L6: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions of Democracy: Electoral Systems

Question 1

Overall Constitutional Design Types

Answer 1

• Majoritarian (Westminster) Democracies

- Proportional (Consensus) Democracies

Question 2

Majoritarian (Westminster) Democracies Characteristics

Answer 2

• Relatively high aggregation electoral rules

- Relatively high concentration of legislative authority

Question 3

Proportional (Consensus) Democracies Characteristics

Answer 3

• Relatively low aggregation electoral rules

- Relatively low concentration of legislative authority

Question 4

Common goals for Majoritarian and Proportional democracies

Answer 4

• Substantive Representation: Ensuring that policymakers are doing what their citizens want them to do
• Public policies according to the median citizen.

Question 5

Goals for Majoritarian Democracies

Answer 5

• Identifiability
• Mandates
• Accountability

Question 6

Goals for Majoritarian Democracies: Identifiability

Answer 6

• Voters should be presented with clear policy alternatives when making electoral choices
• Ideally, two political parties, with distinct policy platforms, competing for control of policymaking

Question 7

Goals for Majoritarian Democracies: Mandates

Answer 7

• One party in this two-party system should win a majority of votes, leading to a majority of seats
• Majority party should be able to govern without help from any other party, either in the executive or the legislature

Question 8

Goals for Majoritarian Democracies: - Accountability

Answer 8

• High clarity of responsibility should lead to high accountability
• Voters should be able to attribute outcomes easily to incumbent
• If incumbent loses elections, they should be turned out of office

Question 9

Ex: electoral systems which mostly produce two-party systems and single-party majorities (Majoritarian democracies)

Answer 9

• First-Past-the-Post (UK, US, Canada)

- Majority Runoff (France)

Question 10

• First-Past-the-Post (UK, US, Canada)

Answer 10

• Single Member District (SMD): 1 member per district; if plurality (most votes), it’s a win
• One-round system
• Low informational cost (must pick only 1 candidate), low transportation costs

Question 11

• Majority Runoff (France)

Answer 11

• Two-round system, winning candidate must pass majority at the first or second round
• In second round, only the two candidates with the highest number of votes are represented
• Higher informational cost, higher transportation costs
• Voters give more information about their opinion

Question 12

Goals for Proportional Democracies

Answer 12

• Variety of party alternatives

- Proportional influence

Question 13

Goals for Proportional Democracies: Variety of party alternatives

Answer 13

• Voters have a choice among lots of policy alternatives

* Descriptive representation: Multiple parties representing the diversity of society

Question 14

Goals for Proportional Democracies: Proportional influence

Answer 14

• Seat distribution in legislature should mirror vote distribution
• Governments should consist of multiple parties engaging in compromises/ consensus
• Parties in opposition should have proportionate influence in policymaking

Question 15

Ex: electoral systems which produce multiparty legislatures and executive coalitions
(Proportional democracies)

Answer 15

• PR-list (most of continental western Europe)
• PR-MMP (Mixed Member Proportional Representation) (Germany, Japan, New Zealand)
• Single Transferable Vote (STV) (Ireland, Malta)
• Alternative Vote (AV)

Question 16

PR-list

Answer 16

• Closed list: Voters cast a single vote for a party list, not for a candidate
• Open list: Voters cast a single vote for a candidate on the party list
• Seats are awarded to parties approximately proportional to their share of votes
• To award votes, usually “divisor” or “quota” formulas
o D’Hondt: averages in descending orders; slightly favours large parties
o LR-Hare: quota= Votes/ Seats; 1 seat per quota filled. Then give away for the rest.
• The higher the district magnitude, the more proportional the system is
• Forming a coalition may be a long process (high cost)

Question 17

PR-MMP (Mixed Member Proportional Representation)

Answer 17

• Voters have two votes on a single ballot: one vote for a party list, one vote for a candidate
• Part of the legislature is filled with directly-elected candidates, part is filled with candidates from party lists
• Legislative seats will be roughly proportional to votes received on the party list vote
• Candidates are elected in single-member First Pass the Post districts
• Party-list seats are used to “compensate” for the disproportionality arising from FPP elections

Question 18

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

Answer 18

• Voters rank the candidates
• Ballots go through multiple counts
• If, after any count, a candidate emerges with votes greater than quota, this candidate is elected
• “Weak” candidates are successively eliminated, votes for these eliminated candidates are transferred, and then ballots are recounted until all seats are awarded to candidates passing quota
• Lower cost system of the majority runoff
• Encourages the election of more consensual candidates

Question 19

Alternative Vote (AV)

Answer 19

• Increases the representation of small parties
• Voters rank the candidates
• First preferences are taken into account, then second, third, etc. until a candidate reaches more than 50% of the vote.

Question 20

Duverger’s Law

Answer 20

First-Past-the-Post leads to a two-party system,

Psychological and Mechanical effects

Question 21

Mechanical effect explanation

Answer 21

in the mapping of vote shares to seat shares

Question 22

Psychological effects

Answer 22

• Strategic entry: Choices of political parties themselves
• Strategic voting: If a voter’s top choice has little chance of winning, incentives to cast vote for least-disliked alternative that does have chance of winning

Question 23

Conditions for strategic voting

Answer 23

• Short-term instrumental rationality
• Common knowledge about public voting intentions
• Uncertainty about which front-runner will win
• Strict preferences between 2nd and 3rd most-preferred candidates

Question 24

Model of Two-Party Competition (Downs 1957):

Assumptions

Answer 24

• Voters as self-interested, rational policy-seekers
• Parties are self-interested, rational vote-seekers (do not care about policies per se)
• Parties take positions on particular issues, or develop a coherent ideology that provides voters information on issue positions, to maximize votes
• Voters are fully informed about these positions (or, at least, of general party ideology)

Question 25

Model of Two-Party Competition (Downs 1957):

Model

Answer 25

• Voters assumed to have a most-preferred policy outcome, xi, on a given (unitary) policy dimension, their preferences are assumed to be single-peaked around xi
• Uij = −(xi − j)2, for a given policy j, function of the difference between ideal and actual policies

Question 26

Model of Two-Party Competition (Downs 1957): Outcome

Answer 26

Proportional systems tend to produce policy makers closer to median than in majoritarian systems.