A growing literature looks at how the design of the electoral system shapes the voting behavior of politicians in parliaments. Existing research tends to confirm that in mixed-member systems the politicians elected in the single-member districts are more likely to vote against their parties than the politicians elected on the party lists. However, we find that in South Korea, the members of the Korean National Assembly who were elected on PR lists are more likely to vote against their (...) party leadership than the members elected in single-member districts (SMDs). This counterintuitive behavior stems from the particular structure of candidate selection and politicians' career paths. This suggests that any theory of how electoral systems shape individual parliamentary behavior needs to look beyond the opportunities provided by the electoral rules for voters to reward or punish individual politicians (as opposed to parties), to the structure of candidate selection inside parties and the related career paths of politicians. (shrink)

Conventional theories of government formation have assumed that the coalition formation process starts after legislative elections are over and the distribution of parliamentary seats becomes common knowledge. This perspective, however, ignores the important constraints that the formation of electoral coalitions may exert on the formation of the government. This article argues that the electoral system of Hungary provides very strong incentives for political parties to build electoral coalitions, which are also identified as alternative governments before the electorate.

The ongoing process of democratisation lead to the growing importance of the electoral systems that regulate the procedures of gaining and legitimizing power in democracy. Taking it into account it is worth asking about the relationship between these particular ‘game rules’ contained into electoral law and the respect of the rule of law, being one of the basic norms of a democratic system. A question then may be raised about the existence and the character of the relation (...) between electoral systems and the level of political corruption. It is worth noticing that besides the research conducted by political scientists and the representatives of various branches of social sciences the significant analysis of the issue have been presented by the economists. In this article a brief overview of the economic studies on the relationship between level of political corruption and the electoral systems is presented so as to assess to what degree this approach may be treated as fruitful. (shrink)

I propose a twofold classification of the main considerations underlying the choice of an election procedure: political criteria on the one hand, and social-choice criteria on the other. I formulate political dichotomies, each combination of which narrows down the choice of procedure to a sub-class of the class of all procedures. I discuss what social-choice theory has to offer in each of these.

Liberal democracies encourage citizen participation and protect our freedoms, yet these regimes elect politicians and decide important issues with electoral and legislative systems that are less inclusive than other arrangements. Some citizens inevitably have more influence than others. Is this a problem? Yes, because similarly just but more inclusive systems are possible. Political theorists and philosophers should be arguing for particular institutional forms, with particular geographies, consistent with justice. -/- Les démocraties libérales encouragent la participation citoyenne et (...) protègent nos libertés. Pourtant, ces régimes élisent des politiciens et décident de problèmes importants via les systèmes électoral et législatif, qui sont moins inclusifs que d’autres arrangements. Certains citoyens ont inévitablement plus d’influence que d’autres. Est-ce un problème? Oui, parce que des systèmes similairement justes, mais plus inclusifs, sont possibles. Les théoriciens et philosophes politiques devraient ainsi plaider en faveur de formes institutionnelles particulières, aux géographies précises, en cohérence avec la justice. (shrink)

An evaluation of the current electoral system in response to calls for its reform.

The 2000 U.S. presidential election was one of the most bizarre and fateful in American history. Described in books as a “deadlock,” “thriller,” “the perfect tie,” and even “Grand Theft 2000,” studies of the election have dissected its anomalies and scandals and have attempted to describe and explain what actually happened.1 In this study, I will analyze how the turn toward media politics and spectacle in U.S. political campaigns and the curious and arguably archaic system of proportional voting in the (...) U.S. tilted the campaign toward George W. Bush and were prejudicial to the election of Al Gore. Gore received over 540,000 votes more than Bush, but because of the U.S. system of proportional voting won less electoral votes and lost the crucial state of Florida. In this chapter, I will argue that media representation of the two candidates and the anomalies of the U.S. system of proportional representation in an arguably archaic Election College were major factors in the highly controversial ascent to the presidency of George W. Bush. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court decision directly decided the election results and the story of Election 2000 is highly complex and contested. Yet focus on the media in the election and problems with the system of proportional representation provide revealing lenses on the events of the 2000 election and call attention to major problems in the U.S. system of representational democracy. (shrink)

