Vote-earning strategies in flexible list systems: Seats at the price of unity

In theory, flexible list systems are a compromise between closed-list and open-list proportional representation. A party's list of candidates can be reordered by voters if the number of votes cast for an individual candidate exceeds some quota. Because these barriers to reordering are rarely overcome, these systems are often characterized as basically closed-list systems. Paradoxically, in many cases, candidates are increasingly earning individual-level preference votes. Using data from Slovakia, we show that incumbents cultivate personal reputations because parties reward preference vote earning candidates with better pre-election list positions in the future. Ironically, the party's vote-earning strategy comes at a price, as incumbents use voting against the party on the chamber floor to generate the reputations that garner preference votes.     

Patterns of intraparty competition in open-list & SNTV systems

Two electoral systems that use “nontransferable preference votes” are commonly used: single nontransferable vote (SNTV) and open-list proportional representation (OLPR). Both systems promote intraparty competition by vote-seeking candidates, but differ on the extent to which the incentives of individual candidates and collective seat-maximizing parties are aligned, or not. We develop “logical models” of expected vote shares of parties' first and last winners, and test (and confirm) these models using “symmetric regression” on an original data set drawn from over 2000 party-district observations in nine countries. The analysis helps bring us closer to an understanding of the relatively neglected “intraparty dimension” of representation, and allows us to offer some modest suggestions for improving systems of nontransferable preference votes.     

Localism and coordination under three different electoral systems: The national district of the Japanese House of Councillors

Democratic representation involves tradeoffs between collective actors – political parties seeking to maximize seats – and individual actors – candidates seeking to use their personal vote-earning attributes (PVEAs) to maximize their own chance of election and reelection. We analyze these tradeoffs across three different electoral systems used at different times for the large-magnitude nationwide tier of Japan's House of Councillors. These electoral systems – closed and open-list proportional systems and the single non-transferable vote – differ in the extent to which they entail candidates seeking individual preference votes and in whether collective vote shares affect overall party performance. We use local resources as a proxy for PVEA and seek to determine the extent to which parties nominate “locals” and how much the presence of such locals affects party performance at the level of Japan's prefectures.     

Gender quotas and placement mandates in open and closed lists: Similar effects,different mechanisms

In this paper, we argue that placement mandates, that is, regulations for gender ordering in party lists, enhance gender quotas' effectiveness in proportional representation electoral systems, independently of list type. In closed-list systems, placement mandates increase women's representation automatically as a result of the electoral rules, and, for this reason, we call this effect mechanical. In open-list systems, the effect is also strong due to systematic patterns of electoral behavior. We call this effect psychological. In order to demonstrate this, we analyze 140 Latin American legislative elections carried out between 1990 and 2018. Then, we compare the two most similar cases of open-list systems with different rules for placement mandates to illustrate the occurrence of the psychological effect. This is the first article to argue that placement mandates have similar effects in both kinds of lists as a function of distinct mechanisms.     

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.     

Party Strategies and the Descriptive Representation of Ethnic Minorities: The 2010 British General Election

The 2010 election proved critical for ethnic minority representation in Britain. The number of minority Members of Parliament reached an unprecedented high. Furthermore, the virtual monopoly of the Labour party on minority parliamentary representation ended. In explaining this development, this article moves away from the traditional discussion of disadvantages facing minority candidates and turns to the role of the political parties. It argues that a new commitment to increased minority representation exists and shows, on the basis of new data, that in the 2010 election both Labour and Conservatives employed a variety of strategies for increasing ethnic minority representation. The strategy to select more minority candidates in ‘white’ seats was not only a key to increasing the numbers of minority parliamentarians but also signals a departure from the traditional pattern of ethnic minority politicians being elected by ethnic minorities.     

A deterrent to diversity: The conditional effect of electoral rules on the nomination of women candidates

Previous literature regarding the effects of electoral systems on candidate selection has implied a false dichotomy regarding proportional representation (PR) versus single member districts (SMD). This paper unpacks the category of proportional representation, and finds significant differences in the behavior of selectorates depending on their configuration of PR. Using both a natural experiment as well as an original data set comprised of 1095 party lists, I find that the type of proportional representation – i.e., whether or not the voters are allowed to pick a particular candidate from the party list – can have a significant effect on the number of women candidates selected to run for office. Further, I find that the strength of this effect depends on cultural gender norms; if a substantial segment of society believes that women are best in traditional roles, not as leaders, there is a significant, negative effect of the decisive intraparty preference vote on the nomination of women candidates.     

