Raising the Threshold,Fighting Fragmentation? Mechanical and Psychological Effects of the Legal Electoral Threshold in Belgium

Many proportional representation systems are characterised by a legal electoral threshold. Such a threshold reserves the allocation of seats for those parties that reach a minimum share of the votes. In order to fight fragmentation, a 5 per cent threshold has been introduced for both federal and regional elections in Belgium. This article seeks to explore the mechanical and psychological effects of this legal threshold after five elections. It is shown that the threshold has had limited mechanical and psychological effects on voters but some psychological effects on party elites. Moreover, while in the short term the average number of lists dropped and several pre-electoral coalitions formed, in the longer term the legal threshold has not prevented further fragmentation.     

Electoral Competitiveness and Issue Voting

This article suggests that voters rely more strongly on “substantial” criteria, such as issues and ideology, when elections are competitive. In such contexts, voters should attach more importance to their own choice and rely less on “heuristics.” Three aspects of election competitiveness are considered: the fragmentation and polarization of the party system and the proportionality of the electoral system. Elections are more competitive when there are many parties in competition, when they differ strongly from one another in ideological terms, and when the threshold of representation is lower. These hypotheses are tested with data from the 2007 Swiss federal elections. The electoral districts differ markedly from one another as far as electoral competitiveness is concerned while being similar in many other respects. The results show that competitiveness strengthens issue voting and reduces the impact of party identification.     

Increasing irrationality? The equilibrium relationship between electoral and legislative party system size, 1950–2005

Institutional theories of party system size tell us that voters and parties should anticipate the mechanical effects of electoral systems and adjust their behaviour accordingly. If these expectations hold true, then the size of the party system at the electoral and legislative levels should maintain a long-run equilibrium relationship, as the number of parties receiving votes is adjusted in response to the number of parties in the legislature. I estimate a series of error-correction models to examine this expectation in 16 Western democracies from 1950 to 2005. Party system size at the electoral level does exhibit a general, equilibrium relationship with party system size in the legislature. However, this relationship has recently disappeared in single-member-district systems. This growing disparity between party system size at the electoral and legislative levels signals important changes in the nature of electoral representation.     

An institutional explanation of party system congruence: Evidence from six federations

Abstract.  The allocation of resources between the federal and state levels of government is a key institutional variable explaining the congruence or similarity of party systems. It affects the incentives voters and parties face, and opportunities for cleavage mobilization. This article pioneers measures for comparing congruence across federations. Evidence from state and federal elections in six federations produces clear evidence that party systems are least congruent in decentralized federations and most congruent in centralized federations. Voter behaviour, indicated by the variation of electoral support for parties across units of the federation and the similarity of swings in support between the state and federal levels, is most responsive to the allocation of resources. Party system structure is less responsive to this variable.     

Federal Factions and Federated Host Parties in Israel: Some Ideological and Structural Dimensions

A new type of party has emerged in Israel—the federatedhost party. It consists of political groups and former partieswhich have the status of factions. Formal agreements set therules of the game; hence, heavy constraints are placed on thehost party in appointments and policy. The article discussesthe emergence of federated host parties and federal factions,factors of stability and unrest in the relations of host partyand factions, and the withering away of factions. Factors whichaccount for the emergence of federal factions are: persistence,differences in size of competing parties, chain reaction syndrome,countering electoral decline, crossing the lines, and secessionbrinkmanship. Comparative implications suggest six elementswhich require further study.     

The Welsh Liberal Democrats: From Government to Opposition and Then Back Again?

For over 50 years from 1945 onwards, the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats were either in decline in Wales or struggling to survive from election to election. Since 1997, however, there has been a steady evolution in the party's electoral and political strength. Over this past decade, the Welsh Liberal Democrats, as a state party, have experienced a change in electoral fortunes that has on occasions put them into national political power well in advance of their federal counterparts in England. As an autonomous state party within a federal structure, the Welsh Liberal Democrats have been able to take like a duck to water to the arrival of devolution in the form of the Welsh Assembly. This article examines how the evolution of the party has occurred and, in particular, the role that has been played by the Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Members in Welsh politics. The article also explores not only the strengths but also the weaknesses that still dog the Welsh party as it seeks once more to become a major force in Welsh politics.     