Under the first-past-the-post electoral system that is still deeply entrenched in such democracies as Canada and the United States, it is not at all uncommon in a provincial, state, or federal election for there to be a striking lack of correspondence between the share of the seats a political party is able to win and its share of the popular vote. From the standpoint of the democratic ideal what is morally unacceptable about this system is that the right to (...) vote it confers on members of the electorate is not a defensible instantiation of the fundamental right citizens have to participate on terms of equality in the collective decision-making processes that help to determine their options in life. Three common attempts by defenders of the system to shield it from this objection are considered and rejected. (shrink)

Under the first-past-the-post electoral system that is still deeply entrenched in such democracies as Canada and the United States, it is not at all uncommon in a provincial, state, or federal election for there to be a striking lack of correspondence between the share of the seats a political party is able to win and its share of the popular vote. From the standpoint of the democratic ideal what is morally unacceptable about this system is that the right to (...) vote it confers on members of the electorate is not a defensible instantiation of the fundamental right citizens have to participate on terms of equality in the collective decision-making processes that help to determine their options in life. Three common attempts by defenders of the system to shield it from this objection are considered and rejected. (shrink)

Sixty years of democratic representation in Germany allow us to study the working of a specific type of electoral system, namely a mixed system combining proportional and majoritarian rules, in great detail.

This paper considers the electoral engineering within the framework of systemic-cybernetic and synergetic scientific approaches. As a result of the study, it is concluded that the basis for consideration of the electoral engineering is the systemic-cybernetic approach, since the electoral sphere in its essence is a computational mechanism that, according to certain mathematical algorithms (electoral formula), translates the votes of electors (input data) into representative mandates (output data). Main components of the electoral engineering (the subject, (...) the object and the process of the electoral engineering) can be fully considered within the framework of the systemic-cybernetic approach as a cybernetic system with the controlling and controlled components, where the management and feedback processes are running. The controlling component here is the subject of the electoral engineering (planning and carrying out of the electoral engineering activities), whereas the controlled component is the object of the electoral engineering (parameters of the electoral system and organization of the electoral process); management is the process of the electoral engineering itself. However, the electoral sphere is a constituent part of the political system, and it is possible to apply both the systemic-cybernetic approach and synergetic approach to its study. Therefore, application of the synergetic approach to the electoral engineering is possible only in an indirect way, i.e. through consideration of the political system in the context of synergetics (the electoral engineering in this case is considered as an activity within the political system). The bases for applying the synergetic approach to the electoral engineering carried out in practice are the following: 1) objectivist basis – the electoral engineering is carried out within the framework of a political system being a part of the social reality, and therefore cannot be fully modeled and predicted with the use of the systemic-cybernetic approach; 2) subjectivist basis – subjects engaged in the electoral engineering activities are political actors pursuing their own subjective goals and interests. (shrink)

What happens when we vote? What are we counting when we count ballots? Who decides what an election should look like and what it should mean? And why do so many people believe that some or all elections are rigged? Moving between intellectual history, literary criticism, and political theory, The Electoral Imagination offers a critical account of the decisions before the decision, of the aesthetic and imaginative choices that inform and, in some cases, determine the nature and course of (...) democratic elections. Drawing on original interpretations of George Eliot and Ralph Ellison, Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Arrow, Anthony Trollope and Arthur Koestler, Richard Nixon and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Palm Beach Butterfly Ballot and the Single Transferable Vote, The Electoral Imagination works both to understand the systems we use to move between the one and the many and to offer an alternative to the 'myth of rigging.'. (shrink)

