The Purpose of Electoral Reform for Westminster

Britain is facing a referendum on electoral reform for Westminster in 2011, yet there is little debate over the goals of such a change. Arguably, the purposes of political representation should determine the choice of a new system. Thus, ten modernising goals that go further than merely giving more seats to the Liberal Democrats are proposed. In a society made up of women and men, both need balanced representation. In an educated society, citizens need to be kept abreast of their MPs' performance as legislators so they can engage with parliamentary affairs. In an increasingly diverse society, the electoral system needs to improve who gets to be represented by whom, by providing citizens with more than one representative per district. The proposed Alternative Vote would provide few advantages and additional drawbacks, but could stimulate consensus around a modern system in tune with Westminster traditions.     

Nowhere to Run,Nowhere to Hide? The 2010 General Election and the Defence of First‐past‐the‐post

The 2010 general election threw traditional arguments about electoral reform into chaos: defenders of the status quo suddenly found themselves defending outcomes the existing system is supposed to prevent, while advocates of reform were obliged to praise outcomes arising from current arrangements. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of first‐past‐the‐post in the light of the 2010 result and asserts that—contrary to many claims—FPTP remains a defensible electoral system. In doing so, the article highlights the peculiar political circumstances attending the last general election, while reminding readers that other recent UK elections, conducted under other electoral systems, have not been free of serious anomalies.     

Is the Future of Electoral Reform Local?

The Electoral Reform Society has recently published two reports putting the case for electoral reform in local government. These suggest acceptance, in the wake of defeat in the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum, that the group's ultimate goal of change to the Westminster electoral system is unlikely to be fulfilled soon and that a more gradual strategy is therefore needed. This paper examines this shift by asking three questions. First, is Westminster electoral reform really a dead letter? Second, is local electoral reform more likely—and, if so, just how much more likely? Third, would local electoral reform matter in itself?     

Catalysts and barriers: Explaining electoral reform in Western Europe

Most accounts of electoral system change tend to consider it as being driven by purely partisan interests. Political parties are expected to change the electoral rules as a way to maximise gains or minimise losses. However, little work has been done on the question of why electoral reforms are so scarce in spite of these potential benefits. In this study, a wide range of both factors that may foster (‘catalysts’) and ones that may hinder (‘barriers’) the change of electoral institutions are investigated. A statistical analysis is performed of 16 West European countries from 1975 to 2005, covering 23 reforms of the proportionality of their electoral systems. It is found that procedural barriers are more effective for explaining the likelihood of electoral reforms than (most of) the catalysts. Additionally, there are indications that courts may play a more active role in triggering reform than previously thought.     

Patrons against clients: Electoral uncertainty and bureaucratic tenure in politicized states

Why would incumbents undertake institutional reforms that constrain their discretion over state resources? Many studies point to electoral competition in response. They argue that incumbents who risk exit from office undertake reform to insure themselves against potentially hostile successors. This paper challenges this line of reasoning, arguing that it confounds two potential implications of electoral competition – potential and certain electoral losses – which yield contrary reform incentives. Certain exits from office may well incentivize reforms as insurance. Where elections are contested, however, incumbents face incentives to resist reforms that constrain discretion over state resources that provide incumbents with electoral advantage. This argument is developed and assessed with an institutional reform the literature has so far neglected: job stability protections (tenure) in politicized bureaucracies. A case analysis of the Dominican Republic and suggestive cross‐country data confirm theoretical predictions: electoral uncertainty dis‐incentivizes tenure reform. Electoral competition may thus be a double‐edged sword for institutional reform.     

The long and the short of it: Electoral institutions and the dynamics of party system size, 1950–2005

While institutional theories of party system size are usually examined cross‐nationally, there is ample reason to expect that changes in electoral institutions will affect party system size within countries as well. Although some of this effect may occur immediately, most of the effects are likely to be realised over time and across subsequent elections. A series of error‐correction models examine the short‐ and long‐term effects of changes in electoral institutions on party system size. The results indicate that changes in electoral institutions do produce the expected effects on party system size, and that these effects occur mostly over the long term.     

More Than IndyRef2? The Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020

Demands for a second Scottish independence referendum have persisted since 2014. The Scottish government introduced the Referendums (Scotland) Bill at Holyrood in May 2019 to enable referendums within the competence of the Scottish parliament. The Scottish National Party (SNP) government presented this as a framework enabling a range of referendums. Opponents saw this as legislating for a second independence referendum. The act will form a large part of the legal framework and rules for any second independence referendum. Importantly, the legislation provides innovation in electoral law more generally. This article discusses the background to the bill, its initial contents, and debates around and amendments to the bill. It discusses its electoral law innovations, before considering its limitations and place as constitutional debates play out over a second independence referendum.     