Proffering Pork: How Party Leaders Build Party Reputations in Brazil

Despite its highly candidate-centered electoral law, recent studies have shown that Brazilian party leaders are more powerful, and Brazilian parties are more unified, than alleged by long-dominant scholarship. Examining post-War and contemporary democracy in Brazil, governed by the same federal legislative electoral law, this article provides a controlled test of the role of leadership and electoral law in driving party unity. The combination of leadership intervention to enforce unity, increased unity, and partisan tides in contemporary Brazil, in contrast to an absence of leadership intervention, lower unity, and no partisan tides in the post-War, provides strong support for the role of the leadership in generating unity, as emphasized in the collective action theory of party organization. The findings also suggest that a general theory of variation in party unity requires examining factors that lead to variation in party leaders' incentives to enforce unity, in addition to the current emphasis on backbenchers' incentives to defy the leadership.     

Dynamic effects of electoral laws

A change in electoral laws is expected to substantially alter political outcomes as voters and elites adjust their behavior to new rules. However, testing the causal implications of this theory using electoral reforms has been difficult because election results before a reform are not the appropriate counterfactual for election results after a reform. This article leverages electoral reform in New Zealand and Norway and the synthetic control method to approximate the appropriate counterfactuals: election results in the period after reform, had the reform not occurred. In both the countries, I find evidence that electoral reform had a short-term effect on the size of the electoral party system, but no evidence of a lasting effect on the electoral party system.     

What Role Does the "Federalism Bonus" Play in Presidential Selection?

The conflicting outcome of the electoral and popular votes inthe 2000 presidential election provoked calls to abolish oralter the electoral college. One prominent criticism is thatthe institution distorts election outcomes by providing disproportionateinfluence to small states. If each state receives a number ofpresidential electors equal to that states' number of membersin the U.S. House of Representatives plus the two senators,then the "federalism bonus" represents the two electoral collegevotes that correspond to the position of each state as an equalentity in the Senate. This research examines how the "federalismbonus" influences presidential selection by addressing threequestions. First, why did the framers include a federal componentin the electoral college? Second, under what circumstances hasthe "federalism bonus" played a role in presidential selection?Third, how would the various alternatives for reform affectthe federal component of the electoral college, and what isthe likelihood of adoption for each?     

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.     

Supplying Trade Reform: Political Institutions and Liberalization in Middle-Income Presidential Democracies

Correcting the relative lack of attention to the supply side of trade policy, this article addresses how political institutions channel societal demands for protection. I hypothesize that strong presidents with significant legislative powers and strong party leaders—empowered through electoral rules that rein in the personal vote—can help overcome protectionist biases. These arguments compare with two institutional alternatives: first, that protectionism should decrease as electoral district size grows because elections become more proportional; and second, that the collective-action problems in fragmented party systems thwart trade reform. I evaluate these hypotheses empirically using pooled time-series–cross-sectional data involving 18 developing countries from 1971 to 1997. I find that delegation to presidents and party leaders is significantly related to trade liberalization, and some evidence suggests that the effective number of parties and the size of electoral districts may also influence levels of protectionism.     

Sailing with Northern Winds: Party Politics and Federal Reforms in Italy

Territorial reforms have been on the political agenda in Italy for the last two decades, becoming a stable issue of party competition. The breakthrough of Lega Nord (LN) in the party system has represented the main driver for federal reforms. The article argues that the bipolar and majoritarian institutional environment of the Second Republic has compelled the main state-wide parties to adopt an electoral logic that led them to accommodate the LN’s claims. However, the ideological orientations and the territorial interests of centre-left coalition proved more compatible with this accommodative strategy than those of the centre-right coalition. The majoritarian and adversarial style of government–opposition relations has made compromise on territorial reforms difficult, contributing to their rising salience in party competition.     

Economic crises and the nationalisation of politics

The literature on party system nationalisation has yet to provide a better understanding of the impact of short‐term factors upon the nationalisation of politics. This article helps to fill this literature gap by analysing the effect of economic conditions on party system nationalisation. The argument is that economic crises will decrease levels of nationalisation by amplifying territorial variation in preferences for redistribution, limiting political parties’ capacity to coordinate divergent interests across districts and triggering the emergence of new political forces. Data on 47 countries for the 1960–2011 period confirm this hypothesis and show that lower economic growth during the years prior to the election is associated with a decrease in levels of party system nationalisation in the next election. The result is robust to variation in the specification of the econometric model and to the use of different measures of nationalisation. Results also show that federal institutions increase the impact of economic conditions on the nationalisation of politics, whereas any moderating effect of electoral system proportionality on the economy is not found.     