Since the November 1991 elections, it has become a common statement to argue that Belgium has entered a -possibly unprecedented- period ofchange and instability. This article focuses on the evolution of the electoral system and electoral behaviour, in order to test this widely agreed-upon judgement. All things considered, one observes that the electoral system has not been radically modified since World War II. In spite of the transformation of the country into a federal state and several severe (...) conflicts, political decision-makers have opted for the 'fine-tuning" of the electoral system instead of radical reforms.As far as electoral behaviour is concerned, the picture is less clear. On one hand, relying on various indicators, one does observe that the early 1990s were characterised by change and transformation. On the other hand, one cannot conclude that the amplitude of change or instability in the early 1990s has been "exceptional" or "unprecedented" as compared with earlier periods.Building upon this ambiguous diagnosis, the author speculates on the probability of a major breakdown of the Belgian political system at the turn of the century. (shrink)

Introduction. The article examines the dynamics of electoral competition over four electoral cycles from 2005 to 2019 as exemplified by forming representative bodies of local self-government in the city of Chelyabinsk. Particular attention is paid to the impact that the transition of Chelyabinsk to a twotier model of forming local self-government bodies in 2014 had on the electoral competition. The purpose of the paper is to study the dynamics of electoral competition in municipal elections in Chelyabinsk (...) before and after the 2014 reform. Methods. The empirical basis of the study is the database “Electoral competition in the elections of municipal deputies of Chelyabinsk (2005—2019)”, which includes 414 observation units. The analysis of the empirical material is carried out according to the method of G.V. Golosov’s triangle of relative sizes, proposed for classifying party systems and adapted for analyzing elections in single-mandate constituencies. Scientific novelty. The author suggests a methodology for analyzing electoral competition in singlemandate constituencies. For the first time, the phenomenon of “controlled competition” is analyzed on the basis of 4 municipal elections cycles. Results. The analysis makes it possible to speak about fluctuations in electoral competition, its decline in 2009 and 2014 compared to the 2005 elections and increasing by the 2019 elections Conclusions. The “controlled competition” was formed in Chelyabinsk in the period preceding the reform of 2014. The reform introduced a level of local self-government, the effectiveness and necessity of which is not obvious with the existing design of the electoral system. In the course of the reform, the principal-agent model of relations between local self-government bodies and state authorities was finally consolidated. The reform contributed to conserving the “controlled competition”. (shrink)

This article argues that major cases of electoral reform across democracies in Asia in recent years can be explained as institutional measures aimed at curbing corruption and . More specifically, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand rid themselves of their extreme candidate-centered electoral systems as a means to encourage politicians to invest in collective party labels, while Indonesia discarded its extremely party-centered electoral system to increase the accountability of individual politicians. The article thus disagrees with scholars who argue (...) that recent electoral reform should be understood as part of a wider project by Asian governments to engineer a majoritarian form of democracy. Instead, the comparative analysis shows that democracies across Asia, in line with global trends in institutional design, have been their electoral systems, moving them closer towards the ideal of electoral. (shrink)

L a distribució n parlamentari a qu e ha n a r rojad o lo s resultado s d e la s pasada s elecciones generale s de l dí a 2 0 d e n o viembre , d e 2011 , h a ocasionado , sobr e tod o po r pa r t e d e la s fo r - macione s política s má s s e v erament e afectadas , tod a un a (...) cascad a d e crítica s a nuestr o sistema electoral , y pa r ticula r ment e sobr e l a fó r mul a idead a po r e l matemátic o belg a Vícto r D’Hont. Lo s distinto s pa r tido s tiende n a un a v aloració n sesgad a e n vi r tu d de l bene f ici o obtenido d e l a fó r mul a el e gid a po r e l L e gislado r e n un a etap a históric a dete r minada . ¿Cóm o afecta l a l e y D’Hon t a l a calida d d e l a democraci a española ? ¿E l pro b lem a resid e e n l a fó r mula D’Hont ? Co n l a f inalida d d e contribui r a l debat e abie r t o sobr e nuestr o sistem a electoral, m e centrar é e n alguna s modi f cacione s d e l a LORE G qu e todo s podría n acepta r , junt o a l a propuest a d e do s modelo s electorales , a cost e cero , d e do b l e pro r rate o y d e aplicación inmediata. (shrink)