Politicians,voters and democracy: The 2011 UK referendum on the Alternative Vote

At the 2010 UK election, Labour proposed a referendum on changing the House of Commons electoral system from single member plurality to the Alternative Vote. Subsequently, a coalition was formed between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, yet it was Labour's policy on electoral reform that was implemented. The paper explains why this proved to be politically convenient for Labour's opponents. At the same time, however, holding the referendum reflected an emergent de facto convention that significant constitutional change should only be introduced after it has secured popular endorsement. The paper assesses whether the dynamics of public opinion during the AV referendum suggests that voters' eventual decisions about constitutional questions reflect their views about the merits of the relevant arguments.     

Getting away with foul play? The importance of formal and informal oversight institutions for electoral integrity

Electoral integrity is increasingly being recognised as an important component of democracy, yet scholars still have limited understanding of the circumstances under which elections are most likely to be free, fair and genuine. This article posits that effective oversight institutions play a key role in scrutinising the electoral process and holding those with an interest in the electoral outcome to account. The main insight is that deficiencies in formal electoral management can be effectively compensated for via one or more other institutional checks: an active and independent judiciary; an active and independent media; and/or an active and independent civil society. Flawed elections are most likely to take place when all four checks on electoral conduct fail in key ways. These hypotheses are tested and supported on a cross‐national time‐series dataset of 1,047 national‐level elections held in 156 electoral regimes between 1990 and 2012.     

The impact of electoral reform at the local level in Africa: the case of Senegal's 1996 local elections

Local electoral systems in transitional polities can play a critical role in the growth and development of democratic governance. In this study, the impact of electoral system change at the subnational level in an African nation, Senegal, is examined. Senegal recently altered the electoral system it employs for the selection of its local and municipal councils. The mixed plurality-proportional system, favors the largest parties. It clearly introduced distortions between the distribution of voter support and seats on councils. These distortions are modified by the proportional part of the vote which provides opportunities for smaller parties to obtain seats. The presence and impact of strategic entry and strategic voting, both in rural and urban areas is assessed.     

The international diffusion of electoral systems: The spread of mechanisms tempering proportional representation across Europe

There is an assumption in much of the electoral engineering literature that domestic episodes of electoral system choice occur in a vacuum, isolated from international influences. Yet this assumption remains largely untested, despite the comparative focus of much of that literature. This article focuses on part of this gap by considering two electoral mechanisms that seek to limit party system fragmentation under proportional representation – low district magnitudes and high electoral thresholds – and shows that the mechanisms have spread across many European countries during the post‐1945 period. Analyses reveal that national legislators are more likely to adopt one of these electoral mechanisms when a large number of peer countries have made similar choices within the last two or three years. This effect is robust to various model specifications and to the inclusion of multiple controls. The article also offers some qualitative evidence from case studies and parliamentary debates.     

How electoral vulnerability affects pension politics: Introducing a concept,measure and empirical application

Are electorally vulnerable politicians really less likely to support controversial legislation, such as pension reforms? While the literature on welfare state retrenchment has increasingly pointed to the role of electoral factors in the dynamics of social policy cutbacks, there are few studies that actually measure the magnitude of electoral pressure and its consequent impact on the politics of reform. To this end, the authors have developed a quantitative measure of the electoral vulnerability of politicians and tested its impact on pension reform outcomes using an original dataset comprising 16 Western European countries from 1980 to 2003. In line with expectations, the results show that the impact of electoral vulnerability on reform depends upon the system of interest intermediation. In corporatist systems, electoral vulnerability indeed impedes reform. But in pluralist systems, increased electoral vulnerability is associated with higher levels of reform. This is because unions in corporatist (but not in pluralist) systems can exploit electoral vulnerability in pre‐legislative bargaining, and thus pressure politicians. Consequently, this study has broader implications for the differential responsiveness of democracies to redistributive issues more generally.     

The Expenses Scandal and the Politics of Electoral Reform

The scandal over MPs' expenses that erupted in 2009 was followed by a surge in discussion of electoral reform. A range of reforms to Westminster's existing electoral system are now high on the political agenda. This article examines the extent and the nature of the scandal's impact on the electoral reform debate and draws out comparative implications for the sorts of conditions that can force politicians to accept electoral reforms that they do not want. It finds that the expenses scandal significantly changed debate about some electoral reform topics, but not about others. It proposes three factors likely to increase the impact of scandal in sparking reform: that the scandal is seen as harming ordinary people in their daily lives; that reforms can readily be understood as likely to mitigate the sources of scandal; and that those reforms do not seriously harm politicians' own perceived interests.     

