Electoral systems and geographically targeted oversight:Evidence from the Taiwan Legislative Yuan

Abstract

Electoral systems have profound effects on legislator-constituent communication and representation. In this paper, we examine how Taiwan’s electoral reform—from multi-member districts under the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) to single-member districts under a Mixed Member Majoritarian system (MMM)—shapes district legislators’ particularistic behavior. Using fine-tuned transformer architectures, we analyze over 63,000 parliamentary questions from 402 district legislators spanning two decades to identify geographically targeted content. Controlling for legislator and municipal characteristics, we find that the reform from SNTV to MMM reduces geographically targeted questions, though this effect varies across municipalities with different economic profiles. Our analysis reveals that SNTV is associated with greater particularistic responsiveness to local socioeconomic conditions than single-member districts under MMM, suggesting that candidate-centered electoral systems of different types produce different behavioral incentives