In response to the dozen essays published here, which relate my 1964 paper on “The Nature of Belief Systems in the Mass Publics” to normative requirements of democratic theory, I note, inter alia, a major misinterpretation of my old argument, as well as needed revisions of that argument in the light of intervening data. Then I address the degree to which there may be some long‐term secular change in the parameters that I originally laid out. In the final section, (...) I provide a case study of public understanding of factual trends in federal tax policy in recent decades which seems commendably veridical on average. The preferences of the public thereon add up to a remarkably clear popular mandate. But this mandate seems to disappear rather magically in the voting booth, probably due to a combination of limited contextual information on the public side, and considerable skill on the elite side in manipulating apparent political realities. (shrink)

This study explores the entry of new and small parties into the party system in Albania, focusing on the period from 1990 to 2017. It is a comprehensive exploration of the Albanian political landscape from 1991 to 2017, focusing on the role of electoral systems and how they influence party politics. The study underscores the necessity for strong, stable political parties in a thriving democracy and investigates how the electoral system either facilitates or hinders the representation of (...) small and new parties. It investigates the influence of institutional factors, as well as the challenges and strategies related to political survival that these parties face. The analysis reveals how the two-round majority system typically fosters a two-party system, whereas a proportional system can lead to a more fragmented party landscape, often necessitating coalitions for effective governance. The impact of these dynamics was observed during several key periods in Albanian political history, noting the consequences of changes in the electoral system on the party system. The paper also highlights how major parties often manipulate the electoral system, through practices such as gerrymandering, to their own advantage, leading to potential distortions in representation. Furthermore, it presents the challenges for new and small parties, emphasizing the importance of financial support and media coverage for their survival and competitive performance. (shrink)

This paper explores the linkage between electoral systems and candidate selection methods by analyzing two innovations of CSMs in Taiwan and Japan: polling primary and kobo, respectively. With an assumption that partiesno-finding’ conclusion in some previous large-N studies on the linkage between electoral systems and choices of CSMs. Additionally, our findings highlight the importance of institutional factors, such as electoral systems, in explaining CSM reforms in a comparative perspective.

Within democratic theory, electoral competition is typically associated with minimalist and realist views of democracy. In contrast, this article argues for a reinterpretation of electoral competition as an important element of an egalitarian theory of democracy. Current relational egalitarian theories, in focusing on the equalization of individual power-over, present electoral institutions as in tension with equality. Against this view, the article contends that electoral competition can foster equality by incentivizing the equalization of cooperative power. The article (...) develops the normative category of equal opportunity to access cooperative power and shows how it can generate an egalitarian defense of electoral competition. Yet this ideal is not an affirmation of the status quo. Rather, it points to the need to reform electoral systems to make them more competitive and so more likely to foster cooperative power, as well as reforms to provide direct support to associations like unions that equalize cooperative power. (shrink)

The standard theory of electoral accountability treats the electorate as an appraiser of government performance on a range of complex issues, which re-elects or de-elects depending on its evaluation of that performance. This paper draws from studies on voter knowledge and behaviour to present a dilemma for the standard theory: either voters do not know how well their rulers have performed, or if they do, they do not base their votes on that knowledge. It is shown that, on either (...) horn of the dilemma, the standard account of electoral accountability fails, and that attempts to deflate the dilemma through heuristic and aggregative approaches to voter knowledge, or proposals for alternative systems of government, are also inadequate. The paper then sets out and defends an alternative conception of electoral accountability, which holds that electoral accountability is not about micro-assessing a government’s actions. Rather, it is about preventing political rulers from committing or allowing substantial harms to come upon those they govern. This alternative conception is compatible with a realistic view of voter knowledge and behaviour, but nonetheless makes electoral accountability an essential component of a well-functioning democratic system. (shrink)

