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Proportional Representation (proportional + representation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	57%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	28%
Life Sciences	14%

Selected Abstracts

How Likely is Proportional Representation in the House of Commons?

GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2009
Lessons from International Experience
This article asks what international evidence suggests about the likelihood of major reform of the system used to elect the British House of Commons. It identifies four paths that have generated major electoral reform or come close to doing so in established democracies in recent decades and examines how likely each is to lead to reform in the UK. It argues that, on this evidence, reform in the UK is unlikely but not impossible. [source]

Coalition-Targeted Duvergerian Voting: How Expectations Affect Voter Choice under Proportional Representation

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2009
Matias A. Bargsted
Inspired by analyses of majoritarian systems, students of consensual polities have analyzed strategic voting due to barriers to party success, namely, district magnitude and threshold. Given the prevalence of coalition governments in proportional systems, we analyze a type of strategic voting seldom studied: how expected coalition composition affects voter choice. We identify Duvergerian behavior by voters targeted at the coalition formation stage. We contend that when voters perceive their preferred party as unlikely to participate in the coalition, they often desert it and instead support the lesser of evils among those they perceive as viable coalition partners. We demonstrate our argument using data on coalition expectations from the 2006 Israeli elections. We find an appreciable albeit differential effect of coalition expectations on voter choice. Importantly, results hold controlling for ideological and coalition preferences. Lastly, we explore a broad cross-national comparison, showing that there is less, not more, proximity voting where coalitions are prevalent. [source]

The Impact of Proportional Representation on Government Effectiveness: The New Zealand Experience

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 4 2003
Jonathan Boston
It is often claimed that proportional representation (PR) undermines government effectiveness, including decisional efficacy, fiscal prudence, electoral responsiveness and accountability. Drawing on New Zealand's experience since the introduction of a mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system in 1996, this article examines the impact of the new voting system on government effectiveness. Although government durability has been substantially reduced and the policy-making process has become more complex, governments under MMP appear to be no less able to address major policy problems or respond to changing economic circumstances. Moreover, New Zealand has maintained continuous fiscal surpluses under MMP , a radical departure from the protracted, and often large, deficits that characterised the previous two decades under a majoritarian electoral system. [source]

Diversity of native and alien plant species on rubbish dumps: effects of dump age, environmental factors and toxicity

DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS, Issue 3 2003
Antonín Py
Abstract. The flora of 96 rubbish dumps consisting of organic, inorganic and industrial wastes was studied in the Czech Republic. Some dumps contained toxic substances (heavy metals, chlorethylenes, phenols, polychlorinated biphenyls, oil hydrocarbons and biogas). Statistically significant factors explaining the number and proportional representation of native plant species, archaeophytes (introduced before 1500) and neophytes (introduced later) were determined. In total, 588 species of vascular plants were recorded, with archaeophytes (133 species) over-represented and native species (322 species) and neophytes (133 species) under-represented compared to their proportions in the national flora. Minimum adequate models were used to determine the effects of several factors on species numbers and proportions, independent of other factors. Dump area, human density in the region and altitude (non-significant only in archaeophytes) were correlated positively with species numbers. Dump age, expressed as time since dump establishment, interacted with the dump toxicity; species numbers increased with dump age on non-toxic dumps, whereas on toxic dumps no increase in numbers was noted. For neophytes, dump toxicity also interacted with human density; the increase in numbers of neophytes with human density is more pronounced on toxic than on non-toxic dumps. The variables measured failed to explain observed differences in proportional representation of native species, archaeophytes and neophytes. This suggests that the occurrence of species growing in such extreme habitats is driven overwhelmingly by factors such as anthropogenic disturbance. A possible explanation for the positive effect of altitude on species numbers on dumps is that the effect of heating of the deposited substrate by microbiological processes, documented by previous studies, overrides the effect of altitude which was shown repeatedly to have a negative effect on species richness. Neophyte distribution is driven by an interplay of factors distinct from those influencing the distribution of native species, namely toxicity and human density (the latter we interpret as a surrogate for propagule pressure). Their distribution on studied dumps is more restricted than that of native taxa and archaeophytes, and they are more limited by toxic substrata; more intensive propagule pressure is required for their establishment at dumps with higher toxicity levels. [source]

