4. How electoral systems shape political behaviour

Majoritarian - country divided into several single-member districts Proportional - country divided into several multi-member districts Mixed - combines majoritarian and proportional

Single-member plurality system (SMP) Two-round system (TRS) Alternative vote system (AVS)

Single member system (electoral system) • Country divided into districts (or contituencies) • One seat per district in parliament/legislature representing a fairly equal number of voters • Most votes win UK, Canada, USA

Two-round system (electoral system) • Same as SMP but if the winning candidate doesn’t have 50% of the vote, a second round is run with the 2 top candidates on the ballot (usually) France, former French colonies, many South Americal presidential elections

Alternative vote system (electoral system) • Voters rank their preferences • If no candidate wins 50%, they drop the least popular and so on until they find a winner Australia (lower house), Fiji, Papua New Guinea

Closed-list proportional representation (CLPR) Open-list proportional representation (OLPR) Single transferrable vote (STV)

Closed-list proportional representation • Citizens vote for 1 party (by district or nationally like Israel) • The party determines an ordered list of candidates • Candidates win (in order) according to voteshare Argentina, Austria, Israel, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, South Africa, Turkey

Open-list proportional representation • Similar to CLPR but… • Citizens can influence the order of candidates on the ballot • Citizens vote either for a party (accepting the proposed order) or, they vote for a candidate (called a personal vote) Brazil, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iraq, Latvia, Netherlands (has 1 single national district), Switzerland

Single-transferable vote • Similar to alternative vote system (AV) except for multi-member districts • Voters rank the members of the party they prefer • Candidates win a seat when they reach a quota of votes • If not possible, the bottom candidate is eliminated and so-on Only in Ireland and Malta

Some seats in parliament are single seat and others are multi-seat Voters usually have 2 votes • For a candidate in a signle-member seat • For a party on a regional (or national) party list

Mixed-member proportional (MMP) systems Mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) systems

Mixed-member proportional (electoral system) • Party list seats are allocated to compensate parties that didn’t get enough single member seats (according to their voteshare) Bolivia, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand

Mixed-member majoritarian (electoral system) • Party list seats allocated by proportion of vote without considering the single-member seat results Japan, Russia, South Korea, Thailand and Ukraine

Representative parliament vs accountable government Cohesive parties vs accountable politicians

Proportional systems • How representative they are depends on: • Calculation formula • Minimum threshold (% a party needs to win in order to be considered) • # seats per district • Tends to produce coallition governments • Voters are less likely to vote strategically since even small parties have a good chance of winning seats and forming part of the government

Single party governments • Coalitions are usually formed after the election • Once a coalition is formed it may be hard for voters to judge which party is to blame for which policy Majoritarian electoral systems • Large parties are more likely to win seats so greater chance of having a single-party government

• Mechanical - how the rules of the electoral system translate votes into seats • Psychological - how the electoral system shapes voters’ expectations about which parties are likely to win seats

In majoritarian systems, a candidate usually has to win 40% to win a seat Mechanical = only large parties are likely to win enough votes Psychological = votesr inow this and are more likely to vote for larger parties

Majoritarian systems should produce a two-party system, whereas proportional systems should produce a multi-party system

In both elections: • The winning party (1992 Conservative, 1997 Labour) did not get 50% of the votes but, • Due to their electoral system, in both elections, the winning party ended up with over 50% of seats in parliament • Smaller parties were disproportionately disadvantaged In both elections the winning party ended up with a single-party majority which makes that party accountable but, it certainly wasn’t representative

Closed-list proportional representation (CLPR) • Leader is responsible for deciding the order of candidates - so no incentive for individual candidates to differentiate themselves Mixed-member proportional (MMP) and Mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) • Leader is responsible for selecting both the candidates for single-member and multi-member districts - so no more incentive to stand out than in CLPR

Open-list proportional representation (OLPR) and Single-transferable vote (STV) • Voters rank candidates which forces them to campaign directly to voters

Single-member plurality (SMP), two-round system (TRS) and Alternative vote system (AV) • Individuals can campaign on their policy positions and performance but each party only stands up one candidate per district, voters cannot choose between candidates of one political party • Hense, single-member district elections do not provide very string individual political accountability

• Small multi-member districts • High electoral threshold (minimy % per party) • Winner’s bonus to boost seat count