This paper explores the time-inconsistency problem of audience costs in international disputes. The nature of democracy makes it difficult for leaders to back down from earlier diplomatic positions in an international dispute, out of fear of domestic political costs. Few studies have addressed the temporal aspect of such costs. This study argues that election timing impinges on the extent to which the audience cost mechanism works, and consequently, on state conflict behavior. While competitive elections are central to the political accountability (...) inherent in a democracy, voters typically lack enough opportunities to punish unsatisfactory leaders in a timely way, because of fixed election timing, and also may disregard foreign policy missteps that occurred in the distant past. Democratic leaders therefore have an incentive to choose strategically, with the electoral calendar in mind, when selecting a form of conflict behavior. Leaders can retreat from their demands without paying high audience costs when the upcoming election is in the distant future. To test this argument, the authors conduct a natural experiment featuring territorial disputes between Russia and two Baltic republics – Estonia and Latvia. Despite the commonalities in the disputes, as well as in their political systems and socioeconomic backgrounds, the governments of the two Baltic countries showed a sharp contrast in their diplomatic decisions. This paper argues that only the temporal gap in electoral timing can explain this variation, imparting the ironical implication that frequent democratic elections can obstruct peaceful conflict resolutions, and that excessive democratization may well hinder the very goal of peace. (shrink)

Prior generations’ electoral crises (e.g., gerrymandering) have dealt mainly with political maneuverings around geographical shifts. We analyze four recent (1998–2003) American electoral crises: the Clinton impeachment controversy, the 2000 Florida presidential election, the Texas legislators’ flight to Oklahoma and New Mexico, and the California gubernatorial recall. We show that in each case temporal manipulation was at least as important as geographical. We highlight emergent electoral practices surrounding the manipulation of time, which we dub “temporal gerrymandering.” We suggest (...) a theory of postmodern electoral crises, in which the rules of time and space are simultaneously in flux. These crises expose concerns with early American democratic theory, which was based on an understanding of “the people” as geographically and temporally unidimensional. Representative systems, therefore, were designed largely without reference to geographic and temporal complexity. (shrink)

Prior to its publication, Gary Cox's MakingVotesCount was widely and eagerly anticipated. (Indeed, some years ago, I received a referee report dismissing my submission as unnecessary because superior analysis would eventually appear in Cox's then forthcoming manuscript.) Upon its release in 1998, the book was instantly lauded: it collected multiple awards, including the prestigious Woodrow Wilson prize for best book published on government, politics, or international affairs. This acclaim was scarcely surprising – Cox has been one of the foremost scholars (...) of elections and legislatures for the whole of his professional career. He is responsible for an impressive body of work spanning multiple research topics, nations, and methods of analysis. This book is testimony to his breadth, as it catalogs the key electoral features of virtually the whole set of modern democracies (more than 70), and makes frequent forays into diverse nations in search of empirical support for novel theoretical findings. In brief, Cox's project is to bring together a large formal, deductive literature on voting rules and social choice with an equally voluminous empirical, inductive literature on elections and party systems in the world's democracies. The prizes it garnered are one measure of the book's success at this merger; a large boost in Cox's swelling citation count will doubtless follow, reiterating the judgement that this is the major work on electoral law and voting to date. (shrink)

People in Belgium want to simplify the electoral laws. The responsible department has a project which is presented as being neutral, having no political implications. The authors compare the results of the last elections computed according to several systems, including the new project. Their conclusion is that the new project is politically oriented : it favours the big parties.The authors propose a new system of ballot which is really neutral, and they show it by a simulation on the (...) results of the elections since 1954.Their system is simple and easily treated by computer. (shrink)

Since the early 1990s, Steven Reed and Gary Cox have changed our understanding of Japan's multimember SNTV electoral system, by highlighting its institutional effects similar to what is known as Duverger's law in the Anglo-American context. While we offer some additional evidence to consolidate their findings, we also address an issue left unexplored in these studies, namely the role of partisan information. Under Japan's system, party labels matter in elections. We show that, while Japanese voters are generally willing to (...) abandon the candidates without affiliation with established parties, the partisan effects produce constraints for strategic coordination. (shrink)

Five major claims are made in our paper on strategic voting within the context of Japan's multimember single non-transferable vote (SNTV) electoral system (Fournier and Kohno, 2000). Two claims deal with the reconciliation of Steven Reed's (1990) and Gary Cox's (1997) important work on extending Duverger's law to the Japanese case, and three claims deal with the informational effects of partisan labels on strategic voting.

