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POLS1002 > Elections and Electoral Systems > Flashcards

Elections and Electoral Systems Flashcards

1
Q

What are elections?

A
  • Elections are the mechanism by which expressed preferences of citizens in democratic states are aggregated into a decision regarding who will govern
  • Elections provide the link between rulers and the ruled
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2
Q

Why do we need elections?

A
  • Elections provide a way of changing rulers without bloodshed and are the basis of democratic legitimacy
  • The opportunity to participate in choosing rulers confers the obligation to obey the laws made by those who are chosen
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3
Q

What three conditions must be present regarding elections in a democracy?

A
  • Periodic elections - usually in the constitution
  • Wide opportunity to run for office
  • High degree of political freedom
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4
Q

What is Rep by Pop?

A

The principle suggesting that the allocation of seats should occur in a manner that encourages equal division across electoral districts to ensure each vote is of equal weight

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5
Q

What are the two types of democracy?

A
  • Direct democracy: a system of government where public decisions are made by citizens meeting in an assembly or voting by ballot
    • 5th Century City-State of Athens, Referendum,
  • Representative Democracy: a system of government based on the election of decision makers by the people
    • USA, Australia
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6
Q

What are the different electoral systems?

A
  • Single-Member Plurality
  • Preferential or Alternative Vote
  • Proportional Representation
  • List System
  • Mixed-Member-Proportional
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7
Q

What is Single-Member Plurality?

A
  • SMP is an electoral system in which the candidate with the most votes wins, even though that win may not represent 50 per cent + 1 of the votes
  • First Past the Post
  • Plurality not majority of votes
  • Canada, USA
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8
Q

What is Preferential or Alternative Vote?

A
  • Voters rank the candidates (STV)
  • If no candidate obtains a majority, the second preferences of the last place person are transferred to the remaining candidates until one candidate receives a majority of the votes
  • Australia
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9
Q

What is Proportional Representation?

A
  • The share of seats won closely matches the share of popular votes received
  • If party gets 15% of populate vote - 15% of the seats in house
  • All PR systems use multi-member district (more than one representative)
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10
Q

What is the List System?

A
  • The elector votes not for an individual but for parties, who have lists of people running for office
  • If part gets 15% of the vote, the party selects the 15% of the list to sit in the legislature
  • Israel, Switzerland
  • Often a minimum threshold (5%?)
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11
Q

What is an issue with the List System?

A
  • Celebrities etc. declare themselves running on the list but may/will never have an obligation to be active should the party win
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12
Q

What is the Mixed-Member Proportional System and what does it result in?

A
  • Voters cast 2 ballots: one for the local candidate and the other for a list of candidates put forward by the party
  • Proportionality carries the local election, while the list evens up members to reflect national totals
  • New Zealand
  • 2 tier system of MP’s
    • Those elected
    • Those that were picked off list
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13
Q

In the most general sense how can Electoral Systems be divided?

A
  • Proportional systems

* Majoritarian systems

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14
Q

What are Proportional Systems and what are the pros/cons?

A
  • Party lists, STV
  • Many parties in parliament
  • Coalition governments the norm
  • Wider range of viewpoints represented
  • Easier for fringe parties to be elected
  • Parties win seats in proportion to the votes they received
  • Citizens do not have a single regional representative
  • Widely dispersed interests are better represented
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15
Q

What are Majoritarian Systems and what are their pros/cons?

A
  • Plurality or preferential voting
  • Fewer parties in parliament
  • Majority governments the norm
  • Fewer viewpoints represented
  • One party usually wins a majrity of seats
  • Every citizen has a local member of parliament
  • Regional interests are better represented
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16
Q

What are the Models of voter behaviour?

A
  • Sociological Model
  • Socio-Psychological model
  • Rational Choice Model
17
Q

What is the Sociological Model?

A
  • Voter behaviour model

- Identifies social forces that determine values and beliefs: residence, religion, gender, ethnicity, age

18
Q

What is the Socio-Psychological model?

A
  • Voter behaviour model
  • Identifies social forces, but also looks at personal and political factors (party identification, ideology)
  • Cognitive Shortcuts
19
Q

What is the Rational Choice Model?

A
  • Voting is a rational decision which maximises self-benefit
  • What’s in it for me
  • Voting becomes a rational act when it is enforced, rationality is to free-ride off of other voters
20
Q

What is Arrow’s Theorem?

A

We cannot guarantee a Condorcet winner

21
Q

What is a Condorcet Winner?

A
  • A candidate (state of affairs) that can beat all other alternatives in ‘pairwise run-off’ elections
  • A Condorcet winner is a candidate who is preferred by a majority to every other candidate
22
Q

What is the Cycle in Arrow’s Theorem?

A
  • Abbot beats Rudd, Rudd beats Gillard, but Gillard beats Abbott
  • A > R > G > A > R > G
  • The social choice will be random in terms of majority rule since a majority would endorse an alternative for whatever is chosen
23
Q

The Condorcet paradox is always possible in any aggregation procedure that satisfies the following axioms:

A
  • Non-dictatorship
  • The independence of irrelevant alternatives
  • Every individual counts
  • Pareto-Optimality
    • One party cannot increase votes without reducing the votes of another
24
Q

What has the Median Voter Theorem been used for?

A

Has been used to ignore Arrow’s proof by proving the existence of a Condorcet-winner that is an equilibrium point for two-party competition

25
Q

What is the Median Voter?

A
  • The voter at the median in the ideology spectrum
  • The median voter is a Condorcet winner and the theorem proves the median is the equilibrium point, given some assumptions.
26
Q

What are the assumptions made in the Median Voter theorem?

A
  • Two party competition for a majority of votes
  • Competition is played out in a single dimension
  • Perfect informaiton
  • Candidates are vote-maximising
  • Voters preferences are fixed
27
Q

What does the Median Voter Theorem tell us?

A
  • Having median-tailored policy is efficient / dissatisfaction minimising
  • Having the median dictate policy and political office is efficient / utility maximising
  • While we might not be able to guarantee there will not be a cycle somewhere in society’s overall preference ordering, we can guarantee that there will be no ‘top-cycle’ and a genuine winner exists
  • Democracy as majority rule is defensible if we think of ‘the majority’ or ‘the people’ as adequately represented by the median
28
Q

What is Incumbent Advantage?

A
  • Electoral competition is slanted in favour of the government and against the opposition such that incumbent governments tend to win re-election more often than not
  • Retrospective voting: since voters are not perfectly informed about policy proposals (ann cannot always trust tha parties will be true to their word) their best bet is to ignore the opposition and vote according to whether or not they want to punish or reward the government for performance
  • Governments win or lose elections based on their credibility
  • They can give selectively information about government activity
29
Q

What is Democracy in terms of Agenda Setting?

A
  • Riker, Colomer and Madion’s definitions of liberal democracy do not appeal to majority rule or ‘what the people want’
  • Their definitions simply focus on the possibility to remove rulers/agenda-setters from office peacefully in regular elections (without regard for what the people want)
30
Q

What is the relationship between Liberal Democracy and Agenda Setting?

A
  • Checks and balances make it difficult for any individual or group of individuals to completely control the agenda and manipulate the vote as they see fit
  • Checks and balances make it difficult for would be tyrants seeking to undermine the vote
  • The incumbent advantage cannot be too strong that it rules out electoral competition
31
Q

What is Agenda Setting?

A
  • The art of selecting issues
  • Heresthetics
  • Contrast with rhetoric: changes individuals underlying preferences

POLS1002 (12 decks)

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