Voting for locals: Voters’ information processing strategies in open-list PR systems

While most of the literature on information shortcuts in open-list PR systems focuses on the importance of ballot position effects, the influence of a candidate’s localness has widely been ignored by existing studies. In this paper, I address this research gap and argue that voting patterns in open-list PR systems are more versatile than existing research would suggest. By analyzing a special characteristic of the open-list PR system employed in the parliamentary elections of Hamburg, it is shown that a large portion of voters chooses to vote for local candidates irrespective of the ballot position of the candidate. The paper further controls for factors conditioning the effect and finds that it remains strong even after taking them into consideration. The results have important implications for the representativeness of open-list PR systems, ballot paper design, as well as for our understanding of voters’ decision making process.     

Majority protection: The origins of distorted proportional representation

Not all proportional representation (PR) systems are equally proportional. Some PR systems favour large parties and are thus ’distorted’. What explains the origins of distorted PR? Research on the adoption of PR has identified both consensual and conflict-ridden roads to PR. We argue that these two roads to PR do not lead to the same outcome. We expect the adoption of PR by consensus to result in less proportional PR systems compared to cases in which PR is forced upon powerful parties. Empirically, we find no evidence that powerful parties introduced PR to grant minority groups better political representation. Instead, we show that when PR was adopted with the support of the most powerful party, reforms often resulted in distorted PR and small seat losses for the most powerful party.     

The gender gap in same-gender voting: The role of context

If parties nominate both male and female candidates, open-list PR electoral rules enable voters to engage in same-gender voting (i.e. select candidate of the same gender). In this regard, there is a gender gap in Finland, an otherwise highly egalitarian country: over time, men tend to support mostly male candidates, while women are roughly equally divided between male and female candidates. This study investigates whether voters' likelihood of selecting a candidate of the same gender is affected by contextual factors. Based on pooled cross-sectional data from five Finnish parliamentary elections between 1979 and 2011, it shows that gender differences in same-gender voting are substantially reduced when district magnitude and gender ratios among candidates and elected deputies are taken into account.     

The impact of cuing candidate quality on female candidates

How can parties improve the electoral prospects of traditionally under-represented women? We argue that if a party signals that a single female candidate is of high quality, other women appearing on the ballot with her will receive a boost in support. More specifically, if a female candidate heads a party's list in the district, other women from her party will be rewarded with more votes. We test our reasoning by examining the nomination and election of women in three Free-List Proportional Representation systems where voters can cast multiple preference votes for individual candidates. We find robust support for the finding that when voters receive a signal that women can be quality candidates, they tend to reward additional women with preference votes regardless of their rank on the ballot.     

Do voters really prefer more choice? Determinants of support for personalised electoral systems

Which voters prefer having more choice between parties and candidates in an election? To provide an answer to this question, we analyse the case of a radical change from a closed-list PR system to a highly complex open-list PR system with cumulative voting in the German states of Bremen and Hamburg. We argue that the approval of a personalised electoral system is structured in similar ways as support for direct democracy. Using representative surveys conducted prior to all four state elections under cumulative voting in 2011 and 2015, we analyse which individual factors determine the approval, disapproval, or indifference towards the new electoral law. The results indicate that younger voters as well as supporters of left parties are much more likely to support a personalised electoral system. In contrast to previous studies, political interest only has an impact on the indifference towards the electoral system. More generally, our results show that a large proportion of voters does not appreciate personalised preferential electoral systems which seems to be a result of the complexity and magnitude of choice between parties and candidates.     

Incumbency advantage and candidate characteristics in open-list proportional representation systems: Evidence from Indonesia

We use evidence from Indonesia's April 2014 legislative elections to study the relationship between incumbency, list position, candidate characteristics, and electoral success in open-list PR systems. Contrary to a recent literature identifying an incumbency disadvantage in other large developing democracies, we identify a consistent personal incumbency advantage in Indonesia. However, we argue that this advantage is mediated by party choices over how incumbents and newcomers are ranked on party lists, a key heuristic for voters in low-information electoral environments such as Indonesia.     