This article gives an account of the belgian party system in 1974. It concludes at the existence of a «multipartist» system. It also examines the ideological character of the party system. For this purpose, it studies the electoral platforms of all the parties. From a semiotics viewpoint, it isolates a number of semantic axes. After a binary coding, it factor-analyses the results. Two main factors are extracted «ideological mixing» and conservative - progressist position.

We propose that leaders play a more important role in voters’ party sympathy in proportional representation systems than previous research has suggested. Voters, from the 2018 Swedish General Election, were in an experiment asked to describe leaders and parties with three indicative keywords. Statistical models were conducted on these text data to predict their vote choice. The results show that despite that the voters vote for a party, the descriptions of leaders predicted vote choice to a similar extent as (...) descriptions of parties. However, the order of the questions mattered, so that the first questions were more predictive than the second question. These analyses indicate that voters tend to conflate characteristics of leaders with their parties during election campaigns, and that leaders are a more important aspect of voting under PR than previous literature has suggested. Overall, this suggests that statistical analysis of words sheds new light of underlying sympathies related to voting. (shrink)

The point of the suggestions made below is not to design a perfectly representative voting system—there is no such thing, given the multiplicity of functions elections perform—but to encourage a deeper public discussion of the issues facing Australia, and at the same time reduce the bitterness of partisan and factional conflict.

The entry into force of the Rome Statute on 1 July 2002 establishing the International Criminal Court has signified a shift in the goals pursued by international criminal law. Due to new types of warfare dynamics, international protection is in need of new orientations, particularly with regard to conflict deterrence aims. This urgency is widely documented by the normative action framework of the Responsibility to Protect and, more recently, by the UN Secretary-General 2012–2013 Reports for the RtoP’s implementation. The scope (...) of this study is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to explore theoretical overlapping between the jus post bellum and the RtoP with regard to deterrence effects of the ICC; on the other hand, it proposes to illustrate such dynamics by reference to Kenya’s post-electoral violence during the period 2007–2013. Kenya represents an instance of a post-conflict society whereby transitional justice actions have taken place under a de facto adoption of a RtoP framework. As a result, I defend a qualified correlation between ICC’s retribution and deterrence effects. I claim that the hypothesis of the ICC’s deterring effects accounts in Kenya is constructed upon a general condition of direct compliance by self-interested rational actors as well as on unintended effects of ethnic stabilization. I further consider that this possibility is reinforced by systemic interdependencies with other national and international initiatives such as the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation mediation initiative, the Grand Coalition Government, the Panel of African Eminent Personalities led by Kofi Annan, and the findings of the Commission of Enquiry of Post-Election Violence. (shrink)

In this paper we consider several ways in which voting systems can be manipulated and we pose some related ethical questions. Our focus is on the recent phenomenon of vote trading or vote swapping that was invented in 2000 and used in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential elections. Vote trading is an Internet-based technique that sought to allow Democrats in heavily Republican states (like Texas) to effectively vote in swing states (like Florida), where their votes would have more (...) impact. We also look at some other new ways that voting systems can be manipulated and we consider the general question of whether there exist voting systems that cannot be manipulated. (shrink)

The phenomenon of the paradoxes of the largest remainders methods has been studied by numerous authors. Nevertheless, the examples presented in their studies do not deal with the case where a party’s possible additional votes can directly lead to a loss in the party’s number of representatives. This paradox, which can be called the no-show apportionment paradox, has not previously been mentioned in the literature. It is based on the assumption that a voter’s favourite party may lose a seat if (...) the voter votes honestly but get more seats if he or she abstains. The article gives simple examples illustrating the no-show paradox in a party-list proportional representation electoral system using the quota method of apportionment. In these situations it would be better for the party if some of their voters abstained, otherwise it would lose one or more seats. (shrink)