Gender-based voting in the parliamentary elections of 2007 in Finland

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 5 2010
ANNE MARIA HOLLI
In contrast to many other countries, the Finnish open-list proportional representation (PR) system with its mandatory preferential voting provides an opportunity to study gender-based voting empirically. Using the 2007 Finnish national election study, the article presents an analysis of the grounds for same-gender voting, including motivations related to descriptive and substantive dimensions of representation. None of the motivations is able to account men's higher propensity to vote for a candidate of their own gender. The motivations linked to securing the descriptive and substantive representation of one's own gender in politics play a more decisive part on women's vote choice of same-gender candidates. Voting for a same-gender candidate is connected to younger age among both women and men, while the propensity to vote for female candidates increases with support for the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Swedish People's Party. Finally, gender, party choice, and descriptive and substantive motivations seem to be related to gender-based voting for both parliamentary and presidential elections. [source]

C4-derived soil organic carbon decomposes faster than its C3 counterpart in mixed C3/C4 soils

GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, Issue 10 2007
JONATHAN G. WYNN
Abstract The large difference in the degree of discrimination of stable carbon isotopes between C3 and C4 plants is widely exploited in global change and carbon cycle research, often with the assumption that carbon retains the carbon isotopic signature of its photosynthetic pathway during later stages of decomposition in soil and sediments. We applied long-term incubation experiments and natural 13C-labelling of C3 and C4-derived soil organic carbon (SOC) collected from across major environmental gradients in Australia to elucidate a significant difference in the rate of decomposition of C3- and C4-derived SOC. We find that the active pool of SOC (ASOC) derived from C4 plants decomposes at over twice the rate of the total pool of ASOC. As a result, the proportion of C4 photosynthesis represented in the heterotrophic CO2 flux from soil must be over twice the proportional representation of C4-derived biomass in SOC. This observation has significant implications for much carbon cycle research that exploits the carbon isotopic difference in these two photosynthetic pathways. [source]

Can Presidentialism Work Like Parliamentarism?

GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 1 2005
Josep M. Colomer
Inter-institutional cooperation between the congress and the presidency may be the best way to promote good governance in a regime of separation of powers. In order to evaluate the performance of different political institutions, especially the different frameworks associated with ,presidentialism' and ,parliamentarism', we adopt the criterion that policy outcomes coinciding with the median voter's preference can produce the highest satisfaction or social utility. From this perspective, proportional representation in congress can be very appropriate since it tends to establish a close correspondence between the median party's and the median voter's preferences. Likewise, cooperation , rather than conflict or mutual checks , between the median party in congress and the presidency for both legislative decisions and cabinet formation can favour socially efficient outcomes. A survey of some recent institutional reforms in democratic presidential regimes in Latin America shows that ,parliamentarization' of presidentialism is gaining acceptance, although intermediate formulae may be more conflictual than a global, more coherent institutional reform. [source]

Electoral Systems in Latin America: Explaining the Adoption of Proportional Representation Systems During the Twentieth Century

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2009
Laura Wills-Otero
ABSTRACT This article explains the twentieth-century Latin American shift from majoritarian to proportional representation (PR) electoral systems. It argues that PR was introduced when the electoral arena changed significantly and threatened the power of the dominant party. The adoption of PR was therefore an effort by the established party to retain partial power in the face of absolute defeat. Majoritarian systems remained in place when the incumbent party was strong enough to believe that it could gain a plurality of the votes despite electoral changes. An empirical analysis of 20 countries over 104 years (1900,2004) provides support for this argument. [source]

The South, Medium-Sized Cities, and a New Look at the Determinants of African-American Representation