It's Parties That Choose Electoral Systems (or, Duverger's Laws Upside Down)

This article presents, discusses and tests the hypothesis that it is the number of parties that can explain the choice of electoral systems, rather than the other way around. Already-existing political parties tend to choose electoral systems that, rather than generate new party systems by themselves, will crystallize, consolidate or reinforce previously existing party configurations. A general model develops the argument and presents the concept of 'behavioral-institutional equilibrium' to account for the relation between electoral systems and party systems. The most comprehensive dataset and test of these notions to date, encompassing 219 elections in 87 countries since the 19th century, are presented. The analysis gives strong support to the hypotheses that political party configurations dominated by a few parties tend to establish majority rule electoral systems, while multi-party systems already existed before the introduction of proportional representation. It also offers the new theoretical proposition that strategic party choice of electoral systems leads to a general trend toward proportional representation over time.     

Racial and gender income inequality in the American states

The purpose of this article is to uncover the political factors associated with greater income parity for black men, black women, and white women relative to white men in the American states. Variables are constructed for federal, state, and local government employment, state electoral competition, federal procurement, black state legislators, and women state legislators along with a number of socioeconomic factors. It is discovered that the political variables carry less weight than the socioeconomic ones. These findings raise questions about the future prospects for increased earnings parity for minorities and women as previous federal efforts to eliminate racial and gender discrimination appear to have been weakened and state political factors have little relationship with greater income equality.     

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.     

Measuring party nationalisation: A new Gini-based indicator that corrects for the number of units

The study of the territorial distribution of votes in elections has become an important field of the political party research in recent years. Quantitative studies on the homogeneity of votes and turnout employ different indicators of territorial variance, but despite important progresses in measurement, many of them are sensitive to size and number of political parties or electoral districts. This article proposes a new ‘standardised party nationalisation score’, which is based on the Gini coefficient of inequalities in distribution. Different from previous indicators, the standardised party nationalisation score weights for the sizes of territorial units (such as electoral districts) within a country, and considers the different numbers of territorial units in different countries.     

Party system(s) and electoral behaviour in Belgium: From stability to balkanisation

Belgium has one of the most fragmented party systems of any modern democracy. This article asks the following questions: is party fragmentation linked to the importance of the ethno-regionalist vote or to the rules of the electoral system? Has party fragmentation also produced centrifugal or polarised multipartyism (between the regions, but also within Flanders, given the spectacular rise of the Vlaams Blok)? What explains the difference in party fragmentation between Flanders and Wallonia? What are the dimensions of party competition in each community and what are the socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics of the different electorates? Which steps have the political elites taken to cope with the increasing fragmentation of the party landscape and growing voter volatility? To what extent has the increasing divergence between the regional party systems led to the building of asymmetrical coalitions at the federal and regional levels of government? The splitting of the Belgian party system into two, albeit still fragmented, party systems has further complicated the problems of coordination within a polarised, multi-cleavage and multilevel system that seriously undermines the stability of the entire political system.     

Electoral Accountability in a Federal System: National and Provincial Economic Voting in Canada

Are federal incumbents punished for national and/or provincialeconomic performance, and are provincial incumbents held accountablefor the state of the provincial and/or national economy? Usinga pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of electoral resultsand macroeconomic data for 1953–2001, this article exploresthe extent to which provincial and federal incumbents in Canadianelections are affected more by national or provincial economicconditions. The results of the analysis suggest that federalincumbents would not gain many votes by claiming credit forthe economic prosperity of any particular province when, onaverage, national economic conditions are deteriorating. Theresults further suggest that provincial incumbents are not heldaccountable for economic conditions in their provinces, butare rather punished for national economic deterioration whenthe incumbent federal party is of the same partisan family.     

The role of electoral geography in the territorialization of party systems

When does a country's social structure foster the development of territorialized party systems? This article argues that electoral geography – defined as the interaction between the geography of social diversity and electoral rules– is key to answering this question. I make two claims: first, the impact of geographically concentrated diversity on party system territorialization depends on the proportionality of electoral rules. Second, the types of geographic cleavages (ethnic versus economic) and whether they are overlapping or cross-cutting also affects the likelihood of party system territorialization (conditional on the electoral system). I test these claims with an original dataset measuring party system territorialization in 382 elections across 60 countries that also includes comparable cross-national measures of different types of geographically concentrated diversity (language, race, religion and income). The main conclusion is that proportional electoral systems and cross-cutting cleavages can act as a powerful constraint on the translation of territorial ethnic cleavages into territorialized party systems.