“The Nature of Belief Systems” sets forth a Hobson's choice between rule by the politically ignorant masses and rule by the ideologically constrained—which is to say, the doctrinaire—elites. On the one hand, lacking comprehensive cognitive structures, such as ideological “belief systems,” with which to understand politics, most people learn distressingly little about it. On the other hand, a spiral of conviction seems to make it difficult for the highly informed few to see any aspects of politics but those (...) that confirm the cognitive structures that organize their political perceptions. This is a troubling situation for any consequentialist democratic political theory, according to which what is crucial is the electorate's (and subsidiary decision makers') ability to make informed policy judgments, not their possession of willful but uninformed political “attitudes.” Any political theorist who does not take democracy to be an end in itself (regardless of its consequences) should be concerned about Converse's findings. (shrink)

The Malaysian electoral behaviour has for some time reflected the thesis. Since 1999, however, there has been a marked shift towards . Analyses of electoral and survey data reveal that although a significant number of Malaysian voters remained attached to the party they identified with, most of the electorate, however, are swayed by short-term factors. Though the economic issues played a role in the three elections, it is the leadership of the parties supplemented by the use of mass (...) media that played a significant role in swinging the vote from one party to the other. The three elections in 1999, 2004, and 2008 can be categorized as evidence of secular dealignment: the 1999 elections substantially reduced the margin of gain by the ruling coalition; the 2004 elections reversed the opposition gain, while the 2008 elections resulted in the loss of two-thirds majority seats in the parliament habitually enjoyed by the ruling coalition and the emergence of a strong opposition coalition. This trend not merely continued but was much more stronger in the 13th Malaysian general election. (shrink)

The mean majority deficit in a two-tier voting system is a function of the partition of the population. We derive a new square-root rule: For odd-numbered population sizes and equipopulous units the mean majority deficit is maximal when the member size of the units in the partition is close to the square root of the population size. Furthermore, within the partitions into roughly equipopulous units, partitions with small even numbers of units or small even-sized units yield high mean majority deficits. (...) We discuss the implications for the winner-takes-all system in the US Electoral College. (shrink)

In this article, we review the intrinsic democratic flaws in electoral representation, lay out a set of principles that should guide the construction of a sortition chamber, and argue for the virtue of a bicameral system that combines sortition and elections. We show how sortition could prove inclusive, give citizens greater control of the political agenda, and make their participation more deliberative and influential. We consider various design challenges, such as the sampling method, legislative training, and deliberative procedures. We (...) explain why pairing sortition with an elected chamber could enhance its virtues while dampening its potential vices. In our conclusion, we identify ideal settings for experimenting with sortition. (shrink)

Publication date: 22 December 2020 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 89 Author: Dhikru Adewale Yagboyaju, Antonia Taiye Simbine Party system and the administration of political parties are critical factors in determining the direction of politics and democracy. Three political parties contested at the inception of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic in 1999, but the number increased to more than 91 as at 2019. This paper raises fundamental questions as to whose interest – public or private interest of promoters (...) and financiers - these parties serve, and whether the increase in the number of political parties has significantly entrenched democratic values in the country? These questions are compelling because of several events in political party operations in the 20 years of the Fourth Republic. These include controversial and vexatious party primaries preceding every major election, often leading to protracted and distractive litigations and rampant political defections. Unregulated use of money has, in particular, restrained ample participation by women and youths, while violence is almost becoming a norm and permanent characteristic of the electoral and political system. The paper draws data from secondary documentary sources for its conceptual and theoretical contents. Primary data are generated from events analyses by the authors as observers at party conventions and other meetings for the selection of candidates for political offices as well as during general elections. This is complimented by content analyses of relevant documents including electoral laws, court and law reports, and reports by special committees such as the Electoral Reform Committee. A combination of the ecological approach and conspiratorial theory is deployed for the paper’s analytic frame. (shrink)