The impact of the electoral system on post-communist party development: The case of the 1993 Russian parliamentary elections

This paper uses a case study of the 1993 Russian parliamentary elections to explore the influence of proportional representation and plurality electoral systems on party formation in a post-communist regime. The mixed PR-plurality electoral system used by Russia in the 1993 elections is a particularly useful case for such analysis for it allows the simultaneous study of these two electoral systems under the same set of social, economic, and cultural conditions. This study found that common emphasis placed on the number of parties allowed by PR versus plurality systems is misplaced in the context of Russian politics. The vital impact of electoral systems under post-communist conditions is their permeability to independent candidates. PR systems tend to impose party labels on the electorate and elites and thus bolster the status of parties as electoral agents. Plurality systems allow independents to compete on a level playing field with partisan candidates, robbing parties of the preferential treatment they need to get established in the initial years of democratic governance.     

Too much choice,too little impact: a multilevel analysis of the contextual determinants of preference voting

Abstract

Despite the rich and growing body of research addressing how turnout and party choice depend on the institutional context, far less is known about the impact of the political environment on voters’ propensity to vote for candidates – not parties. Recent single-country studies have focused almost exclusively on individual-level resource- and identity-based differences in preference voting. Combining data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies (PARTIREP) election studies in six countries, this article provides the first comprehensive, cross-national test of the impact of macro-contextual factors on a voter’s decision to indicate a candidate preference, instead of simply casting a party list vote. It demonstrates that both the failure of preference votes to affect the allocation of seats and choice overload dissuade voters from marking a candidate name on the ballot. These contextual factors affect informed and uninformed voters differently, moreover. The findings have important implications for electoral scholars and political practitioners when designing electoral systems.     

Do young female candidates face double barriers or an outgroup advantage? The case of the European Parliament

While intersectionality is a recurrent theme in the literature on women's political representation, few studies empirically disentangle who are the women who get elected to parliaments. An argument on biases in recruitment practices suggests that those who are members of more than one outgroup, such as young women, benefit from an ‘outgroup advantage’. In elections, a candidate with two outgroup features might attract more voter support than a candidate with just one outgroup feature. Hence, nominating a candidate that is both young and female could be a rational move by (male) elites in political parties that allows them to open fewer seats to newcomers. These expectations are tested on data for all members of the European Parliament since 1979. Not only is it found that women's presence increased steadily throughout the parliament's history, but also that women's representation is consistently highest among the group of young representatives, lower among middle-aged Members of the European Parliament and lowest among older representatives.     

Engineering inclusion: Assessing the effects of pro-minority representation policies

In democracies, a constant tension exists between the stability and integrity of the community as a whole, and the desire to ensure minorities a voice in politics. Reserved seats and reduced thresholds are two common means by which ethnic minorities gain legislative seats, though little or no empirical work exists testing their efficacy in this regard. Combining multivariate analysis with in-depth case studies, this article shows that both reserved seats and lower thresholds increase minority representation, though reserved seats accomplish that goal more consistently. Reduced thresholds tend to increase the share of votes and seats won by ethnoregional parties but reserved seats do not. Additionally, Mauritius' unusual best-loser system aids both minorities and ethnoregional parties.     

Ideological mavericks or party herd? The effect of candidates’ ideological positions on intra-party success

Political candidates' ideological positions have been used to explain success in inter-party competition, but little is known about how they impact success in intra-party competition. Here, candidates' positions on the Left–Right and GAL–TAN dimensions are analysed in three Finnish parliamentary elections (2011, 2015, 2019). Candidates' ideological positions are measured in terms of their ideological distance from their own party's median candidate. Absolute ideological distances between candidates and their party's median candidate decrease candidates' preference votes. Furthermore, the effects are contingent on the general ideological position of the candidate's party. However, these interactions do not follow any clear pattern, as more rightist candidates in right-wing parties and more green-alternative-libertarian candidates in traditional-authoritarian-nationalist parties all experience a decrease in their preference votes. This effect is large enough to be a decisive factor in intra-party competition between the last candidate that was elected and the first one that was not.