POLITICS & POLICY, Issue 4 2003
Peter F. Burns
This paper examines the determinants of African-American representation on city councils in medium-sized urban areas to provide greater insight into the strategies African-Americans use to achieve political incorporation and the extent to which traditionally excluded groups have access to elected positions in the United States. I argue that previous studies generate varied conclusions about the determinants of African-American representation on city councils because scholars fail to recognize that minority political strategies may vary based on the relative and absolute size of the minority population. I examine the determinants of African-American representation in medium-sized cities to consider whether African-Americans employ an electoral mobilization strategy when they make up a large percentage of the electorate but lack the large absolute numbers necessary to sustain demand-protest activities. A regression analysis indicates that the percentage of African-Americans in the electorate is the only factor that significantly affects African-American descriptive representation. This finding supports the hypothesis that African-Americans use an electoral strategy when they lack large absolute numbers. This research also confirms Guinier's (1994) claims that African-Americans fail to achieve proportional representation in the current electoral system and suggests that the plurality system comes with high start-up costs for a traditionally excluded group. [source]

Divisor Methods for Sequential Portfolio Allocation in Multi-Party Executive Bodies: Evidence from Northern Ireland and Denmark

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2005
Brendan O'Leary
Some proportional representation (PR) rules can also be used to specify the sequence in which each party in a parliament or each member in a multiparty governing coalition is given its choice about (unique) desired resources, e.g., "indivisible goods" such as cabinet ministries or executive positions, thus providing an algorithmic method for determining "fair" allocations. Divisor rule sequencing using the d'Hondt method was recently used to determine the ten cabinet positions in the Northern Ireland Executive Committee created under the 1998 Belfast ("Good Friday") Agreement; and such sequential allocation procedures have been used in some Danish municipal governments, and for determination of committee chairs in the European parliament. Here we examine in some detail the procedures used in Northern Ireland and Denmark, with a focus on special features such as the option in Denmark to form post-election alliances. [source]

Experimenting with Affirmative Action: The Coate and Loury Model,

THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 266 2008
MICHAEL P. KIDD
Coate and Loury (1993) suggest the impact of affirmative action on a negative stereotype is theoretically ambiguous leading to either: a benign equilibrium in which affirmative action eradicates the negative stereotype and leads to equal proportional representation of the two groups; or alternatively a patronising equilibrium in which the stereotype persists. The current paper examines this theoretical ambiguity within the context of a laboratory experiment. Although benign and patronising equilibria are equally plausible in theory, the laboratory experiments easily replicate most features of the benign equilibrium, but diverge from the theoretically predicted patronising equilibrium. [source]

Product Liability: Beyond Class Action

AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 4 2000
Dan Sasaki
Can punitive product liability enhance economic efficiency? A very simple economic theory, assuming that the probability and the degree of product dissatisfaction are functions only of the producer's not of the consumer's effort, is modelled and analysed in this paper. The qualitative conclusion hinges critically upon whether the legal liability is reflected on price determination. If the price of the product is insensitive to product liability legislation, then punitive liability beyond the class action (i.e., compensatory payments more than proportional representation of potentially dissatisfied consumers) can induce socially desirable levels of effort exerted by the producer firm. This affirmative effect disappears if the price fully reflects all the expected legal liabilities, whereby punitive liability tends to reduce economic efficiency by encouraging costly lawsuit. [source]

Crisp, The Senate, And The Constitution

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 4 2008
Stanley Bach
This essay explores the development of L.F. Crisp's understanding of the appropriate role of Australia's Senate in the national political system. A review of his widely-used textbook over three decades reveals that, to Crisp, the Senate was conceived primarily to protect state interests, but that role was nullified almost immediately by the emergence of disciplined parties. Thereafter, the Senate usually was an ineffectual irrelevancy until the introduction of proportional representation transformed it into a threat to the constitutional system as it should operate. Crisp also appreciated that disciplined parties undermined effective control of government by the House of Representatives, yet he consistently failed to recognize in the Senate an institution capable of doing what the House of Representatives cannot: enforcing accountability on the government of the day. [source]