Like the American system ours is federal: i.e., there are two levels of government, neither of which can change the powers of the other or make laws within certain fields assigned to the other. The British system is 'unitary': the British parliament can make laws on any matter, local government has whatever powers the national government delegates to it. Like the British, ours is a system of responsible government . The Government (the Prime Minister and cabinet) is 'responsible' to parliament. (...) This means that at any time, simply by vote of no confidence, carried on whatever grounds, the parliament can remove the Government from office or force it to call an election. In the American system the head of the executive Government, the President, cannot be removed by the Congress (except by impeachment, which requires a kind of trial). As in the British system, a general election can be called at any time (by the Governor General, on the advice of the Prime Minister). There is a maximum term by which an election must be called, but an election can be held short of term. This makes the parliament responsible to the electorate -- for example, if Government policy that has general community support is blocked by the opposition or minor parties, the Government can appeal to the electorate. In the American system the terms of office of the House of Representatives, Senate, and President are all 'fixed', so that an early election cannot be held. If a President dies or resigns, the Vice President serves out the remaining part of his term. There are no circumstances in which the American President can dissolve Congress and call an early election. The U.S. constitution has separation of powers , i.e., the members of the Executive (in our terms, the Government) do not have seats in Congress or participate in its sessions, and they are not removable by Congress and cannot dissolve Congress. The Judiciary is also separate from both Executive and Congress (though judges are appointed by the Senate on the nomination of the President, and can in exceptional cases be removed).. (shrink)

Within a one-dimensional spatial framework, we deduce that partiesto go negative’, by blaming alleged insufficiencies of the rival concerning commonly shared values, increase with their ideological proximity. We test our hypothesis by considering the long period of no-cabinet alternation that characterized both Italy and Japan. In particular, we focus on the (spatial) incentives of the Italian Communist Party and of the Japanese Socialist Party to emphasize on a particular topic related to negative campaigning, i.e. political corruption issues. The status of (...) the perennial opposition held by both parties, together with the existence of several political corruption scandals during the period considered, makes the Italian and the Japanese political systems particularly apt to test our hypothesis. The results, based on data derived from electoral programs, support our theoretical insights. (shrink)

This paper presents an explanation for the breakdown of dominant party systems. In contrast to previous works that examine how ruling parties lose their dominant position as a result of interparty competition, this paper focuses on how they are undermined from within by factional conflict. Through an overview of dominant party systems in the postwar world, we show that most of the ruling parties suffered from major splits that significantly reduced their electoral strengths before their final (...) class='Hi'>electoral defeat. In order to explain why large groups of politicians decide to leave dominant parties that are likely to remain in power, we develop simple game-theoretic models of intraparty bargaining between party factions over the distribution of benefits from office. Our results suggest two mechanisms through which dominant parties break up. First, factional defections from dominant parties are likely to occur when they are experiencing a significant decline in public support. Second, factional defections are likely to occur when a non-mainstream faction is rapidly losing its bargaining power against the party leadership. Importantly, our results show that under certain conditions, dominant parties will break up even when their electoral prospects are much better than the opposition. We briefly discuss how these mechanisms can be applied to actual cases of dominant party systems. (shrink)

The article attempts to trace the origins and to assess the extent ofparty-system change in Italy in the 1990s. It also examines some hypotheses on the possible causes of such changes. Building on research on anti-party sentiment and on changes in party organization the paper begins with an analysis of the evolution of the party system in the last 30 years which identifies organizational adaptation as a delaying factor in party system change. This is followed by a description of the (...) party system after the 1994 elections based on generally accepted party system characteristics and indicators. The assessment is made difficult by the, perhaps temporary, coexistence of two party-systems, respectively relevant for electoral and inter-election competition. The evidence however, suggests, that party-system transformation is under way, while it might still be inappropriate to talk about structural change. Degeneration of parties and a deep institutional crisis appear to be the factors leading to the explosion of pent-up alienation and antiparty sentiments, and to demands for institutional and constitutional change that preceded and appeared to be the immediate causes of party system transformation. (shrink)