Electoral coordination in mixed‐member systems: Does the level of democratic experience matter?

A number of institutional and non‐institutional factors hamper electoral coordination and, hence, increase party system fragmentation in the nominal tier of mixed electoral systems. Contrary to expectations, the number of electoral parties is not lower in all old democracies. Nevertheless, the level of democratic experience modifies the effect of other variables like the type of mixed electoral system or the closeness of the races. Econometric tests evaluate this phenomenon in a diverse sample of 15 countries and a total of 57 elections with more than 10,000 observations at the district level.     

Representation and district magnitude in plurality systems

Despite the widely accepted theoretical prediction that high district magnitudes should yield less proportional results in plurality systems, empirical evidence is surprisingly mixed. We argue that these mixed results are ultimately due to a lack of clarity about the counterfactual being considered. We use a simple model to show that an increase in district magnitude reduces expected proportionality in a plurality system only if it is accompanied by a reduction in the number of districts. This conditional prediction helps to explain the diversity of existing findings and is consistent with our own analysis of both U.S. congressional delegations and local councils in Britain.     

District level competition in Mexico’s chamber of deputies: an embedded analysis

Why does Mexico’s mixed legislative system diverge from Duverger’s Law? Rather than rehash cultural and historical explanations, we suggest two institutional factors – a fused ballot and compulsory voting laws – may explain this divergence. Cross-national evidence controlling for these factors suggests Mexico is not an outlier and that the fused ballot encourages multiparty district competition. The results also suggest ways reforms could bring competition closer toward Duvergerian expectations.     

Mixed-member electoral systems,best loser rules,and the descriptive representation of women

Proportional representation (PR) electoral systems are commonly considered more advantageous for the election of women compared to majoritarian electoral systems. In mixed electoral systems, female candidates are often more likely to be elected through the PR tier compared to women running in single-member district races. While most mixed systems employ a closed-list, a number of legislatures use a best loser provision whereby losing district candidates are ordered on the PR list based on their performance in single-member districts. This paper examines the extent to which best loser laws impact the election of women using candidate data from sub-national legislatures in Mexico and Germany and Japan's House of Representatives. We find the contamination of PR lists by single-member district results reduces the advantage women candidates have in the PR tier. Best loser limits the ability of political parties to use PR to represent groups underrepresented in single-member district elections.     

Behavioral consequences of mixed electoral systems: Deviating voting behavior of district and list MPs in the German Bundestag

Electoral rules should affect parliamentary behavior. In particular, deputies elected from single-member districts should be more likely to deviate from the party line than deputies elected under proportional representation. This paper suggests a framework for conceptualizing and modeling the effect of the type of mandate on deputies’ propensity to cast deviating votes in mixed electoral systems. The proposed modeling strategy uses disaggregated voting data and integrates dependencies among observations in a multi-level design. Empirically, the paper analyses voting behavior in the 16th German Bundestag (2005–2009) and shows that the odds of district MPs to deviate are significantly higher despite frequent claims that the two types of MPs behave alike. However, the behavioral differences cannot be attributed to attempts by district MPs to follow their local constituents as competing principals.     

Urban Armageddon or Politics as Usual? The Case of Municipal Civil Service Reform

For the better part of the twentieth century, the question of municipal reformism has drawn urban scholarship: Why do some cities change their governing arrangements while others do not? Focusing exclusively on merit systems, in this study I expose the political underpinnings of merit reform in American municipal history. A duration analysis of merit adoptions in a sample of 252 cities in the 1900–1940 period suggests that both state‐ (home rule status, state merit systems) and city‐specific (at‐large elections, term length, city size, percent foreign‐born, regional location) factors largely determined when and where reform occurred.     

The Impact of Performance Management on Performance in Public Organizations: A Meta‐Analysis

Performance‐based management is pervasive in public organizations; countless governments have implemented performance management systems with the hope that they will improve organizational effectiveness. However, there has been little comprehensive review of their impact. This article conducts a meta‐analysis on the impact of performance management on performance in public organizations. It contributes to the current literature in three ways. First, it examines the effect of the “average” performance management system. Second, it examines the influence of management: whether beneficial performance management practices moderate the average effect. Third, it examines the effect of “time” on performance management. Using 2,188 effects from 49 studies, the analysis finds that performance management has a small average effect. However, the effect is substantially larger when indicators of best practices in high‐quality studies are included, indicating that management practices have an important impact on the effectiveness of performance management systems. Evidence for the effect of time is mixed.     

A welfare simulation of mixed-member electoral systems

This paper considers welfare properties of mixed-member electoral systems. In a mixed system, voters may elect high-quality district representatives without excessive campaign fundraising. Simulation results reveal that the optimally mixed electoral system can be welfare-enhancing, but a poorly targeted electoral reform can do worse than a PR system or plurality rule.     

