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District Magnitude (district + magnitude)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

District magnitude, electoral formula, and the number of parties

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2001
KENNETH BENOIT
Duverger's propositions concerning the psychological and mechanical consequences of electoral rules have previously been examined mainly through the lens of district magnitude, comparing the properties of single,member district plurality elections with those of multimember proportional representation elections. The empirical consequences of multimember plurality (MMP) rules, on the other hand, have received scant attention. Theory suggests that the effect of district magnitude on the number and concentration of parties will differ with regard to whether the allocation rules are plurality,based or proportional. I test this theory by drawing on a uniquely large,sample dataset where district magnitude and electoral formula vary but the basic universe of political parties is held constant, applying regression analysis to data from several thousand Hungarian local bodies elected in 1994 consisting of municipal councils, county councils, and mayors. The results indicate that omitting the variable of electoral formula has the potential to cause significant bias in estimates of Duvergerian consequences of district magnitude. In addition, the analysis of multi,member plurality elections from the local election dataset reveals counter,intuitively that candidate and party entry may increase with district magnitude under MMP, suggesting important directions for future investigation of MMP rules. [source]

Subnational political opportunity structures and the success of the radical right: Evidence from the March 2004 regional elections in France

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2007
ELINA KESTILÄ
The concept of ,political opportunity structure' refers to the degree of openness of a particular political system and the external institutional or socio-economic constraints and opportunities that it sets for political parties. Comparative analysis across subnational units is conducted where the 94 departments of mainland France are the units of analysis. The significance of electoral institutions (district magnitude), party competition (effective number of parties), electoral behaviour (turnout) and socioeconomic conditions (immigration and unemployment) on the ability of the FN to gather votes across the departments is assessed by means of multiple regression. The empirical results show that the subnational political opportunity structures have been of great importance for the FN. Some four out of the five independent variables are statistically significant and explain a great deal of the variance in the two dependent variables (electoral support for FN list and index of electoral success). Turnout and district magnitude are negatively correlated with the electoral fortunes of the FN, while unemployment and the effective number of party lists are positively correlated with the success of the FN in the regional elections. The variable that indicates the share of non-European immigrants does not provide additional explanatory power in a statistically significant way. [source]

District magnitude, electoral formula, and the number of parties

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2001
KENNETH BENOIT
Duverger's propositions concerning the psychological and mechanical consequences of electoral rules have previously been examined mainly through the lens of district magnitude, comparing the properties of single,member district plurality elections with those of multimember proportional representation elections. The empirical consequences of multimember plurality (MMP) rules, on the other hand, have received scant attention. Theory suggests that the effect of district magnitude on the number and concentration of parties will differ with regard to whether the allocation rules are plurality,based or proportional. I test this theory by drawing on a uniquely large,sample dataset where district magnitude and electoral formula vary but the basic universe of political parties is held constant, applying regression analysis to data from several thousand Hungarian local bodies elected in 1994 consisting of municipal councils, county councils, and mayors. The results indicate that omitting the variable of electoral formula has the potential to cause significant bias in estimates of Duvergerian consequences of district magnitude. In addition, the analysis of multi,member plurality elections from the local election dataset reveals counter,intuitively that candidate and party entry may increase with district magnitude under MMP, suggesting important directions for future investigation of MMP rules. [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]