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This paper investigates electoral outcomes produced by the two-round majority system in ethnically divided societies. Earlier studies, focused mainly on the Southern American states, have revealed that in ethnically mixed environments, competitors with radical positions on ethnic issues perform particularly well. This paper extends this idea to municipal elections in Serbia, showing how radical majority nationalist parties exhibit particularly strong performances in ethnically mixed municipalities. While this effect is also apparent under proportional representation, we argue that it is much stronger when a two-round majority vote system is employed. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThis paper investigates electoral outcomes produced by the two‐round majority system in ethnically divided societies. Earlier studies, focused mainly on the SouthernAmerican states, have revealed that in ethnically mixed environments, competitors with radical positions on ethnic issues perform particularly well. This paper extends this idea to municipal elections inSerbia, showing how radical majority nationalist parties exhibit particularly strong performances in ethnically mixed municipalities. While this effect is also apparent under proportional representation, we argue that it is much stronger when a two‐round majority vote system is employed.

Mixed compensatory systems have risen in popularity in recent years. Under such systems, single-seat districts elect only the leader of the local suffrage, but the systems nevertheless produce (nearly) proportional outcomes overall, via compensatory mandates. Elections in Albania, Italy, Lesotho, and Venezuela, however, demonstrate a particular loophole for such systems: strategic voting, organized by political parties. Large parties can achieve over-representation by encouraging their voters to split their votes. In this way, they outsmart the compensatory mechanism designed to lead to proportional results. These disproportional results are particularly controversial, since they are deliberate and strategic. This article takes the 2005 Albanian elections as its main case study, and uses simulations to illustrate its political consequences.

The study of the territorial distribution of votes in elections has become an important field of the political party research in recent years. Quantitative studies on the homogeneity of votes and turnout employ different indicators of territorial variance, but despite important progresses in measurement, many of them are sensitive to size and number of political parties or electoral districts. This article proposes a new 'standardised party nationalisation score', which is based on the Gini coefficient of inequalities in distribution. Different from previous indicators, the standardised party nationalisation score weights for the sizes of territorial units (such as electoral districts) within a country, and considers the different numbers of territorial units in different countries. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]