Macro Implementation: Testing the Causal Paths from U.S. Macro Policy to Federal Incarceration

Policy implementation is usually studied at the micro level by testing the short‐term effects of a specific policy on the behavior of government actors and policy outcomes. This study adopts an alternative approach by examining macro implementation—the cumulative effect of aggregate public policies over time. I employ a variety of methodological techniques to test the influence of macro criminal justice policy on new admissions to federal prison via three mediators: case filings by federal prosecutors, conviction rates in federal district courts, and plea bargaining behavior. I find that cumulative Supreme Court rulings influence the incarceration rate by altering conviction rates in district courts; however, I find only mixed evidence of congressional and presidential influence. The results suggest that U.S. macro policy influences bureaucratic outputs by altering the behavior of subordinate policy implementers; however, the Supreme Court may enjoy an advantage in shaping criminal justice policy.     

Incumbents' Interests and Gender Quotas

The introduction of mandatory gender quotas in party lists is a reform that many countries have recently adopted or have been considering. The electoral system affects the incumbents' incentives to make such reforms, their details, and their effectiveness. We show that male incumbents can actually expect an increased incumbency advantage when gender quotas are introduced, if they are elected through single‐member district majority rule. On the other hand, no expectation of male advantage can reduce the incumbents' fear of being replaced if they are elected through closed‐list proportional representation. As France has both electoral systems, we validate the above argument using a formal model of constitutional design as well as an empirical analysis of the legislative elections in France, displaying the existence of male bias in the last three elections. We also show that parity may have Assembly composition effects and policy effects that vary with the electoral system.     

The survival and termination of party mergers in Europe

Why do constituent parties that participated in a party merger that was intended to be permanent decide to leave the merger to re‐enter party competition separately? To address this question, merger termination is conceptualised in this article as an instance of new party formation, coalition termination and institutionalisation failure. Building on this conceptualisation, three sets of factors are presented that account for which mergers are likely to be terminated by constituent parties and which are not. To test these three sets of hypotheses, a mixed‐methods design is used. First, survival analysis is applied to a new dataset on the performance of mergers in 21 European democracies during the postwar period. The findings support hypotheses derived from a conception of merger termination as new party formation: pre‐ and post‐merger legislative performance significantly affect the probability of merger termination. Furthermore, the institutionalisation of constituent parties helps to sustain mergers if the latter already built trust in pre‐merger cooperation, in line with the conception of merger termination as institutionalisation failure. Two theory‐confirming case studies are then analysed: one case of merger survival and the other of termination. These case studies substantiate the working of the significant variables identified in the large‐N analysis that drove the selection of case studies. They also reveal how mediating factors difficult to capture in large‐N designs help to account for why factors that – theoretically – should have complicated the working of the ‘survival case’, and should have been beneficial to the ‘termination case’, did not generate the expected effects.     

Comparing blunders in government

Much attention has been paid to government ‘blunders’ and ‘policy disasters’. National political and administrative systems have been frequently blamed for being disproportionately prone to generating mishaps. However, little systematic evidence exists on the record of failures of policies and major public projects in other political systems. Based on a comparative perspective on blunders in government, this article suggests that constitutional features do not play a prominent role. In order to establish this finding, this article (a) develops theory‐driven expectations as to the factors that are said to encourage blunders, (b) devises a systematic framework for the assessment of policy processes and outcomes, and (c) uses fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to identify sets of causal conditions associated with particular outcomes (i.e., blunders). The article applies this novel approach to a set of particular policy domains, finding that constitutional features are not a contributory factor to blunders in contrast to instrument choice, administrative capacity and hyper‐excited politics.     

Personal vote‐seeking in flexible list systems: How electoral incentives shape Belgian MPs' bill initiation behaviour

It is well known that different types of electoral systems create different incentives to cultivate a personal vote and that there may be variation in intra‐party competition within an electoral system. This article demonstrates that flexible list systems – where voters can choose to cast a vote for the list as ordered by the party or express preference votes for candidates – create another type of variation in personal vote‐seeking incentives within the system. This variation arises because the flexibility of party‐in‐a‐district lists results from voters' actual inclination to use preference votes and the formal weight of preference votes in changing the original list order. Hypotheses are tested which are linked to this logic for the case of Belgium, where party‐in‐a‐district constituencies vary in their use of preference votes and the electoral reform of 2001 adds interesting institutional variation in the formal impact of preference votes on intra‐party seat allocation. Since formal rules grant Belgian MPs considerable leeway in terms of bill initiation, personal vote‐seeking strategies are inferred by examining the use of legislative activity as signalling tool in the period between 1999 and 2007. The results establish that personal vote‐seeking incentives vary with the extent to which voters use preference votes and that this variable interacts with the weight of preference votes as defined by institutional rules. In addition, the article confirms the effect of intra‐party competition on personal vote‐seeking incentives and illustrates that such incentives can underlie the initiation of private members bills in a European parliamentary system.     

Are Voters Equal under Proportional Representation?

We develop and apply a new conceptual framework and measure for evaluating electoral systems, focusing on (in)equality in parliamentary representation. Our main arena of interest is proportional representation with districts, an electoral system employed by more than half of democratic states, and we draw on an almost entirely overlooked fact: Electoral regimes vary substantially within countries, with some voters casting their ballot in semi‐majoritarian districts of few representatives and others in large and proportional ones. This within‐country institutional variation, we contend, affects representational (in)equality. Evaluating equality in parliamentary representation, we demonstrate that districted proportional representation often leads to overrepresentation of voters supporting right‐leaning parties. Utilizing district‐level data from 20 Western parliamentary democracies and complementing our within‐country approach with a cross‐country analysis, we further show that where parliaments are elected by large and small districts, representational inequality among voters is greater compared with countries in which parliament is elected by even‐magnitude districts.     

