensured OĽaNO won a quarter of the vote. OĽaNO stands in stark contrast to other parties whose leaders failed to craft as effective a message, miscalculated the impact of electoral rules and in some cases were unable to distance themselves enough from their past actions. The success of OĽaNO underlines that themes related to anti-corruption and good governance have become central to party politics and political contestation. More broadly, the election and its aftermath continued a general trend of forward movement of voters from old parties to new to newer still, indicating the churn of party politics in Slovakia is likely to continue.

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Constituency Effects and Legislative Dissent Under Closed-List Proportional Representation

Latin American Politics and Society ◽

10.1017/lap.2021.6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 63 (2) ◽

pp. 78-99

Author(s):

Eduardo Alemán ◽

Juan Pablo Micozzi ◽

Pablo M. Pinto ◽

Sebastián Saiegh

Keyword(s):

Electoral Systems ◽

Proportional Representation ◽

Roll Call ◽

Electoral Rules ◽

Party Leaders ◽

Electoral Incentives ◽

Party Line ◽

Ideological Space ◽

Using Data ◽

Unique Dataset

ABSTRACTAccording to conventional wisdom, closed-list proportional representation (CLPR) electoral systems create incentives for legislators to favor the party line over their voters’ positions. However, electoral incentives may induce party leaders to tolerate “shirking” by some legislators, even under CLPR. This study argues that in considering whose deviations from the party line should be tolerated, party leaders exploit differences in voters’ relative electoral influence resulting from malapportionment. We expect defections in roll call votes to be more likely among legislators elected from overrepresented districts than among those from other districts. We empirically test this claim using data on Argentine legislators’ voting records and a unique dataset of estimates of voters’ and legislators’ placements in a common ideological space. Our findings suggest that even under electoral rules known for promoting unified parties, we should expect strategic defections to please voters, which can be advantageous for the party’s electoral fortunes.

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