Unit 9 Flashcards
Why have elections
Elections allow different views to be expressed in the political system. First, the citizens get to express their views by participating in an election. Second, because parties and candidates are running in the election, and because they have different political views, depending on who wins the election, we will hear more of these political views coming from the legislature. Third, elections influence the number of parties and the types of parties that compete in the political system. Political institutions matter, and they influence who competes for your votes. Finally, elections influence how ideas and interests are put together and represented in a given political system. Because we all have different ideas and values, how we express our values on Election Day will influence what ends up happening in legislatures.
the rules of the game, outlining how it is that individual citizens’ votes are translated into legislative seats. How it is that our votes get counted up and divided into seats has an impact on who it is that gets elected in the end, but it also has an impact on how parties compete, and well as how voters react to parties and candidates.
Electoral systems
e.g. Israel, Netherlands). This system is “pure” Proportional Representation, and seats are distributed based on party popular vote share. Voters vote for a party’s list, and candidates are elected based on their order on the list. Multi-member districts.
Proportional list system
Single transferable vote (stv)
e.g. Ireland). Candidates are rank-ordered on the ballot, and second preferences get calculated into the mix, similarly to some majoritarian systems. The difference from majoritarian systems is that in STV systems, ridings don’t just lead to the election of a single candidate, but they are multimember districts, in which many candidates will get elected to the legislature from the riding.
Mixed systems
e.g. New Zealand, Germany). This combines elements of Proportional with Non-Proportional systems. They tally up all the local votes first, distributing seats according to whoever wins a PLURALITY (like in Canada) in the riding. Whoever wins the MOST votes in the riding wins a seat in the legislature. Then, they tally up the party votes, to see how parties did overall. If there is a gap between how a party did overall and how many seats it got locally, then the gap is filled.
In a non proportional system ___
the seats in the legislature are not directly linked to the popular vote share. So a party may win 30% of the votes, but this might lead it to gain 15% of the seats or 50% of the seats. This is why they’re called non-proportional… because the seats gained are gained disproportionately from the vote share gained in the election.
e.g. Canada). In this type of system, the candidate who wins more votes than anybody else wins a seat. What happens next, is that you total up all the seats won by all the parties across the country in all the different ridings, and the party with the most seats (again, not necessarily the party with a majority of the seats) is the party that forms government.
Plurality systems
e.g. France). In this type of system, the candidate with a majority (50% + 1) wins the seat. This is done either through two “rounds” of elections or through rank-ordering of candidates and transfer of last place candidate’s 2nd preferences
Majoritarian systems
The benefits of proportional systems include:
distribution of seats more closely reflects popular vote
minority voices and smaller parties can be heard in the legislature
reduces wasted vote problem
tends to promote coalition and minority government - cooperation between parties
tends to increase representation of women and other traditionally marginalized groups
The disadvantages of proportional systems include:
-produces less strong majorities - harder to “get things done”
-does not provide a close tie to a local individual representative
The benefits of non-proportional systems include:
-familiar
-identifiable local representative
-tends to produce stable majority governments
The disadvantages of proportional systems include:
-distorts vote, creates false majorities (majorities in legislatures where a majority did not exist in the popular vote)
-can produce “wrong winners”
-minority interests and smaller parties often get shut out
-wasted votes
allows us as citizens to hold power INDIRECTLY by SELECTING REPRESENTATIVES who will make public decisions on our behalf in legislatures. Basically, we choose them, and they do the business of government for us. Then after some time goes by, we can choose to choose them again, or we can get rid of them. That process usually happens in elections.
Representative democracy
Functions of elections:
1.In addition to representation, elections also provide a mechanism of accountability…governments will have to face re-election, and therefore will have to face the electorate again.
2.Elections also confer legitimacy on the government. Because we as citizens get the opportunity to choose our governments, it means that we’re basically buying into the system. We are basically agreeing in advance that once those representatives are elected, they have the right to make decisions on our behalf, and we therefore have to follow their choices.
3.Finally, elections are Mechanism for political education, mobilization, and socialization. People can learn about campaigns, candidates, party leaders, and issues. Find out what other people are thinking. There is socialization about the importance of voting, democracy, etc. In other words, elections help us to get informed, engaged, and involved.
how we vote is based on our social group identity. It suggests that socioeconomic factors are really important to explaining our orientations towards politics. Religion, ethnic background, social class, age, gender and race dictate how we perceive politics and how we act based on those perceptions. So, our identification with these social groups has an important effect on our basic values and orientations, which in turn affects our decisions on voting day.
Sociological model
The strengths and limitations of our brains have an influence on the types of factors that are important come Election Day. This model points to our limitations and suggests that we act on the basis of the fact that our brains can’t process everything and because we don’t have enough time or information, so we take mental shortcuts. The biggest shortcut of all that’s available in politics is what we call party identification, or partisanship. We tend to have this feeling of affiliation with a political party, and we vote on that basis, even if we aren’t familiar with the party’s candidate, the policies, or anything else. The really interesting thing is that we often do this subconsciously. Partisanship is like a filter, and we perceive new information through this filter as well.
Socio-psychological Model
This model assumes that we are all what is called a “rational actor.” We are all consciously thinking about all of the options all of the time, and making calculations about who has performed best in the past, who might perform best in the future, and who will benefit us most. Nothing is automatic or subconscious in this model of voting.
Rational voting model
Who is most likely to participate in politics
have money and opportunities. They have higher socioeconomic status, and as a result have the resources to be more active in politics.
3 models of voting behavior
- Sociological model
2.socio-psychological model
3.rational voting model