Going It Alone? Strategic Entry under Mixed Electoral Rules

Recent studies on strategic voting and entry in elections that combine plurality or majority and proportional representation (PR) have found candidate placement in single-member district (SMD) races to improve a party's PR performance. The primary implication of the existence of "contamination effects" is that parties have an incentive to nominate candidates in as many single-member districts as possible. Pre-electoral coordination in the majoritarian component of mixed electoral systems, however, is far from uncommon. In this article, we identify a number of institutional incentives that induce political parties to form pre-electoral alliances in spite of contamination effects. By identifying institutions that favor and hamper coordination, we seek to advance the understanding of PR-SMD interactions and to assess their implications for the design, classification, and empirical analysis of mixed electoral rules. Our statistical tests evaluate strategic entry in a diverse sample of countries.     

Measuring dynamic collaborations: Collaborative health assessment tool

The changing nature of organisations in the public sector means that collaboration has become an imperative for many. Notwithstanding considerable scholarly agreement about factors contributing to successful collaboration, a broadly accepted model of collaborative practice has not coalesced. In this paper, we put forward an augmented collaboration assessment tool. Building on existing research, we argue that systems thinking can help us better account for the dynamic and multidimensional nature of collaboration – a process in which partner organisations are interconnected and organised in a way that seeks to achieve a common purpose that they could not have achieved alone. We tested the validity of our tool using a three‐stage, iterative mixed‐methods approach. Our research confirms the value of a diagnostic tool to assist collaboration partners navigate an often uncertain terrain. It further establishes the value of our tool in illuminating a collaboration's dynamic interactions as a means to evaluate ‘collaboration health’.     

Does Institutional Structure Effect Public Health Expenditures?

This paper explores supply‐side costs and institutional structure in a shared authority state public health system. It is found that in a shared governance public health system, intermediary district structure influences the movement of limited resources to serve populations and persons most in need. This early empirical test suggests that policy making and public administration concerning public health expenditures in a shared governance system are in a practical sense local, but decisions made at the intermediary level by regional district administration are an important influence on local public health expenditures.     

When do political parties benefit from incumbents’ personal votes? Comparative analysis across different electoral systems

Do political parties benefit electorally from the personal votes cultivated by their incumbent candidates? How do these benefits vary across electoral systems? This paper offers the first systematic, comparative analysis of parties' electoral gains from fielding incumbent candidates. The paper provides a theoretical argument on how the parties' gains from running incumbents vary across electoral systems and examines it empirically using district-level election data in eleven established democracies. The results suggest that the gains are largest in the multimember district systems that allow voters to determine the intra-party rank of candidates, but these gains decline as district magnitude grows. There are also gains in the single-member district systems, but no gains, or small gains if any, in the multimember district systems that don't allow voters to determine the candidates' rank or allow it only partially. The findings have implications for the cross-system variation in the balance between the collective and individual accountability in democratic elections.     

Comment on Robert E. Lang,Katrin B. Anacker,and Steven Hornburg's “the new politics of affordable housing”

Abstract

In his thoughtful analysis, Joseph realistically points to what a mixed‐income housing development can and cannot offer its low‐income residents. Observed benefits include greater informal social controls over the development, likely proximal modeling opportunities for youth, and participation in a political‐economic subgroup that can demand more responsive public services. Yet without offering more comprehensive, structured supports to its residents, no form of housing alone can be an antidote to poverty.

However, if we expand Joseph's analysis to include the impact of large‐scale developments on distressed urban neighborhoods, we can see mixed‐income housing catalyzing other benefits for low‐income residents. These benefits include a reduced housing cost burden; more structured supportive services; dramatically improved surroundings; high‐quality housing and community design; faster‐paced complementary investments in public systems and amenities; and strategically restored market functioning that offers more choices, lower prices, new jobs, and additional tax revenues to support service delivery.     

Adapting to closed-list proportional representation: lessons from Ukraine

This paper examines the implications of Ukraine’s move from a mixed electoral system to one of proportional representation in the 2006 parliamentary elections. In particular, it seeks to understand how the elimination of district contests affected the two major parties’ strategies in selecting candidates. Two strategies are outlined: prioritizing inclusion and prioritizing cohesion. Under the former, parties co-opt unaffiliated district deputies to improve their electoral fortunes despite potential costs to party discipline. The latter involves parties selecting affiliated deputies on the expectation of greater loyalty if elected. The analysis reveals that while the ruling party, Our Ukraine, employed a cautious version of inclusion, its opponent, the Party of Regions, emphasized cohesion. The findings show that “one size does not fit all” when it comes to how parties react to the introduction of list-only systems. Furthermore, given the greater subsequent success of The Party of Regions in gaining office, the results question the degree to which ruling parties benefit electorally from greater inclusion when responding to the advent of more proportional electoral rules.