The place of parties in contemporary democracies

The electoral system has often been considered an important determinant of the political stability that the Federal Republic of Germany has enjoyed in the half-century of its existence, so that it has been often indicated as a 'model' for electoral reforms in other democracies. The analysis of the political impact of the German electoral system after 1949 shows that such impact was different in the different phases of evolution of the party system. In the 1950s, the German party system was characterised by a higher level of fractionalisation, which the electoral system contributed progressively to reduce. That phase was followed by 30 years of concentration and defractionalisation of the vote. In the last decade, the post-reunification party system presents again higher electoral fractionalisation, which the electoral system has partially reduced in the vote-seats translation. In the current political contingency it is doubtful, however, that the electoral system by itself can contain fragmentation on a durable basis.     

Electoral and structural losers and support for a national referendum in the U.S.

The U.S. is one of only a few democracies in the world never to hold a national referendum. Recent national surveys reveal that a majority of respondents approve of a national referendum both cross-nationally and in America is relatively stable. Building on previous work (Bowler and Donovan, 2007), we find public opinion on a reform proposal is fluid and responsive to electoral politics, rather than stable as reported in earlier work. In this paper, we argue that contemporary support for a national referendum in the U.S. is contingent on whether a citizen is a short- or long-term “winner” or a “loser” when it comes to electoral politics. We expect that public support for a national referendum in the U.S., where legislation referred by Congress would be subject to a popular vote, may vary at the individual level because of short-term electoral fortunes as well as long-term structural conditions. Strategic voting as well as losing in candidate races and policy issues may be important, but so might be partisanship, with non-partisans the most likely to benefit from citizen law-making at the national level. Support for a national referendum might also be contingent upon state context, that is, upon use of direct democracy in the state where a person lives, as well as the population of a state. The results based on a natural experiment and 2008 panel survey data provide an important window into understanding public opinion on institutional change more broadly.     

协商民主：完善选举制度的路径选择

选举制度是建立以选举民主为基础上的现代宪政制度之一。但由于选举民主存在自身局限性，导致建立在选举民主基础上的选择制度存在自身无法克服的缺陷。通过将协商民主导入选举民主，有助于选举制度的完善。     

Electoral volatility and the dynamics of electoral reform

Recent elections in Europe have shown that a context of increasing citizen distrust towards democratic institutions may lead to very high levels of electoral volatility and to the emergence of new parties. On the other hand, institutional reforms are sometimes presented as a solution to citizens’ discontent with political institutions. Focusing on a specific type of political institution ? electoral systems ? the question addressed in this study is whether high levels of electoral volatility may trigger electoral reforms. The article investigates the conditions under which reforms affecting the electoral system’s degree of openness to new parties were enacted in 25 European countries between 1945 and 2012. The findings demonstrate that volatility due to the emergence of new parties is the most powerful explanation to account for the introduction of electoral reforms, particularly those that hinder the entry of new parties into the system.     

Economic voting in provincial elections: Revisiting electoral accountability in the Canadian provinces

ABSTRACT

We examine the outcomes of the provincial elections having been held in Canada since the Great Recession and compare them with outcomes from past decades. Given the severity of the 2008 financial crisis, we test for whether provincial governments’ electoral fortunes over the recent period have been negatively impacted by this important economic shock. Our analyses of aggregate-level provincial electoral outcomes: (1) confirm that provincial incumbent parties are held accountable for provincial economic conditions; (2) show that this provincial economic voting pattern has been heightened during the financial crisis; and (3) demonstrate that provincial incumbents also incur vote share losses when national economic conditions worsen and their respective family party is in power at the federal level, although this referendum voting pattern appears to have been unaffected by the financial crisis.     

Do electoral rules have an effect on electoral behaviour? An impact assessment

Abstract

Electoral democracies worldwide are all organised around elections but the rules under which the elections are organised differ greatly from one country to another. These electoral rules, such as whether voting is compulsory or what electoral system is used, are thought of as strongly affecting voters’ behaviour and the choices they make. If electoral rules indeed shape citizens’ electoral behaviour, the implication is that theories of what explains voters’ choices are country-specific as well. This is in sharp contrast to the idea that theories of electoral behaviour are generalisable. This special issue tackles this question and offers an assessment of the impact of electoral rules on voters’ behaviour, on the one hand, and the generalisability of individual-level theories of voting behaviour, on the other. The collection of papers furthermore offers an important contribution in terms of the kind of electoral rules that are scrutinised, with several papers focusing on the little-investigated phenomenon of preferential voting.     

Strategic adaptation to new electoral systems

How quickly, to what extent and under what conditions do voters and elites adapt to new electoral institutions in order to not waste their votes and effort on hopeless competitors? A latent‐curve model of strategic adaptation is developed and fitted to district‐level election data from Spain. The extent of strategic adaptation is generally found to vary with the strength of the electoral system. However, grave ethnic tensions are demonstrated to seriously retard adaptation even under favourable institutional conditions.