Modeling Electoral Coordination: Parties and Legislative Lists in Uruguay

During each electoral period, the strategic interaction between voters and political elites determines the number of viable candidates in a district. In this paper, we implement a hierarchical seemingly unrelated regression model to explain electoral coordination at the district level in Uruguay as a function of district magnitude, previous electoral outcomes and electoral regime. Elections in this country are particularly useful to test for institutional effects on the coordination process due to the large variations in district magnitude, to the simultaneity of presidential and legislative races held under different rules, and to the reforms implemented during the period under consideration. We find that district magnitude and electoral history heuristics have substantial effects on the number of competing and voted-for parties and lists. Our modeling approach uncovers important interaction-effects between the demand and supply side of the political market that were often overlooked in previous research

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.

Citizens’ Freedom to Choose Representatives: Ballot Structure, Proportionality and “Fragmented” Parliaments

The analysis of the political consequences of electoral laws has emphasized how individual characteristics of the electoral system (electoral formulas, district magnitude, ballot structure) affect the degree of parliament “fragmentation” and proportionality. This paper argues that the personal attributes of representatives are also an important consequence of electoral laws, and that they are in part determined by citizens’ freedom to choose representatives. We clarify this concept and develop an index of citizens’ freedom to choose members of parliament as a function of the ballot structure, district size and electoral formulae. Using data from twenty nine countries, we find that neither proportionality nor the effective number of parties is significantly affected by voters’ freedom of choice. This result has important normative implications for electoral reform.Ballot structure; Electoral index; Freedom to choose; Personal vote.

Is All Campaigning Equally Positive? The Impact of District Level Campaigning on Voter Turnout at the 2010 British General Election

A significant comparative literature suggests that campaigning efforts by political parties impact positively, both in terms of mobilization and turnout. However, effects are not uniform. They may be affected by the electoral system used, the electoral circumstances and effectiveness of party management. Studies of district-level constituency campaigning in Britain have identified two important trends. First, that effective targeting is a core component of a successful district campaign strategy in terms of delivering electoral payoffs and that, over time, political parties have become better at targeting resources where they are needed most. While improvements in targeting have helped ensure that all three principal parties’ campaigns have tended to deliver electoral payoffs, a question has arisen as to whether increasingly ruthless partisan targeting by parties could have detrimental effects on overall levels of turnout. Second, they have shown how campaign techniques are continuously being modernised but that, despite these changes, just as in other democracies, more traditional labour-intensive campaigning tends to produce stronger electoral payoffs. This article therefore considers three questions in respect of the impact of district level campaigns on turnout: whether the combined campaign efforts of the three principal parties in Britain are associated with higher levels of turnout; whether the different campaigning styles of parties affect levels of turnout equally; and whether the campaigning efforts of different parties have differential effects on turnout and whether intense partisan targeting does indeed impact upon turnout overall. It shows that while campaigning boosts turnout, the impact varies by campaign technique and by party, as a function not only of targeting but also of electoral context

Electoral accountability, fiscal decentralization and service delivery in Indonesia

This paper takes advantage of the exogenous phasing of direct elections in districts and applies the double difference estimator to: (i) measure impacts on the pattern of public spending and revenue generation at the district level; and (ii) investigate the heterogeneity of the impacts on public spending. The authors confirm that the electoral reforms had positive effects on district expenditures and these effects were mainly due to the increases in expenditures in the districts outside Java and Bali and the changes in expenditures brought about by non-incumbents elected in the districts. Electoral reforms also led to higher revenue generation from own sources and to higher budget surplus. Finally, the analysis finds that in anticipation of the forthcoming direct elections, district governments tend to have higher current expenditures on public works.Subnational Economic Development,Public Sector Expenditure Policy,Parliamentary Government,E-Government,Debt Markets

Human Development and Electoral Systems

The aim of this paper is to test if electoral systems and human development are linked. Using high quality data and very simple panel data econometric techniques, we show that electoral systems play a critical role in explaining the difference in the levels of human development between countries. We find that countries which have proportional systems enjoy higher levels of human development than those with majoritarian ones, thanks to more redistributive fiscal policies. We also find that when the degree of proportionality, based on electoral district size, increases, so does human development.

Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures

We study the effect of electoral incentives on the allocation of public services across legislative districts. We develop a model in which elections encourage individual legislators to cater to parochial interests and thus aggravate the common pool problem. Using unique data from seven US states, we study how the amount of funding that a legislator channels to his district changes when he faces a term limit. We find that legislators bring less state funds to their district when they cannot run for re-election. Consistent with the Law of 1/N, this tendency is less pronounced in states with many legislative districts.term limits, electoral incentives, distributive politics, the Law of 1/N, US state legislatures

Modeling Electoral Coordination: Voters, Parties and Legislative Lists in Uruguay

types: ArticleDuring each electoral period, the strategic interaction between voters and political elites determines the number of viable candidates in a district. In this paper, we implement a hierarchical seemingly unrelated re- gression model to explain electoral coordination at the district level in Uru- guay as a function of district magnitude, previous electoral outcomes and electoral regime. Elections in this country are particularly useful to test for institutional effects on the coordination process due to the large variations in district magnitude, to the simultaneity of presidential and legislative races held under different rules, and to the reforms implemented during the pe- riod under consideration. We find that district magnitude and electoral his- tory heuristics have substantial effects on the number of competing and voted-for parties and lists. Our modeling approach uncovers important interaction-effects between the demand and supply side of the political market that were often overlooked in previous researc

Electing a parliament

We present a model where a society elects a parliament by voting for candidates belonging to two parties. The electoral rule determines the seats distribution between the two parties. We analyze two electoral rules, multidistrict majority and single-district proportional. In this framework, the policy outcome is simply a function of the number of seats parties take in the election. We prove that in both systems there is a unique pure strategy perfect equilibrium outcome. Finally, we compare the outcomes in the two systems