Suchergebnisse

Electoral rules delimit the democratic game, but are also part of the game. In conjunction with political culture and skills they lead to an electoral system. This overview first addresses their effect in mature democracies, especially on the number of parliamentary parties and deviation from proportionality. The results are cautiously extended to early democratization. The main advice is to keep the electoral rules simple, so that world-wide empirical and analytical experience can be used to obtain somewhat predictable outcomes. Once chosen, keep the same rules for at least three elections, so that an electoral system has time to develop. For scholars the main lesson of the newly democratizing countries is modesty in prediction.

Effective magnitude (M') and effective threshold (T') are important because they try to express quantitatively a major aspect of electoral systems, namely the degree of squeeze they put on representation of small parties. Three relationships have previously been proposed between M' and T'. Of these, T'=75%(M'+1) is found here to have the most desirable characteristics. However, regardless of the precise equation used, a disturbing discrepancy is observed in the case of single-member districts: the effective threshold predicted is much too high, if applied nationwide. This points out a more general need to keep district-level and nationwide indicators carefully separate. An appendix proposes a new formula to find effective magnitude when district magnitudes within a country vary.

In the presence of a large lumped category of 'Other' parties the effective number of parties cannot be known exactly. Some approaches used produce large discrepancies. This note shows how the effective number still can be estimated with fair accuracy. The same issue arises with the measures of disproportionality between seats and votes. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Over 5,000 years of history, the effective number of separate political entities has decreased from close to a million to 24, if going by geographical area, and from about a thousand to 15, if going by population. These changes have followed interconnected exponential patterns which extrapolate to a single world polity around year 4000. Within this long-term trend, three sudden increases in polity sizes occur: around 3000 BC, 600 BC, and AD 1600. This study tests the exponential model against area and population data for five millennia. It also gives tables and graphs of area versus time for all major polities since AD 600. The median duration of large polities at more than half the peak size has been 130 years, and it has not changed over 5,000 years. Polities that expand slower tend to last slightly longer. The prospects of the Moscow-centered state are discussed in the light of these findings.

Over 5,000 years of history, the effective number of separate political entities has decreased from close to a million to 24, if going by geographical area, and from about a thousand to 15, if going by population. These changes have followed interconnected exponential patterns which extrapolate to a single world polity around year 4000. Within this long-term trend, three sudden increases in polity sizes occur: around 3000 BC, 600 BC, and AD 1600. This study tests the exponential model against area and population data for five millennia. It also gives tables and graphs of area versus time for all major polities since AD 600. The median duration of large polities at more than half the peak size has been 130 years, and it has not changed over 5,000 years. Polities that expand slower tend to last slightly longer. The prospects of the Moscow-centered state are discussed in the light of these findings.

An operational method using data from previous elections is proposed for determining the vote share a small party needs to have a fifty-fifty chance of winning its first seat. The resulting median value for 23 electoral systems is 1.0 per cent of the nation-wide vote, with a range from 0.1 to 8 per cent. This empirical threshold of representation is affected by assembly size, legal representation threshold (if any exists), and geographical concentration of small party votes. In turn, this threshold affects the number of seat-winning parties and the effective number of parties in the system. Empirical thresholds can also be calculated on the district level. They can then be compared with theoretical thresholds of representation, and unanticipated discrepancies occur, because apparently minor aspects of electoral rules can alter the outcome. © 1989.

Ausgehend von einem kurzen historischen Rückblick auf die Geschichte Estlands seit dem 12.Jh. vermittelt der Autor einen Überblick über die Genesis des durch die estnischen Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen verursachten Konflikts zwischen der politischen Führung Estlands und der zentralen Moskauer Führung. Dabei geht der Autor insbesondere auf die beiden Hauptstreitpunkte ein: die Forderung nach ökonomischer Unabhängigkeit Estlands und die Debatte über den Molotow-Ribbentrop-Pakt. Des weiterenbefaßt sich der Autor mit den tieferliegenden Ursachen der Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen Estlands, mit dem politischen Programm der "Volksfront Estlands" sowie abschließend mit den möglichen Entwicklungsperspektiven der estnischen Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen. (BIOst-klk)

The cube law was proposed around 1910 to express the conversion of a party's vote shares into its seat share in two-party plurality elections with single-seat districts. This article develops predictive seat-vote equations for a much wider range of elections, including those involving many parties, single- and multi-seat districts, and diverse seat allocation rules such as plurality and list proportional representation (PR). Without any statistical curve fitting based on the seat and vote shares themselves, the basic features of the conversion are predicted using exogenous parameters: magnitude and number of districts, number of parties, and total size of the electorate and of the assembly. The link between the proposed equations and the original cube law is explicated. Using an existing data base, the fit of the predictive model is examined. On balance, this model accounts well for the conversion of votes to seats, and for the deviation from proportionality in PR systems. © 1986, American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

A citizens' peace movement emerged in the Soviet Baltic republics in January 1980, when about 23 Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians signed an antiwar declaration in the wake of Soviet military in volvement in Afghanistan. The concern for peace was intertwined with, but distinct from, concerns for national autonomy, civil rights, and ecology. The movement culminated with a proposal in October 1981 that the Baltic republics be enclosed in the Nordic Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. This proposal was signed by 38 Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians, in response to Brezhnev's offer to consider some NWFZ-related measures 'applicable to our own territory'. At least five of the signatories have been jailed since then, and at least in one case the NWFZ proposal figured among the most incriminating char ges. Despite some remaining problems of wording, the Baltic Letter on the NWFZ represented a major advance from uncompromising declaratory dissent toward advocacy of specific and negotiable mea sures. The Baltic action preceded and partly inspired the formation of the now-defunct citizens' peace group in Moscow, 1982. The demand for inclusion of the Baltic republics in the Nordic NWFZ was re peated in a December 1983 letter by unnamed Estonian Peace Supporters to the Stockholm disarmament conference, in a rather declaratory style. Although the civil and religious rights movement remains strong in Lithuania, detentions seem to have broken up the Baltic citizens-initiative peace movement for the time being. © 1986, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.

This study develops and tests theoretical formulas for linking country size and party system characteristics. For countries using one-seat electoral districts or nationwide districts, the averages of the largest seat-share, effective number of assembly parties and mean duration of cabinets can be predicted based solely on population. For countries allocating seats by PR in multi-seat districts, the averages of these characteristics can be predicted based on population and district magnitude. We show that first-past-the-post countries of less than one million tend to have highly dominant largest parties and one-and-a-half party assemblies, rather than a balance of two parties. For larger countries, and PR countries of any size, population is not destiny, as far as party system is concerned. © The Author(s) 2012.