Plurality versus proportional electoral rule: study of voters' representativeness

Thinking of electoral rules, common wisdom suggests that proportional rule is more fair, since all voters are equally represented: at times, it turns out that this is false. I study the formation of both Parliament and Government; for the composition of the former I consider plurality and proportional rule; for the formation of the latter, I assume that parties play a non-cooperative game à la Rubinstein. I show that, unless parties are impatient to form a Government, proportional electoral rules translate into a more distortive distribution of power among parties than plurality rule; this happens because of the bargaining power of small parties during Government formation.electoral systems, proportional rule, plurality rule, voters¿ representation.

Political competition and support for agriculture

This paper investigates whether political competition plays an important role in determining the level of agricultural protection. In order to do so, we exploit variation in political and economic data from 74 developing and developed countries for the post-war period. Our results robustly show that the level of agricultural distortions is the higher, the higher is the level of political competition. We show that political competition may importantly complement other institutional aspects in determining policy choices. We investigate the heterogeneous effects of political competition across different electoral rules (majoritarian vs. proportional), forms of government (coalition vs. single-party) and level of incomes. --Political competition,constitutional rules,agricultural distortions

Determinants of Agricultural Protection in an International Perspective: The Role of Political Institutions

Abstract—This paper studies the role of political institutions in determining the political success of agriculture in avoiding taxation or attracting government transfers in developing and industrialized countries, respectively. The model is based on a probabilistic voting environment, where in industrialized countries rural districts are less ideologically committed than urban districts, while in developing countries urban districts are less ideologically committed than rural districts. As a consequence, in industrialized (developing) countries rural (urban) districts are pivotal in determining the coalition that obtains a majority, whereas urban (rural) districts are pivotal within the majority itself. In bargaining at the legislature, this generates a conflict between the government, who will tend to favor rural (urban) districts, and its parliamentary majority, that will be dominated by urban (rural) concerns. As district size grows and the electoral system converges to a pure proportional system, both of these biases are attenuated. Overall, an opposite nonlinear relationship between district size and agricultural subsidies on the one hand and district size and taxation on the other hand follows, i.e. in developing countries taxation of agriculture first increases and then decreases with district magnitude, while in industrialized countries agricultural subsidization first increases and then decreases with district magnitude. Moreover, the impact of district magnitude on the level of agricultural subsidization is attenuated in presidential when compared to parliamentary systems, while the level of agricultural taxation is amplified in presidential systems. Empirical results from cross-country analysis including 37 countries over 20 years mainly support our theory.Political Institutions, Agricultural Protection, Probabilistic Voting Model, International Relations/Trade,

The fragmented Lok Sabha: a case for electoral engineering

Where there are numerous small political parties, as in India, the electoral system neither reflects the true views and opinions on important social and economic issues nor does it incorporate “social inclusiveness” . The fragmentation in our legislature can be corrected through appropriate electoral engineering. This study is an attempt to do so. It describes how the composition of the Lok Sabha has changed since 1967, paying particular attention to the trends in indices of fragmentation. It also discusses issues relating to the “ideal” composition of a legislature and of a government

Partisan districting and the adoption of proportional representation: gerrymandering and its discontents

Electoral engineering strategies in majoritarian electoral systems, in particular the possibility to contain insurgent parties by manipulating electoral districts for partisan gain, are key determinants of parties’ positions on the adoption of proportional representation (PR). Providing both qualitative and quantitative evidence, this paper demonstrates that partisan districting can be an effective strategy to protect incumbent parties’ dominant political positions. In addition, it shows how insurgent parties push for the adoption of PR to end the practice of partisan districting. Finally, it demonstrates that incumbents – in the face of increasing electoral threats – cling to the existing majoritarian system if partisan districting allows them to influence vote-seat distortions in their favor. Together, these findings suggest that the possibility to contain insurgent parties by means of partisan districting is an important but overlooked alternative to the adoption of PR. Moreover, by demonstrating that vote-seat distortions moderate the relationship between district-level electoral threats and legislators’ support for PR adoption, this paper offers an important corrective to Stein Rokkan’s influential electoral threat thesis

Determinants of agricultural protection from an international perspective: The role of political institutions

"This paper explores the role of political institutions in determining the ability of agriculture to avoid taxation in developing countries or attract government transfers in industrialized countries. The utilized model is based on a probabilistic voting environment, wherein rural districts are less ideologically committed than urban districts in industrialized countries, and the reverse is true in developing countries. As a consequence, in industrialized (developing) countries rural (urban) districts are pivotal in determining the coalition that obtains a majority, whereas urban (rural) districts are pivotal within the majority itself. In bargaining at the level of the legislature, this generates a conflict between a government that tends to favor rural (urban) districts, and a parliamentary majority that is dominated by urban (rural) concerns. As district size grows and the electoral system converges to a purely proportional system, both of these biases are attenuated. Overall, we see opposing nonlinear relationships between district size and agricultural subsidies on the one hand and district size and taxation on the other. In developing countries, taxation of agriculture first increases and then decreases with district magnitude; in industrialized countries, agricultural subsidization first increases and then decreases with district magnitude. Moreover, the impact of district magnitude on the level of agricultural subsidization is attenuated in presidential versus parliamentary systems, while the level of agricultural taxation is amplified in presidential systems. In the present paper, these findings are first theorized and then empirically confirmed by a cross-country analysis of data from 37 countries over a 20-year period." from authors' abstractpolitical economy of agricultural protectionism, Agricultural policies, Urban-rural differences, political institutions,

When dominant parties adopt proportional representation: the mysterious case of Belgium

As the first country to introduce proportional representation (PR), Belgium has attracted considerable attention. Yet, we find the existing explanations for the 1899 breakthrough lacking. At the time of reform, the Catholic Party was politically dominant, advantaged by the electoral system, and facing reformist Socialists. Nevertheless, they single-handedly changed the electoral system and lost 26 seats in the first election under PR. We argue that the Catholics had good reasons to adopt PR. Majoritarian rules tend to create high levels of uncertainty because they provide incentives for non-dominant parties to cooperate. Such electoral coalitions are facilitated by multidimensional policy spaces that make electoral coalitions other than between nonsocialist parties possible. PR reduces the effectiveness of cooperation between non-dominant parties, but such certainty comes at a price. In addition, in the presence of dominant parties, divisions over electoral system reform often result in intra-party conflicts that may be more decisive than inter-party conflicts

Institutional Incentives for Strategic Voting:

Looking more closely at the way people form expectations about the possible outcome of the election in their electoral district I will provide evidence for the first time that strategic voting can be observed and predicted even in PR systems with large districts magnitudes, such as in Portugal. Employing district-level data from 1975-2002 I estimate that a party, who is expected to win no seat, will be strategically deserted on average by about 3 per cent of the voters. This number does systematically vary with the district magnitude of each district and is largest (> 4 per cent) in Portugal�s smallest electoral districts (e.g., Beja and Ãvora). Nevertheless even in Portugal�s largest electoral district, Lisbon, strategic voting can be observed to have a systematic impact on parties vote shares.